RISES SOUGHT FOR HIGHER PAID PUBLIC SERVANTS

Grey River Argus, 24 August 1949, Page 3

RISES SOUGHT FOR HIGHER PAID PUBLIC SERVANTS

PRIME MINISTER’S REPLY TO PRESIDENT P.A. WELLINGTON, August 23. At the annual meeting to-day ot the Public Service Association, the Prime Minister spoke. ..he president, Mr J. P. Lewin, said that there was wide dissatisfaction over the relative economic status of members of the Public Service within the community. “The days when public servants were a privileged section of the community are gone”, he said. “We cannot accept with resignation the depressed position into which public servants, as a class, have fallen”. He said that during the past ten years, .almost every section of the community had fared much better than the civil servants. Farmers’ incomes had been doubled, and the age benefit had been increased by 66 2-3 per cent., but m the same period the basic rate m the Public Service had risen by only 4 c per cent, and by only 18 per cent, in intermediate and senior grades. Mr Lewin said eight points represented to Mr Fraser were;— (1) The replacement of the present three-man set-up by a five-man tribunal. (2) Joint selection by the organisations concerned of a permanent workers’ representative. (3) Conferment of the status (f a judg- on the president of the tribunal. (4) Raising the tribunal’s jurisdiction over salaries to £l3OO or at least to the limit of the jurisdict'on of Die commission. (5) Provision for prior conciliation procedure. (6) Unequivocal provision for occupational class (etc.) salary cases to be heard without the lapse of a year after the promulgation of a general salary order. (7) Adequate salaries for the permanent tribunal members and . I'cvS for the others. (8) If possible, the separation of the personnel of the tribunal from that of the railways or other tribunal. PRIME MINISTER'S POINTS “As the representatives of a depressed class, you are all looking remarkably well”, said ihe Prime Minister. The Government could not subscribe to the proposal that, because one class or section of workers had received a percentage increase in remuneration, those on higher salary levels should receive similar percentage advances. Mr Fraser said the Government was unable to accept the principle of relativity in regard to the remuneration of its civil servants. It was anxious to be a good employer, and to be fair to its employees, but to say that, because social security benefits had been increased by such and such a percentage, everyone should receive a like percentage, was to argue for a departure from the foundation principle of the Labour Government, that those on the lower levels should b e raised to a more favourable level.

A Government charged with the best distribution of the wealth of the country simply could not proceed on the basis of argument that, because some workers received increases of 40, 80, or 100 per cent., those on the higher levels should receive equal percentage increases, said Mr Fraser. However, he added, the Government was quite prepared that those matters should be argued before a wellbalanced tribunal, which could well be the means of restoring cordial relations between the Public. Service and the Government.

_ The eight points which the Association had submitted regarding the constitution of the tribunal would be most carefully considered, said the Prime Minister.