RAILWAYMEN’S PAY

Grey River Argus, 22 December 1943, Page 2

RAILWAYMEN’S PAY

The West Coast District Committee of the Communist Party, per Mr. D. G. Mcßae, forwarded on Saturday the following letter to the Prime Minister, Rt. Hon. P. Fraser: Sir: —We desire to add our weight to the requests of the New Zealand Railways employees for increases in pay, and we respectfully urge that you give these requests your earnest and sympathetic consideration. We consider that the demands of the railway employees are just, and that the satisfaction of them is long overdue. Above all, in this' period of anti-Fascist war, with the urgent necessity for maintaining . uninterrupted production, we consider that anv possibility of strike action must be prevented.' We stand, above all things, for the efficient and uninterrupted prosecution of the war, and v/g consider that the main strength, of your Government has been its realistic approach to this problem. We do not support demands from any section of the New Zealand people which are unreasonable and incompatible with this supreme objective. But we feel that the demands of .tne railway employees do not fall into that category. When the families of workers have to subsist on an income that is inadequate for their needs, the morale of these workers becomes low, and production inevitably suffers’ even though strikes do not take place We submit, therefore, that the immediate satisfaction of the railwaymen’s demands is in the best interests of the war effort.”