"CHARGE OF CALLOUSNESS"

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 123, 27 May 1930, Page 10

"CHARGE OF CALLOUSNESS"

(By Telegraph.)

(Special to "The Evening Post.")

AUCKLAND, This Day:

In the course of an editorial on the postal circular, the "New Zealand Herald" says:—

"Further details about tho official circular issued by the Post and Telegraph Department instructing district telegraph engineers to discharge casual employees who cease work because of sickness, arc given by the organiser of the association, to-which they belong. The circumstances arc certainly unusual. A casual employee in any Government Department is always liable to dismissal if work becomes slack, and nothing can be found for him to do. Thafis, or should be, recognised as a risk of accepting employment as a casual. Now there seems to be in view a new policy of finding excuses to dispense with the services of men everywhere. Is there universal overstafting in the Telegraph Engineers' Departments? If so, and if a reduction is imperative,' this is surely a remarkable --way of setting about it. Ordinarily, some choice would naturally be exorcised, preference being given to married men, to those with the longest service, or to' the most efficient workmen. By making an application for sick leave an occasion for dismissal the Department is allowing blind chance, or, rather, the misfortune of the individual to be the deciding factor. It is hardly the course that a private employer of labour would ordinarily adopt. Even if it were a common practice, the State as employer might be expected to set a .better example. An outstanding- feature of the affair is that a charge has been made against the Post and Telegraph Department, a charge of callousness, and though there*has been time to do so, that charge has not been met."