AUCKLAND CRITICISED

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1021, 11 July 1930, Page 18

AUCKLAND CRITICISED

APATHY TOWARD RAILWAY DISMISSALS MEETING AT OTAHUHU Criticism of what was described as the apathetic attitude of the business community of Auckland toward the dismissal of casual railway hands was expressed at a lunch hour meeting of railwaymen held at the Otahuhu Railway Workshops yesterday. Mr. J. McDowell, chairman of the Otahuhu branch of the Railway Tradesmen’s Association, presided over what was belived to be the largest gathering of railway men in the history of the railway workshops. Mr. J. Elliott, chairman of tlie Newmarket branch of the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants and formerly a member of the North Island executive, addressed the meeting. He said there had been 88 dismissals in a fortnight from a total of about 1.000 men employed at the shops. It was rumoured that the staff was to be reduced to the number employed when the workshops were at Newmarket.

The retrenchment scheme being carried out in the Railway Department appeared to be forestalling the finding of the Royal Commission now sitting, said Mr. Elliott. He said that recently leaders of the Auckland Chamber of Commerce and the Employers’ Association had acquiesced in the Government’s policy of dismissing men, many of whom were returned soldiers with war disabilities. Mr. Elliott deplored the action of responsible officers in increasing by special grade the salaries of many officers who were already in receipt of from £l3 to £lB a week. The speaker also quoted figures at length showing the allowances drawn by certain superannuated railway officers. RESOLUTION PASSED The following resolution was carried:— "This mass meeting of 900 employees of the railway workshops at Otahuhu views with surprise and astonishment tlie apathy of the business community of Auckland and elsewhere in allowing the Government, without protest, to dismiss hundreds of men, thereby preventing the circulation of money and incidentally cutting off the hand which feeds both parties. We should specially emphasise the fact that scores of these men are still suffering from the horrors of the late war and are being forced to face inevitable starvation soup kitchens and doss houses. We are further of . opinion that a penal rate should be placed on all motor traffic plying for hire adjacent to the railway tracks.

“Furthermore, if the Minister is sincere in his economic research, he will immediately investigate the worthless expenditure of £7,500 on the Railway Magazine and also the comparatively huge increases which he recently granted to numbers of first division officers, some of whom had their salaries increased by creating a special grade. made retrospective to April, 1929. Some of these increases were given to men already in receipt of from £l3 to £lB a week. This was done ai a time when his own statement waj that the railway revenue was deficient to the enormous extent of £1,250,000. We earnestly desire that the public be made acquainted with at least some justification for the Minister’s action in elevating these officials, when the department and the country are reported to be in financial distress and the wage worker, who Is rendering useful service to the community, is being consigned to starvation.”