THE RAILWAY DISPUTE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXVII, Issue 8258, 17 May 1890, Page 5

THE RAILWAY DISPUTE.

LATEST DEVELOPMENTS. [BV IELEGKAriI.P«KSS ASSOCIATION-.] Wellington, Friday. The following" is a copy of the circular issued by the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants, asking for a ballot as to a strike : —

Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants of New Zealand, Canterbury Branch.—Sir,— There is a possibility that the Executive Committee may, in the near future, have to adopt extreme measures to compel the Commissioners to recognise the Society, or to enforce their views on the questions of boy labour, long hours, readjustment of wages, and piece work as laid down by the Conference, and as it is deemed expedient that the Executive Committee should be in a position to act with the utmost promptness and despatch, you are requested to accord your vote for or against empowering the committee to call the men out, should they find it absolutely necessary to do so. Ballot papers to bo handed to the collectors in time to allow for the closing of the ballot on Thursday, May 8. (By order of Branch Committee.) Charles J. Rae, Secretary. The Commissioners have issued the following statement regarding the present rules as to hours, regulation for overtime, and wages in Permanent, Traffic, and Locomotive Departments : — Pkbmanent Workmen are required to work eight hours per day or fortyeight hours per week for the authorised daily wages. Regular hours of work are from eight a.m. to live p.m. on working days, with oiie hour oil". Extra pay will be allowed to labourers and tradesmen for time worked in excess of eight hours per day, subject to such regulations as may be from time to time issued. Locomotives —Locomotives running ten hours or 100 miles, at the option of the locomotive superintendent, to count as a days work for a driver and fireman; overtime to be counted at the rate of time and a quarter. Traffic—Traffic employees will be required to work all trains on advertised timetable without allowance for overtime, but as far as possible duties to be arranged to avoid overtime. . General.— far as can be arranged, consistently with economy and public convevience, in the case of employees generally working time is not to exceed eight hours per day or forty-eight hours per week of six working days. In the case of locomotive drivers and firemen working time as far as practicable to lie limited to ten hours a day, or sixty hours per week of six working days. Men engaged in intermittent services, who are paid extra for overtime, as in the case of drivers and firemen, will not have their whole time counted from first coming on duty until finally leaving, but only such time as the officer in charge may in each case determine may be fairly counted as working j time.

The above is the present regulation of the department regarding hours of labour, and has been in force about ten years. Traffic employees, as a rule, are intermittent workers, and their duties cannot be arranged to be performed continuously. In their case extra pay is not, as a rule, given for overtime except for Sunday work. Allowance is made in another way when there are long hours to be worked by individuals which are unavoidable. The men may have a day off a week, or may have long days and short days alternately, so as to approximate as closely as possible to the rule, that six days of eight hours' continuous labour is the standard time. Maintenance men who arc working eight hours a-day continuously are paid extra for night work between six p.m. and six a.m. at timo and half. Regular night gangs who do nob work through the day receive time and a-quarter pay for work between six p.m. and six a.m. Sunday work is paid -at time and half. Workshops' hands are paid at the rate of an hour and a-quarter for every hour worked during the week over forty-eight hours. For work done between nine p.m. and six a.m., rate and a-half will be allowed for every hour so worked. On Sundays rate and a-half is allowed, provided full time (forty-eight hours) has been worked during the week. CiiKisTCiiuncii, Friday. Mr. Edwards, secretary of the Railway Employees Society, has published a state-' merit, wherein he says : —" Railway men know too well, and the Commissioners are cognisant of the fact, that if the Society did not admit non-railway men as honorary members, the leaders would bo made to suffer, and I doubt very much indeed whether, if it was composed entirely of employees, the Commissioners would have acknowledged that they had no objection to the Union being in existence. A ballot is certainly being taken to obtain the- feeling of the members with regard to forcing matters, but only after all pacific means by arbitration have failed. This the employees are perfectly entitled to do if they choose. It is their right to decide whether they shall or shall not sell their labour for so much. The Commissioners know it, and the notion of such a thine; happening has, to use a homely expression, knocked 'em all of a heap. They knew very well that such a strike would thoroughly paralyse the colony ; for, in the end, it would undoubtedly result in the railways, shipping, and coal supply being stopped. It would be a calamity indeed. The railway men recognise this, and will do their level best to prevent it. If it comes to pass the Commissioners will be solely to blame ; for was there ever a greater farce than Commissioners acknowledging there I arc 4200 employees, and knowing that the Union is over -1000 strong, and their warning employees against acting on the orders of the Union. If the Commissioners

