RAILWAY APPEAL BOARD.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXX, Issue 14975, 22 April 1909, Page 3

RAILWAY APPEAL BOARD.

[Per Press Association.] WELLINGTON, April 20. Some interesting ovidence regarding .he method of classifying the employees of the Now Zealand Railway Department was hoard to-day by the North Island Railway Appeal Board, which continued the hearing of train examiner H. J. Seaton’s appeal against his reduction from a Grade 1 train examiner to Grade 2. Departmental witnesses deposed that. Seaton failed to secure a Grade A position in 1907-8 because of his inexperi 2iicc. His work at Cross Creek was remarkably good, but the work at that station could, not bo considered as important as that at Wellington. . George A. Pearson, locomotive engineer in charge of Wellington district, stated that Seaton was not considered sufficiently capable at the 1907-8 review of the staff to be made a- first grade examiner under the 1907 Act. A. L. Beattie, Chief Mechanical Engineer, deposed that recognised standards were set up for various wages, and they were uniform throughout the dominion. The fact that Seaton was a skilled labourer, working under engine fitters, would not render him any more lit to become a car examiner. The Department’s representative, Mr R. IV. M’Villy, in addressing the Board, said that departmental heads were sent around the various sections of the railways annually, so that uniformity in th; standard of efficiency could be secured. Some fear had been expressed that because men were getting more than the maximum pay of their new grade they' might lose this, but since 1896 there had been men getting higher pay than their grade maximum, and the Department was not in the habit of tailing something which the men had already received. Mr M. Lee, the appellant’s advocate, declared that the Department’s new standard of efficiency was inflated. It had, never been intended by the Legislature that any increased efficiency should be required to secure an increment. Though the Department could ■withhold tlio increment if a man's conduct had not been satisfactory, it was not justified in reducing his status. It was unfair to prejudice men by reducing their status. The chairman remarked upon the evidence of the careless drafting of the Classification Act of 1907. Instead of providing that the Act should be read with the previous Act, the whole tiling -should have been re-enacted in a statute declaring that a man should be reduced from his present rank or pay. Decision was reserved. A goods clerk in tlio Wellington office, named Lawrence Barclay, appealed against his position on the D 3 .list, on the ground that he had been superseded by a clerk on a lower grade employed in the head office. Appellant stated that in the D 3 list of 1907 he was .shown as No. 104 in Grade 8. at £2lO per annum, and a particular clerk as No. 180 of the same grade, at £2OO. In the following year he found the latter clerk classed in Grade 8, at £240, whilst lie was placed in Grade 9 at £220. TV lien he called his superior’s attention to the way in which he had been superseded, he was officially informed that the clerk had been promoted because of special qualifications for his position, which appellant did not possess. Examined by Mr M’Villy, witness said that ho knew what record work was, but had no experience of the system of record in trie head office, where the man who had superseded him was the chief record clerk with eighteen years’ experience. The chairman said: “ I haven’t heard anything so childish for a long time. While you were trying to find your way about the head office at the expense of tlio Department and the people of. New Zealand, work would bo hung up.” When further evidence had been called to show the nature of the work in the General Manager’s office, Barclay withdrew his appeal.