AUCKLAND GUARDS FAVOUR A BREAK

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 341, 30 April 1928, Page 9

AUCKLAND GUARDS FAVOUR A BREAK

UNION SECRETARY'S TALK A.S.R.S. DISAPPROVES Apparently the report that the railway guards were organising a union of their own has not met with the approval of the controlling body of the A.S.R.S. On Saturday morning Mr. Lewis Mi - Ilvride, secretary of the A.S.R.S., arrived from Wellington, and at two o’clock yesterday afternoon he ad - dressed a special mass meeting of the organisation on sectionalism within the union. Only a few of the guards in th Auckland area attended the meeting and it is believed that these men wer* neary all in favour of not breaking away from the A.S.R.S. However, the majority of the guard at Auckland favour a break. The\ state that while they are attached the A.S.R.S. they have no hope of ini proving their status. At the time ti. drivers and firemen broke away the were getting only sixpence a day mor than the guards, but now their ratecf pay are about 4s a day more. It was explained that l • Wtn fund of the A.S.R.S. now amounts i • £30,000. to which the guards have con tributed a large proportion. They see no prospect of benefiting from tlia fund.

“I have been paying into the fund for well over 20 years." said one guard this morning. “Recently a move ?»• vote £5,000 from the fund to tlv ‘Maori land Worker’ was thrown out. principally because the guards voted against it, but previous to that the sum of £I,OOO was voted to the ‘Worker’.” At yesterday’s meeting, at the conclusion of Mr. Mcllvride’s address, t' following resolution was carried un&ni mously: “That this mass meeting, representative of all sections of railwaymen, strongly deprecates the action of a certain section of our member ship, as reported In the Press, in their endeavour to disintegrate the society, which has been of such inestimable value to them in the past It further reaffirms determination to remain loyal to the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants, which has weathered so many storms, and is our only protection.”