THE TRAMWAYS DISPUTE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26703, 24 February 1948, Page 3

THE TRAMWAYS DISPUTE

Sir, —m your suu-ieadei; you cuum the appeal board found that tlie bus Oliver had been dismissed for due cause. It did not. It found that dismissal was too severe a punishment for the alleged offence, thus completely vindicating the opinion of the tramway employees when the chairman of the Transport Committee was approacned. What happened was that one employee, the manager, dismissed another employee, the bus driver, and when the employer, the Transport Committee, was appealed to, the chairman adopted an uncompromising attitude and the union was forced to take the case to the appeal board. If the chairman had used the co-operation he asked the men to give, when he addressed them after taking up his appointment, the same decision could have been reached round the conference table, and all the trouble, bitterness and expense avoided. The transport department has been aware always of the way the buses are driven on the hi/ls, but .has done nothing to prevent fast driving, rather it has encouraged it and to a certain extent forced it on the drivers. For instance, the time table on the Pitt street run allows 10 minutes per trip in slack times, and this is considered reasonable by all concerned, but during rush periods when more time is necessarily taken up with loading and taking fares, and the logical thing to do is tb extend the time per trip, the department in its wisdom cuts the time to eight minutes. If this is not encouraging fast driving what is it? The question that concerns the “ average citizen,” however, is the fact that the appeal board makes it clear to both employer and employee that no boss can sack a worker without good and sufficient cause if the worker cares to assert his Dealing with the road-worthiness of rights as an employee, the bus driven by the man concerned, viz. bus 32, would you refer the following statement to the Transport Committee for comment:—On Monday night February 23, bus 32 was run in by the driver after it had gone into a dangerous, unaccountable skid when coming down Drivers road.—l am, etc., Employee. [When the last paragraph of this letter was referred to the engineer-manager of the City Corporation transport, Mr L. C. Greig, he said that he had no comment to make for publication.—Ed., O.D.T.J