RAILWAY SERVICE

Evening Post, Volume CXL, Issue 61, 10 September 1945, Page 6

RAILWAY SERVICE

TRIBUNAL RESUMES

CLAIM FOR R.Q.I. GROUP

Fresh! claims relating to many aspects of railway working are to be pre-1 sented by the four service organisa-! tions to the Railways Industrial Tribunal, which resumed its sittings in Wellington today. The Tribunal con- i sists of Mr. W. F. Stilwell, S.M. (chairman), Mr. E. Casey (Government representative), and Mr. E. A. Whitlow (service organisations' representative). The first matter dealt with today was a reply by the Railway Officers' Institute to submissions on law and fact made earlier in the year by the Department opposing the institute's claim for a separate salary schedule for professional officers, on the ground that the claim was outside the Tribunal's jurisdiction. Sitting with the Tribunal as assessors were Mr. W. F. Gill, for the institute, and Mr. F. W. Aickin, for the Department. Mr. J. S. Roscoe was advocate for the R. 0.1., and Mr. K. G. Reid represented the-Depart-ment. Mr. Roscoe submitted that the Department had created a professional class by recognising different conditions of service, in that professional qualifications were required to become an engineer. The Department, having created arbitrable conditions of service, could not dispute the right to arbitrate upon them. Because of their professional or scientific training the professional officers were clearly distinguishable from the general body of railway employees, and by the nature of their work they were also differentiated from the generality of employees. LOWEST SALARY SCALE. Examples of recognition of professional engineers overseas as members of a professional class were quoted by Mr. Roscoe. Up to the present time, he said, engineers in the New Zealand railways had been included in a general group only by ignoring their right to consideration as a separate class. They provided the technical services for the greatest Government undertaking in New Zealand, yet they received the lowest salaries of any professional class in Government employment. The institute believed that to cling to an obsolete system of assess,ing engineering positions would deny the Department the maximum benefits of developments in science and engineering. The Department had not shown how the claim could be met by regrading". The institute submitted that the proper course to follow was to establish a relativity in respect to officers in comparable positions and professions outside the railway service. There could be no suggestion that the Tribunal was being asked to carry out any regrading; it was being asked to place a monetary value on certain positions, which was the main purpose for which it had been set up. The chairman said the members of the Tribunal thought they had at that stage sufficient material upon which to decide the jurisdiction issue. According to that decision an indication would be given as to whether evidence should be given on the facts of the claim. After Mr. I. M. Malcolm, first assistant engineer in the chief engineer's office, had clarified aspects of the jurisdiction question, the chairman said the decision would be made known in due course.