TAIL WAGGING DOG

Taranaki Daily News, 30 September 1940, Page 8

TAIL WAGGING DOG

By Telegraph—Press Association.

lodge officers' view COUNCIL AND SICK PAY

Dunedin, Last Night. Describing its action as "high handed," two speakers at the halfyearly meeting of the Otago district committee of the Manchester Unity yesterday strongly criticised the Dominion Friendly Societies' Council at Wellington for its negotiations with the Social Security Department over sick pay due to lodge members. The provincial treasurer, Bro. W. R. Sellar, and P.P.G.M., Bro. P. W. Stabb, alleged that the council had taken mandatory powers which it did not possess and had led the Government to believe that lodge secretaries would service the sick pay side of the Social Security Act, with the result that circular letters to that effect had been sent out by the department. Attitude as Trustee. Bro. Stabb described the council's action as a case of the tail wagging the dog and said he refused, as a trustee, to allow social security moneys to be merged with lodge funds and then paid out again to beneficiaries by secretaries. Bro. Sellar sought the passing of a resolution to cancel affiliation with the council, but it was eventually decided to set up a special committee to consider the question of affiliation and report in six months' time.