"HIRE AND FIRE"

Evening Post, Volume CXL, Issue 149, 21 December 1945, Page 6

"HIRE AND FIRE"

Sir,—With reference to the attitude of the Canterbury railwaymen to. the "hire and fire" idea and Mr. Semple's denunciation thereof, some of us would like a little more information. Is it not a fact, for instance, that during the session of Parliament recently concluded, an -Employment Bill was introduced and passed into law which makes provision that no person is to be out of work? Unemployment is, as it were, abolished with a stroke of the pen. Also, I understand if a man is "unemployed" he and his family are to be paid a family income until such time as he is again employed. If, then, a railway servant is dismissed for insubordination or some other reason, what happens? Under-the Employment Act he must be found another job, or he and his family- placed on social security with a substantial allowance with which to maintain themselves. Mr. Semple, Minister of Railways, dismisses an employee, and one of his colleagues dealing with employment' has under the law to find him another job! Is this position of affairs not somewhere near what the Canterbury railwaymen are after? They need have no dread of being out of a job with an assured minimum family income provided for them. I also wonder where the Government vocational officers come into the picture. Will they have to find a position for a discharged railwayman at some other occupation of which he has no experience? Perhaps, Sir, you would be good enough to secure from some responsible person an answer to the above queries, a's some of us think that "hire and fire" has already been abolished—l am, etc., RETIRED RAILWAYMAN.