WOMEN AND WORK

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 144, 7 March 1918, Page 2

WOMEN AND WORK

CONSIDERED BY ARBITRATION COURT. Some interesting remarks relative to the employment of female labour were made in the' Arbitration Court yesterday during the consideration of the grocers' employees' dispute. Mr. W. A. Grenfell, who appeared for the Employers' Association, asked the Court to insert a clause in the new award empowering grocers to employ female help at a minimum wage of 30s. a week. An emphatic protest was registered against this proposal' by Mr. M. J. Iteardon, who appeared for the union. He said that the employers were seek* ing to take advantage of the war with the object of overriding the union and forcing members thereof into the necessity of accepting a lower wage.' The speaker added that the effect of this proposal would also bs to lower the wages of a number of girls at present engaged in the grocery calling. These gins had for years been receiving the minimum wage under the award ot £2 17s. 6d. Now, however, the employers wished to differentiate and to flood the shops with underpaid girls, Incidentally it was important to note that they did not propose that this provision should remain operative only during the war. Turning to Great Britain, Mr. Reardon pointed out that before allowing the substitution of female labour in certain work the Government insisted that the system should be abolished immediately the war was over. The president of the Court (Mr. Justice Stringer) here asked Mr. Grenfell whether the employers put forward the proposal as applicable ' for only the term of the war. Mr. Grenfell answered in the negative, and contended that 110 reasonable argument could be advanced agaiust the retention of the proposed clause for all time. Ho put into the Court a copy of a trade publication showing that since' the war began women assistants had come to stay in the grocers' shops in Scotland. "It does not matter," commented Mr. lleardon, "what happens to (lie men now at the front!" Evidence was given by Mr. H. D. Bennett, a master grocer, in which lie stressed the point that the necessity for the dilution of labour in grocers' shops was a matter not so much for the present as for the future. The grocers found that the scarcity of labour would become even greater than that at present experienced. The employment of women at a lower wage than the minimum would relieve the situation. At the same time Mr. Bennett pointed out that a woman was not as efficient all round as a man, and he had found in the grocery trade that their avenues of usefulness were restricted to certain lines of work. A woman could not do the same work as a man. She could be given only a certain class of work to perform, and for that class of-work the grocors thought it .unfair that they should be compelled to pay them (as at the present) the minimum wage allowed a first-class hand. After further argument the Court reserved its decision in this and other points coming under the grocers' award.