RAILWAYMEN’S WAGES

Greymouth Evening Star, 25 September 1944, Page 4

RAILWAYMEN’S WAGES

STOP-WORK MEETING.

CHRISTCHURCH, September 24. ~ Railway traffic over a great part of the South Island will be dislocated next Thursday if action proposed in a resolution passed by the Canterbury branch of the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants yesterday is put into effect. The branch held a special meeting, attended by more than 400 members, to discuss a wages schedule which has been the subject of negotiation between the Railways Department and the union, and the dissatisfaction of the branch with the conduct of these negotiations by the national executive of the union was expressed in the following resolution: — “That we request that all negotiations be broken off in regard to any wages schedules; that the executive be recalled from Wellington; that the executive be issued with a further set of instructions; that any further proposals be submitted to branches before finalising; that this branch calls a branch stop-work meeting during working hours next Thursday at 7.15 a.m. to 9 a.m. Every member of the branch on duty must attend this meeting; every member off duty must attend; a roll-call of names will be taken. Every member absent must render satisfactory explanation.” As many of the day’s biggest passenger trains come into the period proposed for the stop-work meeting, the dislocation resulting from it will be serious. Among the trains affected will be the 7.25 waterside workers’ train to Lyttelton, workers’ trains to Christchurch, and the south express, which leaves Christchurch at 8.35.

MR. SEMPLE’S COMMENT.

WELLINGTON, September 25.

“This threat to hold a stop-work meeting and dislocate the service will not assist the men’s cause,” the Minister of Railways (Mr. Semple) said, to-day, referring to the Christchurch report that railwaymen there had threatened to hold a stop-work meeting on Thursday. The Minister said that the men. were responsible to the general public, and to threaten such action, especially in the midst of war was reprehensible and would injure rather than help their cause. He appealed to the men to trust their officers and to give the Railways Tribunal a lair trial. The Government had gone to the trouble to set up a properly constituted Tribunal to deal with grievances and anomalies, and had a sincere desire to clean up disputes for all time. The Tribunal was thoroughly democratic, with railwaymen amply represented. As far as he knew the A.S.R.S. as well as the Department, had been trying to get as near to a settlement as possible, and that was the commonsense thing to do. He understood that a date had been fixed for the Tribunal to hear the case. The Tribunal had been set up by a special Act of Parliament because the men had asked for it, and now some of those men appeared to want to kick it to pieces before it had an opportunity to prove its value to them. A.S.R.S. OFFICIAL STATEMENT “The Canterbury Branch is acting entirely on its own, and without the authority of the Society,” a statement issued, to-day, by the President (Mr. J. H. Terry) and the General Secretary ('Mr. L. Mcllvride) of the A.S.R.S. declares. The statement added that the wages and conditions of railwaymen had been the subject of almost constant conciliation discussions between the Railways Department and the Society since August 22. Many of the offers made by the Department were acceptable, and by September 1, there seemed a likelihood of an amicable settlement, but subsequently it was found that unanimity could not be reached on all points, and it was decided that the matter should be submitted to the recently-established Tribunal, which would consider the question on October 9. These facts were well-known to the Canterbury Branch, but in spite of this the Branch had taken the responsibility of independent action. By doing so. it had shown complete disregard of the authority of the governing body, and in addition was involving other railwaymen who had had no opportunity of expressing an opinion on the wisdom of the branch’s decision. With the men’s case set down for hearing, any precipitate action such as that contemplated by the Canterbury Branch was likely to prejudice rather than help the claims of the A.S.R.S.