YOUTH LABOUR ON FARMS

Dominion, Volume 36, Issue 23, 22 October 1942, Page 4

YOUTH LABOUR ON FARMS

Scheme For Holidays FARMERS’ APPLICATIONS WANTED EARLY Because of the acute shortage ot firm labour, a special effort is being made this year to interest secondary schoolboys of 14 years or more in taking farm employment during their summer holidays. The scheme was outlined yesterday .by the secretary of the Government Youth Centre in Wellington, Mr. S. H. Petersen. During the last two years, he said, many hundreds of boys had been sent to farmers and the arrangement had, in most cases, proved most satisfactory both to them and to their employers. Often boys, after being employed a first time, had returned to the same farm on subsequent holidays, not only at Christmas but also at the end of term. The boys worked well, many of them, in fact, being strong and exceptionally fit young men of 17 to IS years. Special care was taken to see that conditions on the farms were suitable. Farmers were informed that boys, particularly if under 16 years of age, should preferably live and have their meals with the family. If they lived apart, their accommodation should be comparable with that of the family, with access to the same or similar toilet and bath facilities. In no circumstances should they be required to have their meals or spend their evenings alone. It was stipulated that_ their work must be reasonably con-' genial, not just the work the farmer did not care to tackle.himself, and that it must be reasonably suited to their physique and age. It could include such work as general farm work, haymaking, harvesting, linen flax harvesting, market gardening and tomato growing, fruit picking, grading and packing. Not less than award wages must be paid, though it was thought that some farmers might offer more. For sheep and dairy-farm hands the award, plus keep in all cases, was: Under 17, £l/2/-; 17 to 18, £l/9/-; 18 to 19, £l/16/-. The farmer must refund the youth’s return transport to the farm if he stayed a month or more. For the success of the scheme it was necessary that farmers should make known their requirements before the end of the school term, said Mr. Petersen. Primary Production Councils were being asked this year to see that the applications were lodged in time and that the conditions on the farms were suitable. Farmers interested in the scheme were to be given application forms, which were to ‘be filled in by them and sent to the Primary Production Council. The council would add its comment on the farm conditions and forward the applications to the local district manpower officer by November 28. If he was unable to fill a vacancy from suitable schoolboy labour available in his own district, he would send the application to the secretary of the nearest Government Youth Centre in. Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch or Dunedin, who would theu negotiate directly with the farmer concerned. Applications should reach youth centres not later than December

° Mr. Petersen said that 165 scholars from Wellington and Hutt Valley secondary and technical' schools had already indicated that they would lie available for farm labour during the summer holidays.