UNDERPAID BANK CLERKS

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 178, 23 April 1919, Page 8

UNDERPAID BANK CLERKS

Sir—Will you permit me to add a few words to thoso already spoken, on behalt ot the overworked underpaid bank clerks, whose lives arc so■' hard and whose prospects are so hopeless. There flip hundreds of these unfortunate men who, after from ten to '..twenty years' service' do not receive tho wages of a skilled mechanic. They have families to support, high rents and prices to pay, and at the end of each month do not know how to turn to make both ends meet. They are required to be well dressed and cheerful and civil to tho Customers and their fellow-officers ami superiors, and all tho time bear tho constant carking 'care- impecuniosity, coupled with domestic responsibility, brings—so lone at, th" family is healthy they rub along, but if there is any sickness and its attendant expense they ko behind in their finance, and cannot make it lip. They cannot afford to take a. holiday, and they grub along disheartened, their energies sapped, and their whole lives embittered. The managers, inspectors, and other highly placed officers, calmly tell them their turn will come, and the juniors will receive promotion, but these seniors know full well that times are changed, and that not one in ten of the present juniors can set promotion, because there is not room for it;. Most of (ho banks are managed at headquarters, bv septuagenarians, who cannot do a (lav's work, but draw princely salaries, and having social mtluenco, manage to keep their positions. T nm a shareholder in four banks doing business in New Zealand, and have no cause to complain of the dividends, 'but T would gladly receive less, if tho sweating of the bank officers is slopped and fair treatment accorded them. If something is not done soon, tho general meeting of shareholders most be the place to bring up the subject, and if 1 succeed in retting a few shareholders in each bank I nm interested iu to join, we shall tell the general management some plain truths, and force upon them the conviction that wo do not want out dividends wrung from human lives, t enclose, my card.—l am, etc., A BANK SHAEEHOLDES,