P. AND T. CASUALS

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 122, 26 May 1930, Page 11

P. AND T. CASUALS

COMMENT ON CIRCULAR

DISCHARGE FOR ILLNESS?

Casual employees in the Post and Telegraph Department's services have little redress after fairly long icrvico, according to statements made to-day by tho organiser of tho Now Zealand Post and Telegraph Employees' Association (Mr. IT. 11. Brown), if through illness they cease work. Apparently they are to bo discharged, and cannot bo re-en-gaged. Mr. Brown has a copy of the following circula. , which, he understands, has been sent to the district telegraph en- j gincers throughout the service:—"The Secretary has instructed that casual employees on a day-to-day basis are not now to bo granted leave of absence. Their employment automatically ceases when they cease duty on account of sickness or other causes, and they canno be re-engaged. "When a temporary workman is absent from "aity on account of 'sickness or other causes (except when on leave, time off, or absence" duo" to accidents sustained while on duty, and approved by the Secretary) he has to be paid off and the particulars furnished." "A man has just applied for a fortnight's lea-, c to go under an operation in hospital in the Auckland district," said Mr. Brown, "and he has been discharged, and given to understand that hi, will not be re-engaged, though he has had six years' service." Most of the men affected by the circular are employed on tho line" staff. Their duties entail working in all kinds of weather, in the repair and maintenance of the telegraph and telephone services. Tliey have to work in wet weather, especially in the winter months. They are naturally very often subject to severe colds, influenza, lumbago, and complaints of that kind, and necessarily have to remain off duty sick. Under the circular issued, these men will now have their services dispensed with, and even after they have .-eeovcred, if tho intention is that the strict letter of the instruction be carried ut, they cannot bo re-en-gaged. Instances have previously, occurred where a temporary man, as the result .of working in the wet, has been laid asido by sickness of a serious nature for a considerable period. There was the case of a man who was in hospital for .six months, and when he camo out he was refused employment by the Department. The workmen who are referred to in the circular aro temporary employees of the Department, many of whom have up to five and six years' service'to their credit. They are in an unfortunate position insofar that they are denied the right to make their representations in regard to conditions of employment to the Government or the Department through the organisation to which they belong (the N.Z. P. and T. Employees' Association), and it follows that the only method they can employ to give publicity to a matter of this kind is to refer to members of Parliament, as has already been dono in this case. These men, many of whom are married with families dependant on them, are required to do work which is more or less of a skilled nature, and many of them have been cmplo/ed five years and more by tho Department, but they aro only paid at tho rate of Is 9Jd an hour, or £3 10s 0d for a full week's work of 44 hours.

"The treatment ,meted out to its temporary employees by the Government when they are absent from work through illness is entirely different from that accorded by private . employers, especially where the sickness is duo to conditions of employment," concluded Mr. Brown.