Toll Operators Complain Of ‘Gestapo’ Methods

Greymouth Evening Star, 14 October 1948, Page 6

Toll Operators Complain Of ‘Gestapo’ Methods

(P.A.) AUCKLAND, This Day. ■ Irritated by what they call the “Gestapo” methods of exchange monitors, the toll operators on late shift at thp Chief Post Office threatened to walk-out on Tuesday night, a spokesman said- today. Only a senior’ official’s warning, that he would call in the police, combined with individual questioning of some of the men concerned, saved a strike, he said. No monitor was used on the shift. Had a strike come it would have disrupted the toll services over a wide area at the busiest period of the day, between 6 p.m. and 8 p.m., he-added. The monitoring system was introduced during the war as a security measure and had never been discontinued, said the spokesman. , , , Under the system the telephone supervisor, the telegraph-telephone superintendent and the monitor could listen in to the operators and the public. The operators complain that the monitor continually “carpets” them for minor breaches of procedure. Though no official comment on the complaints was available today, it is understood that they are to be referred to the workers’ committee.