PUBLIC SERVICE

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 46, 31 August 1928, Page 11

PUBLIC SERVICE

THE SALARIES QUESTION REPLY BY GENERAL SECRETARY "The Ministerial statements disclosed by the report of List night's Parliamentary debate on tho question of the restoration of Public Sorvico salaries to the 1920 basis ennnot in reason go uncontradieted," said Mr. l'\ W. Miller, general secretary oC the New Zealand Public Service Association, in 11 statement in'ado to "Tlio Post" to-day, "This association, togctUcr with the Post and Telegraph Officers' Association and Railway Officers' Institute, representing the best part of 20,000 Public servants, met tho Prime Ministor some months ago, and made representations that the maximum scale salaries of Public servants should he restored to tho 1920 basis, on the grounds that tho increase in the cost of living to-day is practically the same as in 1920. At the present stage wo have had no delinito reply from the Government as to its intentions;, in fact, we arc mooting the Prime Minister again on tho subject early next wool;. In theso circumstances, I refrain from going further than stating that tho Minister of Finance is incorrect in crediting me with saying that the only Public Service group that had a grievance in regard to salary claims was the Post and Telegraph Department. I acted, as spokesman at tho interview of the combined associations with tho Primo Minister, and neither on that occasion nor on any other was such a statement made. jii fact, the throe Public Service groups have tho Saute set of salary scales and arc affected alike by tlie operation of '"'The Public Expenditure Adjustment Act, 1921.'J Again, the Minister is unhappy in his selection of cost of living figures'. In 3920 when, after protracted negotiations, the Government granted certain salary increases! tlio cost of living figures for all groups were 62 per cent, abovo pre-war, and from that date to this the lowest point tlio all-groups' figures reached was 58 per cent, above pre-war (1923). The figures quoted by the Minister were the food-group percentages only. The. increase in tho average salaries of Public servants to-day is 35 per cent. above 1914, and tlio much more favourable figures quoted by the Minister are for a strictly limited group only, and therefore unsound from a comparative view point. i Finally, it should be made clear that tho Public servant is grimly battling not for an increase of salary to evbry Public servant or for the restoration o*f what we regard as his unfair salary losses during tho last seven years, but for the increase in the maximum salary of the scales governing our remuneration to tho amounts actually granted under an agreement with tlie service organisations, and regarded as reason- * able by the Government, in l!) 20, when tho cost of living increase was eqnal to that which obtains to-day.