RAILWAY DISMISSALS

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 150, 28 June 1930, Page 8

RAILWAY DISMISSALS

MM IN THE WORKSHOPS AN IMPERATIVE COURSE Recent dismissals from, tho Railway Department workshops were mentionedaa a subject of complaint by Labour members in the House of Bepresentatives early, this morning. Mr. P. Frascr (Labour, Wellington Central) drew attention to a statement by Mr. M. J. Savage Auckland West) that it was the policy of the Government to dispense with as many men-as possible, particularly mentioning tho Eailway Department. Mr. Frasor asked whether it was a fact that mon had been dismissed, or wore under notice of. dismissal, from the railway workshops. "There is no intention of going in for any wholesale dismissals from the railway workshops," declared the Minister of Bailways (the Hon. W. A. Veitch).' The general position, he said, was that during tho transition . stage when the men were being transferred from tho old workshops to the new workshops and the now machinery was being erected there was considerable delay and loss" of service in effecting repairs to the rolling stock. Those repairs had had to- be deferred, and the result was that ~las,t year expenditure on repairs amounted to over £250,000 more than that in the previous twelve months. That expenditure had brought the rolling stock up to a fairly good condition of repair, though he would not say it was perfect. They had now reached a stage when they could not continue such heavy expenditure for effecting repairs. That was the reason why the unpleasant duty now devolved on him to reduce the number of men employed in the Addington workshops. NO GENERAL POLICY. OF DISMISSAL. "I assure the..House," said Mr. Veitch, "that it is not the policy of the Government to dispense with the services of men in the Eailway Department or in any othor Department when there is really useful work for them, to do, but the stago has been' reached when it is imperative that the services oi! some meu should be dispensed with.. Wo all regret it, but those are tho facts that impose themselves on me at the present time." Mr. B. M'Keen (Labour, Wellington South) declared that men were also being put off where thero were' no repairs being done, and that some of them were men of from three to five years' service. The working time of the men were also being cut down in some cases by as many as ■ thirty hours a week. Surely there was no need for such a policy "I am not going to rest content with a story such as the Minister has given us," said Mr. E. J. Howard (Labour, Christohurch South). "The Government has got the wind up, and is discharging men until the,Boyal Commission has got round, so that the Commission won't be able to tell all the story." Mr. Savage remarked that the Minister had told a very plausible tale, but it, seemed to him thero was not much bottom to ifc. Mr. JTrasor referred to tho Railway Commission as one of the groatust jokes the country had ever known. Eeform members: "And a Y©vy costly, one."