"POISON"

Evening Post, Volume CXXI, Issue 128, 1 June 1936, Page 10

"POISON"

GUILD CIRCULAR BANK OFFICERS' UNION Strong exception to a circular sent to bank officers concerning a ballot that is being held on a proposal to form a Bank Officers' Uni,on, was taken today by the Minister of Labour (the Hon. H. ,T. Armstrong). Mr. Armstrong said it had come to his notice that the Bank Officers' Guild had issued a circular with the ballot papers, and from start to finish it deliberately misrepresented the position and contained what he could only describe as poison. "The document sent out with the ballot paper." he said, "would poison the minds of the employees of the banks, as it consists of a series of untruths. I want to advise bank officers to refrain from voting at all until the true position has been explained to them, because whatever the result of the ballot may be, bank officers not accepting the advice given to them by myself, which is to register under the Arbitration Act if they want to retain the separate identity of their organisation, are in grave danger of being absorbed by an outside organisation. If that happens they will be entirely responsible for it themselves," the Minister concluded. GUILD OR UNION? BANK OFFICERS' BALLOT The secretary of the Bank Officers' Guild (Mr. H. P. Mourant) informed "The Post" this afternoon that as the Bank Officers' Guild was a democratic organisation, it was considered advisable that the members should have the right to say whether they would continue as a guild or become a union. Consequently a ballot was arranged, and a circular was sent to members along with the ballot papers. Presumably that was the circular referred to by the Minister, but as his executive had not received the Minister's statement he could not comment on it.