SOLICITOR-GENERAL TO JUDGE THE MENTAL HOSPITALS DISPUTE

Wanganui Chronicle, 7 March 1947, Page 6

SOLICITOR-GENERAL TO JUDGE THE MENTAL HOSPITALS DISPUTE

(P.A.) Wellington, March 6. “Mental hospital burses and attendants will resume call-back duty as from Friday morning,” said Mr. L. G. Anderson, acting president on the Public Service Association, to-night.

“It has been agreed with the Prime linister that the Solicitor-General hould be asked for a ruling as to

whether there was an agreement between the Public Service Commissioner and the Association that overtime should be paid from April 1, 1946, lor time worked in excess of 40 hours per week. The association has been

a -ured that effect will be given to the sc.icitor-General’s opinion. If it favours the association point of view, and, for its part, the association agrees to abide by the opinion should it prove adverse to the association.

“It only remains for me,” Mr. Anderson continued, “to express profound admiration for the way in which mental hospitals nurses, men and women, have stood loyally by their group and their association, and at the same time have meticulously honoured their original determination that patients under their care should not suffer through the dispute.”

STATEMENT BY THE PRIME MINISTER (P.A.) Wellington, March 6 The Prime Minister, Mr. Fraser, announced to-night: “As the Public Service Commissioner and the Public Service Associaticn have taken diametrically opposed views of a section of the report of the Public Service Consultative Committee providing for the payment of penal rates for overtime in respect of the date from which the payment should commence, I have decided to ask the SolicitorGeneral (Mr. H. E. Evans), as legal adviser of the Government, for his opinion in regard to: (1) the meaning of the text; (2) whether there is in the document, or in any circumstance appertaining to the document, an agreement, expressed or implied, between the Public Service Commissioner and the Public Service Association that overtime rates should be paid from April 1, 1946. If the Solici-tor-General’s opinion is to the effect that such an agreement exists, steps will be tkaen to implement it. If the Solicitor-General’s opinion is to the contrary the association has undertaken to accept and abide by that opinion.