RAILWAYMAN’S APPEAL

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25455, 9 February 1944, Page 2

RAILWAYMAN’S APPEAL

A RETURNED SOLDIER WISH TO LEAVE DEPARTMENT If the Man-power Appeal Committee released a returned member of the Railway Construction Unit from the Railways Department he would be mobilised again with the Armed Forces, said the chairman of the Industrial Man-power Appeal Committee (Mr M. W. Grantham) yesterday during the hearing of an appeal by Gordon Moore, a recently-returned member of the unit, who is employed as a railway porter at Burnside. The appellant, a grade I man, wished to terminate his employment with the Railways Department in order to learn poultry farming. The appeal, by a majority decision, was disallowed. Mr O. G. Stevens represented the appellant. Enlisted in Third Echelon Moore, Mr Stevens said, had gained his matriculation and higher leaving certificate at school and had intended to enter the Training College in 1934. The college had closed, however, and later he had joined the Railways Department. He enlisted to go overseas with the third echelon and was passed as medically nt, but was later called into the Railway Construction Unit and proceeded to the Middle East with it. Towards the end of last year he returned to New Zealand with his unit. The first suggestion that the men of this unit received implying that their leave was different from that of the furlough men was about a week before the ship arrived in New Zealand. They were told then that after a month s leave they would return to work in the Railways Department. After his return. Mr Stevens said, the appellant was cn leave without pay, and for three months received a pension of 12s a week. “It seems absurd for a grade I man to receive a pension,” he commented. y "“If a man is temporarily unfit, how can he be grade I? ” The appellant said that he was working a 40-hour week at Burnside. As a r £. su i t of the present coal shortage and its effect, h° had to work six days to make up his 40 hours. A grade I single man who wo iked opposite him also worked a 4 - hoifr week. Two men who had returned at the same time had been released to do to other work. Mr Stevens: Is there any overtime worked there?— Practically none. Desire to Improve Position

The question of the appellant s grading was no concern of the committee, but his future was, Mr Stevens said. He had enlisted to serve his country with the armed forces, and it was not his fault that he had been transferred to the Construction Unit. Men who had not been overseas were being released for other work. There should be no differentiation between grade I and grade II men so far as work was .concerned, he said. In fact, one would expect a grade II man to be retained and a grade I man to be mobilised. Moore was a returned married man with one child, and Mr Stevens contended that he should be retained. He emphasised the fact that the Railways Department ha f n^ + . appared to oppose the appeal, and that there was ro evidence to show that he could not be spared at Burnside. The appellant wished to rehabilitate himself in a new avenue, and he urged the committee to allow his release. . Mr Grantham: I feel that he could rehabilitate himself in the Railways DeDartment. He is too good for a per ter, I know, but he could better himself in another position.”