ECONOMY MEASURES

Southland Times, Issue 21362, 7 April 1931, Page 7

ECONOMY MEASURES

POSTAL OFFICERS RETIRED. QUICKER PROMOTION FOR JUNIORS. Valedictory paragraphs in newspapers all over New Zealand recently have shown that senior officers of the Post and Telegraph Department are being retired in abnormally large numbers, and a certain amount of criticism has been aroused. In the ordinary course an officer of the department may be retired on superannuation upon completing 40 years’ service or reaching the age of 60. As the average age of entry has been, and still is, 15 or 16 years, this means that an officer leaves the service at 55 or so, when he should still be in his prime, with five years or more of potentially useful work ahead of him (states the Auckland correspondent of the Christchurch Times). Besides applying the normal rule, the department is said to have encouraged a number of senior officers to retire after only 38 or 39 years’ service, and a number have, in fact, done so, at some small sacrifice of superannuation. Moreover, clauses have been introduced into the Finance Bill to allow public servants to retire voluntarily or to be retired compulsorily some years ahead of their time. It is proposed that in such cases superannuation benefits are to be retained subject to adjustments which will allow’ as large a rate of pension as possible to be paid, without putting a greater charge upon the fund than there would be if they remained for a normal term.

Such early retirements must be a doubtful economy, since they add to the number of men drawing comparatively large pensions. On the other hand, the department has made an indirect saving by doing away with certain posts and rearranging the work so that it is done by subordinate officers at lower salaries than the previous holders. Postal officers consider that the department is “working a point” in this, but the early retirement plan is popular among them, because it opens avenues of promotion that otherwise would be blocked for years. The first Dominion Conference of the Post and Telegraph Officers’ Guild last year passed a resolution endorsing compulsory retirement after forty years’ service. Perhaps a more compelling reason for the policy is that the staff of the department shows a natural decrease, and few cadets are being accepted this year. An alternative means of retrenchment would be to discharge junior officers, who would be thrown upon the labour market with little or no hope of getting other work. In October last the Postmaster-General, the Hon. J. B. Donald, stated that the staff had shrunk by nearly 1000 since 1925. This seems to have been due partly to the completion of the programme of new trunk telegraph and telephone lines and automatic exchanges in the larger cities, and to the installation of multiplex telegraphy. Since parcel post rates were increased, and the maximum weight of parcels was reduced, there has been a heavy fall in this class of business, much of which has been diverted, no doubt intentionally, to the railways. These factors seem almost a complete explanation of the early retirements.