Union Against Long Hair

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31093, 23 June 1966, Page 14

Union Against Long Hair

The executive committee of the Canterbury and Westland Coach and Motor-body Builders’ Union has resolved that long-haired members of the union should get their hair cut. A long-haired member of the union had been injured when his hair tangled in an electric drill. Had the bit not snapped, the youth would probably have been killed, said the union's secretary (Mr L. C. J. Southon) yesterday. i “Not many members of I our union have excenI tionally long hair.” said ■ Mr Southon. “But on my ■ visits to some Christ-

church workshops I have seen some with shoulderlength hair.”

Mr Southon said his executive committee felt that some rule should be enforced to have hair at a reasonable length. When asked to define "reasonable length,” Mr Southon said: “So that I can distinguish what is a boy and what is a girl.”

Mr Southon said that the union would accept hair as being of “reasonable length” when it would not tangle in moving machinery. He said the union had agreed that its representatives to apprenticeship committees be instructed

to discuss, when the committees next met, the problem of workers with shoulder-length hair, to see whether regulations could be framed for their own protection and that of those who worked close to them.

Long-haired youths, said Mr Southon, were a definite hazard in Christchurch industry. Long beards were also a hazard in industry where there was fastmoving machinery, said Mr Southon.

“The wearers run the risk of getting them singed in the coachbuilding industry, there is extensive use of welding apparatus.”