EMPLOYEE’S CLAIM

Manawatu Standard, Volume L, Issue 194, 15 July 1930, Page 2

EMPLOYEE’S CLAIM

LETTER TO POWER BOARD. The Manawatu-Oroua Power Board at its monthly meeting yesterday afternoon received from the Wellington Elec, trical Workers’ Association a letter to the effect that one of the board’s staff who had been injured in a collision at Feilding when returning from work had only been paid the insurance while away from work, and asking that the amount up to his ordinary wages be paid by the board. “It would be an act of grace to pay the amount,” commented Mr J. Hodgens. The chairman (Mr J. A. Nash) said that the employee should have approached the board for payment before seeking action elsewhere. The amount involved was £5 16s.

Mr Hodgens said he admitted frankly that the employee had taken the wrong course of action, but ho (the ’speaker) still maintained that payment would be an act of grace.

The chairman: You don’t expect that sort of thing from an employee. Mr Linklater: Is he still with, us? The engineer (Mr W- A. Waters) intimated that the employee was still with the board. Investigations which had been made disclosed that ho had allegedly made inquiries concerning his rights to lodging a claim for damages under the third party risk, as he had been a passenger in the truck. Mr McLean: I propose that the board does not pay the amount. Mr Perrett: I would have been favourably disposed towards him if he had not done this. I will second Mr McLean’s motion. The employee ought to learn his lesson.

Mr P. G. Guy: It is his bread and butter, you know. It is unfair to give him no consideration at all, as he might not have notified the union himself.

Mr Perrett: Mr Waters says otherwise.

Mr Hodgens: All the board members look at union secretaries as if they are our enemies. The man lias, of course, not a leg to stand on legally. Mr Linklater said that, taking a personal view of the matter, he would pay the employee his wages, whatever he had done. Mr Nash reiterated that the board would have paid the wages if it had been approaclied by the employeo before he took action through another organisation, particularly while ho was still employed by the board. Mr Linklater: We all agree with that.

The motion not to pay the wages to the employee was negatived and on the suggestion of Mr Nash, in order to avoid creating a precedent, the board decided to make a grant from its unauthorised funds covering the amount involved.