Sundry Vested Rights
The Post Office gives those counter men of London and Dublin who receive or pay money over the counter, a risk allowance, for the purpose of reimbursing them for any errors that they may make in dealing with the public. No such allowance is given to the postal clerks in any other city; nor are such allowances paid by railway companies or other private employers. Upon the provincial Post Office clerks making a demand for equal treatment with the London and Dublin clerks, the Department decided to discontinue the allowances in London and Dublin “as to future entrants to the postal service,” and under “the most sacred preservation of all existing interests.”[401] The Tweedmouth Committee endorsed this resolution, with the statement that “the rights of existing holders of risk allowances should, of course, in all cases be maintained.”
The Tweedmouth Committee suggested a new scale of pay for the several kinds of letter sorters in London. That new scale was suggested for two reasons: for the purpose of discontinuing the complex system of special allowances that had sprung up; and for the purpose of reducing the pay of several classes of sorters, the existing scale of payment being too high. The Committee proposed that all existing rights be safeguarded, saying: “Present holders of allowances should enter the [new] scale of salary at a point equal to their previous salary and allowances combined, and wherever the maximum of the present scale together with the allowances exceeds the maximum of the new scale, that, but no further excess, should be granted.”[402]
The Tweedmouth Committee also reported: “We think that the holidays of the Dublin and Edinburgh [telegram] tracers should for the future be 14 week days, the same period as London men performing the same duties, instead of 3 weeks as at present, the change as to holidays of course not applying to present members of the class.”[403]
The Tweedmouth Committee concluded that the holidays given to the letter sorters and the telegraphists in London and in the provincial towns were excessive. It proposed that the annual vacation of 21 week days during the first 5 years of service and of one month after 5 years of service, be reduced, to respectively 14 week days and 21 week days. It added: “It is not, however, suggested that this change should apply to those officers already in the service who receive a leave of 3 weeks during the first 5 years, nor is it proposed to curtail the leave granted to those officers who have already served 5 years, and are, therefore, in enjoyment of a month’s holiday.”[404]
Before the Royal Commission on Civil Establishments, 1888, Sir Reginald E. Welby, Secretary to the Treasury, testified that throughout the Civil Service the Upper Division Clerks had 48 working days’ vacation a year, besides the usual holidays. He said that but for custom, which had become “almost common law,” there was no reason for giving such a “very liberal” annual vacation. But he added that any change should be made to apply only to future entrants to the public service.[405]
In 1892 the Department increased from 21 week days, to one calendar month, the annual leave of all men in the Central Post Office, London, who were in receipt of $750 a year, or more. In the following year, 1893, the Department gave the same increase to men with $750 a year, or more, in the branch offices of Metropolitan London, and in the offices of the provincial towns. In 1895 the representatives of the men who had not obtained the increase of annual leave until 1893, appeared before the Tweedmouth Committee with the demand for ten days’ pay by way of compensation for the fact that, in 1892, they had “lost ten days.”[406]
The tenacity with which the civil servants resist any change in the conditions of service that is to their advantage, is further illustrated by the following incidents.