How Happy Are Bank Officers?

Chronicle (Levin), 24 February 1949, Page 2

How Happy Are Bank Officers?

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WELLliN GTUjN , T eu. _o. "If all the statements made by tlie wituQSses produced in this Gourt were taken without cross-examination and questioning a very weird and incoriect pieture of a bank officer's life would be accepted, " said Mr. W. J. Mountjoy, the advocate for the Associated Banks, when the hearing of the New Zealand bank officers' dispute was resumed in the Arbitration Court today. Mr. Mountjoy said a witness had made damaging statements about entries in the attendance book at his bank. However, on being aslced to give specific instances of falsilicatiou of these entries he had admitted that his own hours had not been tampered with. Another witness, added Mr. Mountjoy, had contended that he had made false entries in the attendance book because he did not want to disclose that he could not do his work in the ordinary daily hours. If his actual hours had been shown it might have retarded his progress in the bank's service. In his submissions Mr, Mountjoy claimed that there had been no proof whatever. given of any . occasion on which a banlc officer had suffered unfair treatment because of an unfavourable report, nor had ahy proof been given of the union's allegations tliat bank officials endured a life of drudgery. "Oue hesitates to place any importance 011 the wild and irresponsible statements that have been' made. in the union's submissions," said Mr. Mountjoy. He submitted that bank officers liad of late years had their work simplilied by the introdueed of machines which had replaced the need ior a great deal of concentrated written work. Referring to the statements 'by the union that bank workers had been "literally trapped into what must inevitably be to them a merely routine 3xistenee, " Mr. Mountjoy said the fact that many thousands of workers were liappilv employed in banks today disprov.ed this. "Oue haJT'oiily to look at the bank officers seated 011 both sides of the table at this Court today to judge for himself whether those officers look like 'trapped or downtrodden individuals'," said Mr. Mountjoy. Concluding the employers' case, Mr. Mountjoy said that no evidence would be called by him. The hearing adjourned at, midrlay.