WOMEN v MEN

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 7, Issue 23, 12 November 1943, Page 5

WOMEN v MEN

WORK IN PUBLIC SERVICE

XOT A MODERN EXPERIMENT

The employment of women in industries and also in some 1 of the public services is looked upon in present times as a war emergency, but it is by no means an innovation. In an old copy of a paper called The British Workman, dated December, IS9G, which was unearthed recently, accounts were, given of the employment of women on railways iii Australia and as street cleaners in Cannes,, France. "In Victoria, N.5.W,," the paper aaiiV ''women have now been" substituted for men at no fewer than 200 railway stations. The result has been a saving of £30.,000 per year in salaries. The average wage paid to a station-mistress is £20 per year, whereas men used to receive £150." Those were evidently not the days of equal pay for equal work. 1-n the reference to street cleaning Hie paper said: '•The streets of Cannes are probably the cleanest in the Avorld. The pavement generally i.s of large blocks of stone. Every morning and every evening the street-cleaning brigade takes possession. They work in regiments, and are all women, with a woman foreman. They move along one after another, so that the dust one misses the next or the next is sure to sweep up. Three or four of these women sweep the whole street and they work their way very slowly but unceasingly. You never see one stop to rest and they are .silent. Their brooms arc made of brushwood. and they sweep with the sides, not with the ends."