RAILWAY DISPUTE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19204, 21 June 1924, Page 10

RAILWAY DISPUTE.

SITTING OF INQUIRY BOARD QUESTION OF BROKEN SHIFTS. (Fee United Peeks Association.) WELLINGTON, Juno 20. A number of claims bearing upon tho hours of employment of various workers iu the railway service was discussed before the Railway Inquiry Board this morning. It seems likely that the inquiry will run into a second week. A mutual agreement was reached between tho department and the society that when a guard is booked off duty between shifts for less than eight hours at his home station he shall receive two hours’ standing time. The society presented a claim that booking men off at. then* homo station should be abolished. Mr Connolly, for the society, said that instances had occurred in which a guard had been put off shift between return suburban runs. Sometimes work was found about the. station in the meantime; hut otherwise the men were put off, and lost pay. Mr Sterling, for the department, said it was a question of broken shifts, which wore inseparable from any transport industry. The department made a bona fide effort to find work wherever possible, and to confino broken shifts to reasonable limits--about two hours, including meal time. In .some cases work could bo found for one man, but not for two. It. was all a matter of give and take, and the giving was in favour of the department. Mr Connolly appealed to the board to give protection by prohibiting the department from playing "ducks and drakes” with men’s time. _ - Another shift question arose in tho next clause, which asked that all traffic men be allowed 10 clear hours off duty before being again booked on. The idea was to give the men a longer rest between shifts. At present it is eight hours. Mr Sterling said the instructions already provided that whenever possible members of tho Second Division were to be booked off for 10 hours. It was another case in which the society was seeking a rigid rule where plasticity must exist. A definition was sought by the society in regard to standing time at foreign stations. Mr Connolly contended that an agreement entered into in 1918 providing for payment at a flat rate for standing time had been violated bv the department as a result of the interpretation put upon tin agreement by tho department, whereby men were paid for three hours irrespective of tlio amount of standing time, they were being robbed of —pay to which they were rightly entitled. Mr Sterling denied the alleged violation. When the Bill to give effect to the agreement was before Parliament in 1919 the society appeared before the Railway Committee of tho House and repudiated the arrangement, which therefore went by the board. Tho whole question was whether the department should cv should not book men off' at foreign stations. That depended upon whether there was work available.