"RESTLESS TYPE"

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVIII, Issue 135, 5 December 1944, Page 7

"RESTLESS TYPE"

SOME RAILWAY EMPLOYEES

Only about half the number of girls employed in - the refreshment branch of the Railways Department stayed in the service longer than a year, said William Robert Lester, acting staff and paysheets clerk in the brancia, in evidence given before the Railways Industrial Tribunal yesterday afternoon. The casual labour employed was of a very restless type, and since the majority were women, the position he occupied called for patience, tact, and forbearance in dealing with the incidents which were constantly occurring. The greater part of the staff consisted of casual employees, said witness, and although the total average staff employed during the year ended March 31, 1944, was 646, there had been 394 new appointees during the year. At the present time it was a case of taking what the man-power authorities sent along. The complaints received from the staff were mainly about the weekly earnings and conditions of employment. At the outlying stations the casual staff tended to stay longer than in the main centres, witness added. They were ; paid overtime at rate and a half after 40 hours. It was a fact that there had been a big increase, in the. w.ork during the war-years. William Parkhill Anderson, a former passenger foreman, Wellington, and now a ticket inspector for reasons of health, said in the course of his evidence that, on £355 a year he had nothing to spare, although he had his own home and, a good garden.