will accept a deputation from the Society to discuss the grievances such will be arranged, but employees themselves, remembering the bitter experience of past interviews with Mr. Maxwell, at least will decidedly object to a deputation of employees alone. To say that boys have not been taken on to supersede men, is to say what is utterly false, for where men were formerly employed boys are taken on to till vacancies. Men are being dispensed with in all directions, and dismissed and disrated for the most trival things. I may mention a case of a guard of fourteen years' service, who has been dismissed because a bundle of old rotten butter boxes came out whilst he was putting it, into his van, and the contents partly fell out upon the platform. I challenge the Commissioners to prove that fair allowance is made for overtime in any way whatever, with but few exceptions hero and there. Allowing about one hour off for every six hours of overtime worked is an example of the Commissioners' sense of justice. What we are asking for is a reply from the Commissioners to the grievances we have laid before them, but in all their communications they studiously keep from this. We make our rules to .suit our own requirements, and intend to stick to them until our next conference. It is quite useless for the Commissioners to parley about our constitution, and it would be more to their credit if they frankly replied to our representations (if grievances instead of endeavouring to get employees to run the risk of—well, never mind. Bub where are those from the Addington workshops who on former occasions were men enough to speak up for what they deemed to be justice ? Once bit twice shy is an old adage. Tho circular asking the men to vote on the question of extreme measures by May 8, published in Wellington, was relative only to the Canterbury branch. Tlio result was—for, 7-11 ; against, 46; informal, 5. Several branches have not finished voting." Tho following letter from the executive of the Railway Employes Society to the Commissioners was posted to-day : — Sirs,—ln reply to your communication of May 13 I am instructed by the executive of the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants of New Zealand to inform you that it : is impossible for the executive to alter the constitution and objects of the Society as laid down by the recent Conference held in Christchurch. It therefore declines to hold a General Conference in Wellington; and that such a deputation must consist purely of railway servants, inasmuch as compliance with such conditions would materially endanger the fair, fearless, and impartial investigation and discussion of the grievances under which all classes of railway servants are labouring at the present time, and it must certainly reserve to itself the right to send such deputation as may seem to it most desirable. Will you kindly inform the executive whether you are prepared to meet such deputation ? and oblige.—(Signed) W. Edwards. i [BY TELEGRAPH.— CORRESPONDENT.] Wellington, Friday. There has been* a good deal of foment caused here to day by the publication of the correspondence between the Commissioners and the Executive of the AmalgaI mated Society of Railway Employes. The report of the Sweating Commission, which

appears in the local journals by the side e& I the Railway correspondence, is accepted by those who sympathise with the claims of labour" as a justification for the ultimatum which it was believed had been served on the Commissioner by the important body of men connected with the administration of the railway service of the colony. The general public here is beginning to regard these organisations of labour as a development hostile in the end to the real freodom of trade; and I have heard several experienced men declare that tie published correspondence shows on the face of it that the movers have nob thoroughly appreciated the consequences either to their clients or the public of a collision between the constituted powers ot Government and the rights of labour, tor the Railway Commission is a body constituted by an Act of the Legislature.^ I learn that there is a large number ot the railway employees who are opposed to the policy which is being pursued by the Executive acting in their name. There is, however, another view of the matter which is likely to bring the whole matter before Parliament next session. This view is taken by many influential persons both in and out of Parliament. It is, in effect, that the policy pursued by the Commissioners is responsible for the present ferment among the railway servants, and that their position and powers must be revised. On the other hand, there are people here who say that if the railways were sold and worked by a syndicate a great number of difficult questions now coming to the front would be settled. I The Times has the following in its leader on the subject this morning " A powerful labour organisation has been brought about, and is evidently disposed to use force ruthlessly and senselessly. It will not listen to argument or consent to a conference, bub insists upon the acceptance of its ultimatum under protest in case of refusal of bringing the railway traffic of the colony to a standstill. This amounts to something closely akin to conspiracy against the'public welfare. The demand made by the railway employes seem to us to be eminently unreasonable in one respect, the attack upon boy labour. What the people moan by senselessly persecuting their boys passes comprehension —a wretched, contemptible whine about boy labour. We do not hesitate to say that this will have to be checked. Parliament must grapple with the subject, and legislate to prevent excesses of the kind. What is wanted are tribunals of arbitration, and making strikes illegal. Striking and boycotting are first cousin to Judge Lynch, and if reason and moderation are to hold sway, they must bo discouraged and prohibited. If Parliament will not do this, if it persists in permitting the unrestricted exercise of unthinking impulse, stimulated by bullishness, it must be prepared to face anarchy ; and, more than this, the colony will bo rendered next to uninhabitable, and all who can will gird their loins and flee from it. We are glad to hear that the Railway Commissioners are going to make a stand, and believe they will °bo able to avert absolute paralysis of traffic." The Post refers to the subject also in its leader this eveningas follows :— " A general railway strike would be a great public misfortune, and we are glad to think that there is little or no danger of such an untoward event occurring. The railway employees have grievances, but they would be foolish in their own interests to resort to such a means of obtaining redress. . Their grievances will, doubtless, be remedied in due time, without causing the public the very great inconvenience, and inflicting the serious business loss which would result from a strike. If redress cannot ba obtained from the Commissioners, the railway servants must look to Parliament. The men will have the sympathy of the public in most, if not all, of what they claim, so Ion" as they preserve a respectful and moderate tone in advocating their case. A strike .would endanger, if not absolutely alienate, this sympathy. The men will, through the' force of public sentiment and the action of Parliament, be able to obtain redress of all legitimate grievances without the necessity of resorting to violent means of effecting their purpose." [BY TKLKOKAPII.—PKKSS ASSOCIATION'.] Wellington, Friday. At to-day's meeting of the Maritime Council, the secretary was instructed to wire to Mr. Edwards, General Secretary of the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants, advising that representatives from employees be sent to Wellington, to moot the Commissioners and discuss any grievance which they have, and in the event of their failing to obtain satisfaction in that way, then to lay the matter before Ministers - . - i -- Hi. The Railway Commissioners beneve that the unwillingness of the railway men to send delegates to Wellington to confer personally with the Commissioners may arise from the fear that they will be "marked ! men." They repudiate any such intention, and express a wish to deal as fairly by thenservants as possible.