POST AND TELEGRAPH

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2482, 8 June 1915, Page 7

POST AND TELEGRAPH

THE ANNUAL CONFERENCE. Tho Post and Telegraph Association Ccnforence continued its sittings yesterday. The following decisions, _ among others, wero arrived at during tho day:— That conference is of the opinion thatthe regulation requiring candidates for the Public Servico Senior Examination to perform eighty hours practical work is impracticable, and that the regulation he abolished. That in view of the Commissioner's expressed opinion that the district accountants should be advanced to the £■('25 grade, this conference urges upon tho Commissioner the desirability of placing the chief mail clerks at Wellington and Auckland on the same footing as the Money Order and Savings Bank branch. That conference is of opinion fir the difference in salary of officers in Subdivisions 4 and 5 of the Sixth Class is insufficient, and that officers holding executive positions in the Sixth Class should be raised to the Fifth Class. That where officers perform duties in another branch, other than that in which they are classified, the Department be asked to state the minimum term an officer is required to servo in such branch befora iis classification can bo altered. That the lodging allowance he the same for clerical and lion-clerical divisions. That officers wlio are undor the Superannuation Act, and have arrived at tho ago of sixty years, should bs compulaorily retired. That this conference, representing the Department having by far the largest interest in the Public Servieo Superannuation Fund, urges upon tho Government the necessity of placing the investment of the funds in the i hands of al, properly-constituted epccial investment board. That the Government be asked to make tho widows' pensions granted under the Public Service Superannuation Act, £26 per annum instead .of £16 per annum, as at present. Note: £18 was fixed when the old age pension was that sum. The old age pension has been increased to £26, but the pension to officers' widows remains at tho altogether inadequate sum of £18. That, this conference respectfully requests the Government to so amend the Act relating thereto to enable officers to forego a portion of their pension in order that their widows' pension may be made up to a minimum of £52 per annum. That the Superannuation Board be asked to arrange that subscribers to the fund wishing to build or buy homos be permitted to borrow from' the fund at a reasonable rate of interest.-