RAILWAY SERVICE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19200, 17 June 1924, Page 8

RAILWAY SERVICE.

RATES OF PAY AND CONDITIONS. CLAIMS OF SECOND DIVISION. FIRST SITTING OF BOARD. (Per United Press Association.) WELLINGTON. June 16. The Board of Inquiry set up by the Minister of Railways to inquire into and make recommendations upon the rates of pay anti conditions of employment in the Second Division of the railway service commenced its local sittings at the Supreme Court (his morning. The board consists of members of the Arhtration Court (Air .Justice Frazer and Messrs \V. Scott and rl. Hunter), with Mr J. Mason (first assistant general manager of railways) and Mr M. J, Made (secretary of the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants) n« additional assessors. Mr 11. 11. -Sterling is conducting tlie case for the Railway Depai (merit and Mr M. J. Connolly for the raihvavmen. The evidence will be largely on the same lines as that adduced at the previous wages inquiry. Although the order of reference permits the board to sit at. such places as it thinks fit, it is like 1 " that the proceedings will lit- confined to Wellington. The whole of the original 72 demands submitted by the A.S.R.S. are under consideration, with modifications in some particnlais. In ooeiiing the case for the society, Air Connolly said the whole trend of legislation in New Zealand during the past years had been to reduce hours of work and improve the standard of living for the working men. He quoted from the “Year Book” to show that out of 41 trades in New- Zealand 17 were working the 4d-houv week or less. 14 were working 48 honr s or morn, and 10 were w-orking between 44 and 48 hours'. The tendency since 1914 had been to reduce the honrs of work, and not to extend them. The fact that tho department had to place the railwaying - ' on a longer working week was. ho submitted, a confession of its inability or incapability to manage tho railways properly and run them efficiently and economically in the interests of the people of the dominion. He referred to the fact that the department hail a monopoly of railway transport, and that it dw not have to pav dividends to shareholders. He went on to deal separately with the three branches of railway work in the workshops, traffic, and maintenance departments. The workshops were granted the 44-hour week in T9’B. three years before the other members of the service. That was an indication that, the department recognised that tho conditions of the workshops men were exactly the same, as those obtaining outside tlio railway service. The hours worked t>y the Now Zealand raihvavmen compared most unfavourably with those obtaining in the Anslralian service and in trades outside the service in the dominion, where all overtime work done in excess of the hours specified in awards counted as overtime. which was paid for at the rate of time and a-half for the first four hours and double time thereafter. Mr Connolly proceeded to state that the railway suporanmial ion scheme was regarded by the men as a curse, not as a privilege. I noy wore in tho position of a milch cow tor tho benefit of employees who were on higher salary. The main claim of the society was that the 44-hour working week which hitherto had existed in the. service should he restored without any reduction being made in the present weekly rates of pay. T ho Railway Department has prepared a number of counter-claims for presentation to the Board of Inquiry, of which the following is a summary ; The elimination of tho payment ofspccial rates for night work in the traffic branch which does not come within the overtime hours. The elimination of provision for rate and a-half payment to maintenance men between 6 n.m. and 6 a.m. The, ordinary time worked in the locomotive workshops between 9 p.m. and 6 a.m. to be paid for at the ordinary rates. The time worked on Sunday as part of the ordinary working week to be paid for at tho ordinary rates. Double rate of payment on the Sovereign’s Birthday, Labour Day, Good Friday, and Christmas Day to bo regarded as sufficient remuneration, and that the practice of adding to the annual leave be discontinued. The special allowance paid to horse drivers elite:god in shunting duties to be discontinued. Tho maximum proportion of apprentices to journeymen in tho workshops to be increased. •Mr Sterling opened the department’s case by congratulating Mr Connolly on the presentation of his side ot tho argument, which had been put clearly and well and without rccri m I nation. He said that what tho society asked was the reinstatement of the 44-hour week at the present weekly rates of pay. This was equivalent to asking for an itu-ro-iso of 7s 3d per week on the basic wage, with corresponding increases for the other men. T his would cost about £240,000 on the basic wage and there would bo a possible in'-ease of £350,000 Mr Connolly had said the increase in the cost of living was 62 per cent, last February. The rate per hour in 1914 was Is Ijal, which at a 62 per cent, increase should now bo Is 9.89 d —£4 7s 6d a week. 'The men were now iretling £4 7s Id, so there would be little difference in the two amounts. The average pay of the whole of the railway staff in 1914 was £145, and last year it was £238an .increase of 64 per cent. He contended that tho men were getting all they were cnl it led to. The dcp.nnnenl was anxious that the men should have a fair standard of living, bit opinions differed as to what was a fair Man-dird. He thought that if tho raihvavmen got as great or a greater wage than tho other basic wage-earners they ondd not bo said to bo receiving too little. The basic wage in tlo railway service was Is 9 34-44,1 per hour, and the latest award of the Arbitration Court was Is 9d. Mr Hunter : Labourers arc getting 2s an hour and over. Mr Sterling: I am quite aware that fluctuations outside muv Mr Mack: But is not that railway rate the maximum? Mr Sterling : I shall come to that later. Ho proposed to show that the man outside was’not bolter off than the railwaymen. Tho railwayman was relieved of two bugbears of the man outside —the fear of his employment not being permanent and the fear of an indigent old age. Those were more than a sufficient offset to any HUlo extra the outride man might pel occasionally. The extent to which the higher rate might be paid outside fluctuated considerably. It fluctuated with the degrees of prosperity of the times. The railwayman had his superannuation which, despite what Mr Connolly had said, was a privilege and an extremely valuable one. Last year tho Government contribution was £125,000, and this year it would lie no less. Moreover, the Government stood bclvi.d the fund and guaranteed it, so that the men’s pensions were absolutely secured. It was absolutely wrong to say that the basic wage worker made the same contribution to the superannuation fund as the highcr-nnid men. ' Mr Connolly: The general manager retires on a superannuation of only £IBOO a year. The President said that a man who came into the scheme after 1909 might he paying on the basis of a £7OO pension, and would’ get only a &3CO pension. Mr Connolly: The basic wage worker cannot afford to malm ids payment. The President; It is a percentage payment. . Mr Connolly: Onr men are on a living wage; other men arc not, Mr Sterling said lie had found (hat in one year the men got passes and privilege tickets to the value of £149,000. Mr Mask; Are you prepared to concede the men lhe money? Mr Sterling said ho was not there to commit the department. The subject had not been raised in the claims, lie said that, 25 per cent, of the men were provided with houses of the department, and the average rent was 8» a t -ek. In no case rlid a man pay more than a day’s wage for his house. If tho department were a private landlord it could get twice as’much for the houses. Many of (ho later houses •/ere very up-to-date. In one recent year £19,600 had been spent on uniforms. This amount was saved to tho men. These things placed tho railwaymen in an advantageous position in comparison with tho men outside. He did not think the education lest was a hardship in a country where education was free, and he thought Ihe medical test was very necessary in such a service, lie was entitled to claim that n case bad not been made out for an increase in pay as the railwaymen were now getting more” (ban (he Arbitration Court's basic rato. and in addition they erriqyed the privileges mentioned. By comparison with other railway services the rale paid to tho workers in the Now Zealand service was very favourable. Tho hearing will be rosumod to-morrow.