“BULLYING OFFICIALS ”

Evening Star, Issue 18281, 22 May 1923, Page 3

“ BULLYING OFFICIALS ”

IN RAILWAY DEPARTMENT. ALLEGATIONS DENTED. Tho tranquillity of tho Railway Appeal Board sitting in Auckland was considerably disturbed (says the ’ Star ’) by an allegation that tho higher officials of tho department indulge in bullying tactics when dealing with employees in lower grades.

This subject cropped up during the hearing of an appeal by T. L. Mills, of Newmarket, against reduction from chief lifter to lifter. A witness named Horace Lawrence, also a lifter at Newmarket, said that he was taken before tho locomotive engineer and, questioned. He felt confused and bustled.

Mr J. Mack (for Mills): What was tho trend of his questions? —Ho asked mo about a dozen times what was Mills’s intention regarding tho waggon in dispute. A statement was compiled from witness’s answers, and ho signed it. Tho chairman (Mr J. G. L. Hewitt) questioned Lawrence on certain points in his signed statement, and asked why he had made them. Mr Mack: Ho made them because he was under examination. To witness' When you were before the locomotive engineer, did you tell your stoiy or was it dragged out of you?—lt was dragged out of me.

Replying to the chairman, witness said ho was confused when he made his statement, which was bullied out of him. The Chairman; Bullied out of you? — Yes, practically. Mr Mack: They bully them to death. Air G. H. Macklev (for the department) : I object to that statement. So far as tho department is concerned it is not its practice to obtain statements in any unfair way. Its officers are honor able men and fair-minded men. Mr Mack: Some of them.

Mr Mackley: I must emphatically protest against any such statement from Mr Alack. I think if he wore speaking from the bottom 'of his heart ho would say I was correct-

Th© Chairman: Or speaking from any part of his heart. Air Mack: I am speaking from personal knowledge, and I refer to the way various statements arc got from mom hors. In this instance the locomotive engineer bad no right to read another man’s statement over to Lawrence.

Mr Mackley; It was to help him. Mr Mack: It did- not help him; it must have been to influence him in what ho would say. If Mr Mackley wants something further I can give him it. Mr E. E, Gillan (chief mechanical engineer) : Do not make any threats, Mr Mack: I am not making threats, and I am not going back to the service to bo bullied either. Mr Gillan: Yon never were bullied.

At the conclusion of the evidence Mr Alack contended that the general manager had no power to reduce Mills merely on •the ground that there was an intention only to do something that would_ he an offence if committed, the allegation being that Afills intended to put into service a waggon that was unfit, which was denied. Tho hoard reserved its decision.