The Daily News SATURDAY, DECEMBER 1. POST OFFICE MATTERS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVII, Issue 81897, 1 December 1906, Page 2

The Daily News SATURDAY, DECEMBER 1. POST OFFICE MATTERS.

THE PoSima-ter-General having boon .1 postal official Himself, pr >bab y knows what son of a struggle \ic clerk has in order to make boih ends meet. He had ihe mal-ti-i of salaries brought forcibly before him on a recent occasion and the championing of the cause of the postal officer has had one desirab e effc-t —it has raised the ?cale of salaries, i lmirly, as we pointed out 111 an article, tue sea e of cleiks waa from X.115 '0 j£ißo per annum. It was pat to the P,s.mas cr General t.iat the co=t of .iving having naturally increased, that postal cleiks were badly paid in comparison to clerks in piivate employ and workers generally.

The Postmasier-Geiici'a.' has seen the justice of the contentions, and tie new scale i> from £IOO per annum to £2OO. Under the new scheme the /.'l5O-a-year man must pa-s an examination, the nature of which is njt yet known, before he can qualify fot at increase, and when he geis £\Zo per annum he musi pas, a furiher exanrnation. After 17 years' efficient service he may now earn ,£220 per annum, which is a distinci but only jus! recognition that previously he was a "bond-slave." While w'e congratulate the high officials of the past office on their endeavor to understand the poinis '.ve tried to make, w c distinctly do not congratulate them on the sweating tactic- wnicli they indulge in to an extent that if indulged 111 by private employes would bring the Government authorities roaming round to know the reason why. The postal officer works more overtime for less money than any per-on in any employ, .Government 0 r private, in this countiy. it is a strong statement, but here is the fact. The post office, which pays the Treasury handsomely, hates to pay the men who make the Department a success for the hours they work.

THE postal officer must work gG hours a fortnight before ii e can get anv overtime at all in the ordinary course of duty. To die discredit of the high officers of the Department be it said that they work this overtime ma-tei with exceeding cunning. Tirey recognise tha a man may be made *c, work 12 hours every otiier dav. and stil get no overtime pay. . Xot e the beauty of the Departmental ukase i.ut. calls on any peison in the postal service to ro.l up foi duly on any holiday. On these holiday- oveiy man must work three hours befoie he ieniitled to receive overtime pay. Tnere is no reason tor this except tniri the Depaitment says it musi be so. The Government gets thousands oi uours' oven ime oui of the postal and telegraphic officers per month without paying a penny tor it.

The man who goes to work—and hard work, too—on Christmas Day, when everyone else is talking about "peade, goodwill to man," doe-n't ge. any peace and hasn't any goed will towards the law that says he shad work from i> a.m. til. noon for I/O—one hour oveit.me pay. If 'ihis is not a scandal we would like to kr.ow of -omcimng th.it is a scanda' to iiirict Uk. aut.iotiiics upon. Tin thought that exceedingly able men on whom the perfection of the posta i arrangements of the country depend, an slogging aW ay as haid as they can go lor nothing at ad hours Ji the day and night, are liable to be cal cd at any time when mails aie due, to work for nothing, aie liab'e to be calied non-efficient and to b-di-qualified under t.iu new scale foi alight offences. All this constitutes a scandal, and is a crying disgiace to post office administration.

WHAT private employer in allowed to device cunning regulation to rob lii-. workers of owrt.me.' What cm ployei can perempiori y call on his men to turn up at any hour of the day or night to woik three hours foi nothing? And while this infamt goes on ill tne post office other blanches of the Civil Service are diyrolten '.vieh idleness. Departments under the same control as the post office absolutely have to invent '.vork. The work of the post office is nevei dene; it never wr.l be done. The loafer who takes a whole morni g to clean a bra-s tap in another Department gets as much as a eleik 11 the post office with ten years' service. He geis no overtime work. Despite the lifting of some of the "bond slave''" burden, he is stil in-the miie as far as the perfidious overtime system exists. It is to be hoped that the Fo-tmaster-Geueral will see the extreme unfair lies-, of this system, and will devise means by which the po ta. officials shall he paid for tne work tney actually peifoim. Jt only lequires a private empoyer of iiad.'s unionists to cal out his men to work tine hours extra for nothing, to make the Government see the enoi of that emloyei's way, and stop him suddenly. It it c°ulj only take its own medicine !