CIVIL SERVANTS' SALARIES
TO lIS IBllni. Sir, —I am sorry to have to encroach on your good nature again, but, the Welfare League is so obsessed with the job of justifying the cut in Public servants' salaries, and, yet so rough and Tead> in Us calculations and data, that I fee' the public mind would be unfairly influenced) if the facts were not made available. The league says I included the 687 telegraph, messengers in my 'calculations, showing thai the average Tank and file rate of pay in the General Division (postmen, linemen, etc.,) was 12s '4d before thecut. Well, I did not. If the league had; taken the trouble to look up page 71, ofthis year'a estimates (to which. I referred then) they would have found that 1969 male officers of the General Division were due to receive, in all, 3378,195, A littls simple arithmetic will show the league that my calculation of the average daily rats of pay (12s 4d) v;as correct. If the female officers of the General Division were included in ths calculation the average would be much lp'.ver still. As to disputing the league's statement that the average rate of pay for all officera over 21 years of age is £280 per annum, I can only challenge it for the present. The necessary calculationa for male officers (the ages of female officers are not recorded) ivill take a long time to work out, but a hurried glancethrough the last classification list (now nearly a- year old) shows thai only one clerical division officer (the better-paid, division) in his twenty-first year is receiving £270. two are receiving £250, 23 £230, and 125 £215 per annum, while 76 of the same a"c are receiving £160 or less. , - In (conclusion, May I suggest to the league that they have only to carry their basis of calculation a step or so further, and they can show that the average pay of P. and T. employees is £500 per .annum —merely eliminate from their calculations the seventy-odd men above that 'point and the thousands below, and , there they have it.—l am, etc., H. E. COMBS, Secretary P. and: A. Officers Asan. 6th March.
Permanent link to this item
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/EP19220306.2.111
Bibliographic details
Evening Post, Volume CIII, Issue 54, 6 March 1922, Page 8
Word Count
363CIVIL SERVANTS' SALARIES Evening Post, Volume CIII, Issue 54, 6 March 1922, Page 8
Using This Item
Stuff Ltd is the copyright owner for the Evening Post. You can reproduce in-copyright material from this newspaper for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 3.0 New Zealand licence. This newspaper is not available for commercial use without the consent of Stuff Ltd. For advice on reproduction of out-of-copyright material from this newspaper, please refer to the Copyright guide.