A BLEAK OUTLOOK.

Waikato Times, Volume 108, Issue 18066, 8 July 1930, Page 6

A BLEAK OUTLOOK.

RETRENCHED RAILWAYMEN.

REFRESHMENT BRANCH AFFECTED

Drastic retrenchments in the refreshment branch of the railway service are being made by the Government and in many cases men with records of from twelve to twenty years service have been turned adrift to swell the big-army of unemployment at a time when work is difficult to obtain and little prospect of immediate relief can be extended tligm. According to Mr C. Nordbye, lately a car attendant on the Auckland refreshment branch, who visited this office to-day, men and girls were being put off indiscriminately throughout the service. A number of these were married men with large families dependant on them and as their previous duties did not lit them for heavy work their chances of securing a livelihood was precarious at the best. Car attendants had been taken off the day expresses .and seven girls were paid off at Frankton Junction on Wednesday. The New Plymouth and Napier expresses were similarly affected. The pruning knife, said Mr Nordbye, had been employed in the South as well as the North Island. Over 100 of the refreshment branch had been dismissed. Length of service was no protection against dismissal, as the entire refreshment branch of the department were on the casual list, with the exception of highly paid officials. Referring to the statement that members of the refreshment branch were being put on to car cleaning work, Mr Nordbye pointed out that car cleaning on the Rotorua express was incorporated in the ordinary work of the refreshment branch. Car cleaners, prior to this arrangement, were receiving £4 8s on an eight-hour shift and now the work was being done on a nine-hour shift at £4 a week. “The position is what are we going to do for another job,” Mr Nordbye added. The present financial state of the country was such that made the outlook bleak indeed and every day more were being paid off.