STATE LOTTERY

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LV, Issue 17609, 27 October 1931, Page 9

STATE LOTTERY

CLERKS MOVE FOR MORE PAY SYDNEY, Oct. 13. It was sure to come! Glcrks working amid the luxuries of a building that cost £1,500,000 to erect could not be expected to continue to work at an ordinary salary or to use the ordinary equipment of an office. The State lottery has only been going for a few months, but it has a staff of 2(50 employees, with a tendency to grow as the popularity of the department extends.

When the first appointments were made it was announced that the clerks were different from any other clerks, arid they had been appointed at a wage which one and all agreed to accept, and, moreover, they were willing to work overtime without any extra pay. 3n fact, for the joy of getting a job in tho'Government service they were willing to do anything. And nobody blamed them. One week they missed their pay. That did not matter; it only served to prove that they were really and truly Government servants, and shared the joys and sorrows of a full or an, empty treasury.

To-day things have changed. They have watched something like half a million of money flow into the Treasury, and they believe they are entitled to a little bit more, and some of the comforts of a civilised lottery office. They want seats with backs and cushions, morning and afternoon tea, and payment as high as £ls 14s a week, extra pay if they do not got a desk near the window, where they can watch the sights of the city, and a lot more things that wore not in the contract when first they approached the boss for a job. llow success does change people! llow. the sound of jingling coins dropping into a cash box makes people believe that they have a right to have a fuller share of it!

When the payment was first arranged full'consideration of. the value of the services of each one engaged was given, and though it cannot be said that anyone is overpaid, not one is being underpaid. If anything,-the department, is overstaffed, and if it cannot be worked for less it should dispense with more , than half iho staff, and work through agents on the ticket percentage basis, making the agents pay themselves by the sale of their own tickets. It has been stated that from tise first two or three lotteries there was hardly any profit, arid there is very little now for the hospitals, although 12 lotteries are well on the way. Any further increase in the management expenses might placo the Government in the position of having to come to the rescue and pay the departmental employees from, other moneys, there not being sufficient of the lottery money to go round to the prize winners and the staff.