ANGRY M.P.

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 132, 5 June 1937, Page 11

ANGRY M.P.

DISMISSAL OF MEN

FIERY ALLEGATIONS

(By Telegraph—l'ress Association.)

DUNEDIN, This Day.

The cause of 104 employees of the City Corporation being dismissed from the Works and Water Departments was directly attributed this morning by Mr. J. W. Munro, M.P.,to the defeat of the £100,000 loan proposal at the recent poll.

"With the assistance of vicious newspaper propaganda and misleading statements from the ratepayers' committee," he said, "the ratepayers deliberately voted against the loan go that the council would not be able to assist the Government in finding work for unemployed during the winter. The adoption of the proposal would not only have enabled the council to retain the services of the men dismissed but would probaby have permitted the employment of another 100 men."

The Town Clerk stated that the,men paid off were not strictly permanents but were really additions. to the staff, those engaged by the Water Department being subsidised workers.

The main grievance expressed by. the dismissed men is that they have'to stand down for two weeks before becoming eligible for sustenance. Efforts have been made to induce the Government to.waive this regulation, but this, it was pointed out by the Hon. F. Jones, would involve a waiver throughout New Zealand.