CITY EMPLOYEES

Evening Post, Volume CXXIV, Issue 60, 8 September 1937, Page 13

CITY EMPLOYEES

68 DISMISSED

GENERAL SURPRISE

A MATTER OF FUNDS

"Sixty-eight men employed by the City Council were dismissed yesterday,", said Councillor P. M: Butler, in a statement to "The Post" today. "These men were not the ordinary relief workers in the commonly accepted sense of the term. The majority of them had been employed off and on by the council for the last fifteen years, and some of them had had service with the council amounting to twelve years. Most of them were dismissed during the depression times, when the council put off about 120 men. When the drainage loan for £2UU.000 was carried in 1935, the men with the most service, and who were most efficient, were employed, the majority of these men being amongst them. When the work undertaken under that loan was completed, the City Council made arrangements with the Employment Division of the Labour Department, and obtained various generous subsidies in the hope of the loans of 1936 being carried. Owing to the ratepayers turning down the bulk of these loans, the majority of these men were left in the air, and notwithstanding the subsidies from the Employment Division, the council had great difficulty in finding money from revenue to pay the cost of supervision and materials. After consultation with the Government, however, various schemes were brought into operation, and the council managed to secure money from various sources to keep the men in employment. MONEY EXHAUSTED. "Recently these men were to have been put off, but the Government having made a grant of £20,000 for the widening of the Evans Bay Road, permission was obtained by the council to 'use £2000 of that sum in keeping the men in employment cutting gorse and cleaning up the waterworks reserve. This £2000 has now petered

out. The men were accordingly dismissed on Tuesday: The first I heard about it was on Tuesday morning,! when I had a ring from one of the men concerned, and immediately com- j municated with the Mayor (Mr. T. C. A. Hislop), the Acting Minister of Labour (the Hon. P. C. Webb), the secretary of the Employment Division (Mr. J. S. Hunter), and the Town Clerk (Mr. E. P. Norman), and made every effort to have the men retained. The Mayor also was unaware of the dismissal of the men, and made every effort to try and retain their services, but owing to a bereavement could not devote his full attention to it. "It had been suggested that these men go on the £4 a week scheme of the Employment Division. I objected to this because, as already stated, the men concerned were, to all intents and purposes, regular employees of the council, and the £4 a week scheme was instituted to give work to men who have been on sustenance for a long time. However, twelve of the men concerned have been selected in the ballot to carry on with the £4 a week scheme. This morning I met the men and explained the circumstances to them, and in company with Councillor W. Duncan interviewed the Town Clerk, who advised us that certain difficulties which had been in the way between the City Council and the. Harbour Board respecting the widening of the Evans Bay Road had been adjusted, and that twenty of the men would be employed on this job on. Monday, and more later. In the meantime the union was insisting on the preference clause for the balance of the men, twenty-six in number, but the officers of the council were making every effort in conjunction with the Employment .Division to place these men also.

"In connection with the above matter I would like to state that the Government and the Employment Division had not withdrawn the original subsidy and were anxious to continue it to keep the men in work. As a councillor and as secretary of the union, I knew nothing about the immediate dismissal of these men until I received the ring from one of them on Tuesday morning." COUNCIL NOT INFORMED. Councillor W. Duncan, present when the above statement was made, said that it v/as quite in order. What surprised him was that although there was a meeting of the City Council on Monday night, the matter had not been brought before it. He. discussed the affair with other councillors yesterday, and they also were surprised that they had heard nothing of it, as the council had, for the last nine months and more been, making every effort to retain the services of these men. If the Mayor had been made aware of the position, he would have done all he could to meet it..

It is understood' that the twenty men who are to start on Monday will receive notification.