FRIENDLY SOCIETIES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 30 September 1940, Page 2

FRIENDLY SOCIETIES

HANDLING OF SICK PAY. DOMINION COUNCIL CRITICISED. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) DUNEDIN, September 29. 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 in Wellington for its negotiations with the Social Security Department over sick pay due to lodge members. The speakers, Provincial Treasurer W. R. Sellar and P.P.G.M. 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. 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.