STRONG CRITICISM.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20328, 11 June 1934, Page 7

STRONG CRITICISM.

Mr Archer on Tramway Judgment. “WOULD NEVER HAVE STOOD." Strong criticism of the recent judgment of the Tramway Appeal Board was expressed by the chairman, the Rev J. K. Archer, at to-day's meeting of the Christchurch Tramway Board. After making some outspoken comment on the effect of the judgment on the edministration of the service, Mr Archer said: “It is time we were allowed to manage our own business. The further we go under the domination of the Appeal Board the worse things get—and it is not only as far as the board is concerned—things are unsatisfactory to the management and to the staff. If I had known we were going to be subjected to this sort of thing I would never have stood for election to the board.”

Mr Archer said that he did not want always to be harping on the judgments, but this time it was not a political or a party question but resulting difficulties in the operation of the service. In Ignominious Position.

“ We have been placed in an ignominious position by the judgments,” said Mr Archer. Saying that he would not have sought election had he known what was going to happen, he added that he never believed in being a marionette and he would not start now.

Referring to the effect of the judgment. Mr Archer said that there were in the service some men who were not suited to being conductors. The men knew it and it was no reflection on them or their work. The men were suited for other work but the judgment prevented them from being transferred. The management and the men preferred the transfer but the board’s hands were tied “ like a lot of school children,” he said. “ Then this seniority nonsense,” Mr Archer went on. Many of the men were dissatisfied. They were given senior positions but not senior pay.

“ DISMISS THE LOT.”

Tramway Staff Problem Suggestion.

That the Tramway Board should “ sack ” its entire traffic staff and reorganise with the most efficient employees was a suggestion made at a meeting of the board to-day by Mr G. Manning. Members were discussing the effects of the Tramway Appeal Board judgments. “ We have reached an impasse,” said Mr Manning. “The old board was not challenged when it reorganised the staff after the strike, and I do not think that this board would be challenged.”

He declared that the Courts would not judge in favour of Labour. The board should take matters into its own hands by dismissing the traffic staff.

Mr C. E. Jones: You would need an excuse.

Mr Manning: We have got an excure.

The chairman (the Rev J. Iv. Archer) said that the suggestion had previously been considered. It would have been all right to dismiss the staff before the Appeal Board judgments. To do so now would put the board in the light of defying the Appeal Board. A writ of mandamus might be obtained in the Supreme Court to stop the move.

Mr C. E. Jones: Why can they not get senior pay? Mr Archer said that on account of the award the men were in such a position that they could not get it. A Cage Quoted. Mr Archer quoted a case of an employee who had been twenty years in the service. lie was an excellent servant of the board and a good citizen generally, but now he was junior to a man with two years’ service and a lesser ability. Naturally, such cases led to some feeling. The question was what was the basis of seniority. The Appeal Board considered that the men who went on strike broke their service. That question was nothing to do with the Appeal Board and in making a decision on that basis the Appeal Board was going outside its jurisdiction. “We say that there was no such break in service, which should be reckoned from when the men joined the service,” said Mr Archer. Mr Archer referred particularly to the case of bus drivers. ‘‘On account of this extraordinary judgment, two men who were lucky enough to be bus drivers, when they were derated by us, have been put back with permanent, monopoly positions,” he added. It was not intended by the old board that these positions should be permanent. They were the best paid job* and were meant to pass round. If a bus driver taken off such work by the old board had appealed he would have been unsuccessful, but because this action was taken by the present board, the appeal had succeeded. r But it was not a question of board against board, but of staff, said Mr Archer, who pointed out that when the board wanted to increase its buses, it would be. ynable to train drivers by temporarily standing down the present drivers. The result was that new buses would be driven by inexperienced men or men without recent experience.