for Women

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIII, Issue 175, 27 July 1942, Page 5

for Women

WOMEN IN FORCES

QUESTION OF PAY

UNIFORMITY DEMANDED

A demand for equal pay and similar conditions for women in the three branches of the armed services, the army, the navy and the air force, was made at a mass meeting held in the Civic Theatre, Christchurch, to recruit women to the forces, states the Press. "Can you tell me why it is that members of the W.A.A.F. living on the station receive 11/ a week less than is allowed women members of the army?" asked a male member of the audience, when the chairman, Miss M. B. Howard, chairman of the District Committee of the Women's War Service Auxiliary, declared the meeting open for questions.

Cries of "Hooray!" and applause.

Miss Howard: There, you see. You all want to know the answer, but it took a man to ask the question. Mrs. F. I. Kain, a supervisor of the Women's Auxiliary Air Force, said that she could only say that the Minister of Defence, Mr. Jones, had emphatically said that there was to be uniformity among tne services.

Miss Howard: The Women's War Service Auxiliary intends to take this up with the Government. I think it's only fair that all three services have as nearly the same conditions as possible, especially with regard to pay and hours. I'd like to see the air force knock off their extra four hours. In fact I'd like to see them knock off eight hours and the army four hours because I believe in the 40-hour week.

Another member of the audience asked how it was that on certain stations members of the Women's Auxiliary Air Force were living 10 to a cottage and having 7/6 a week deducted from their pay as rent, and yet the same cottages had been let previously as married quarters at a much lower rental.

The reply was given that the 7/6 a week was not solely for Housing, but was part of the general rationing and quartering charge of 25/ a week.

The complaint was still made that this was a higher rate than that allowed for in the army.