DOMESTICS AND UNIONS.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXV, Issue 2022, 6 March 1907, Page 1

DOMESTICS AND UNIONS.

The Wairarapa Times has a fatherly article on the above subject, in which it states:—“lf, at this crisis in the history of domestic service in New Zealand, we say to the domestic worker, “Leave that weird concoction, the Arbitration Act, alone,” we do so in the friendliest possible spirit, and with a desire to help workers to whom we have, ourselves, been indebted for much willing and kindly service. What Mr Toni Taylor calls “the mechanical arrangements,’” of the Act, won’t hold men together, and how on earth can they be expected to hold the other sex? The average man thinks twice before he breaks a technical provision of a law; but the average woman does not think at all —she just breaks it and risks all consequences. Tho fair sex is privileged to a certain extent; but, under the Arbitration Act, her privileges will altogether disappear. The Act gives a maid power to dragoon her mistress; but alas ! it also gives the mistress power to dragoon her maid. “The mechanical arrangements” wo have spoken of bind both parties, and, in our opinion, both parties will break them on an average a dozen times a day. The maid may deem it a fine thing to make her mistress “sit-up” in an Arbitration ■ Court for a technical breach of the law; but, when the maid, in her turn, is brought before Mr Justice Sim and fined two pounds and costs, how will she feel? Of course,' if domestic workers want a special and trying experience, let them bring their Union before the Arbitration Court and try their luck. They may as well have a run for their money. But a domestic worker, who joins a Union, loses her individual liberty and becomes in law “a slavey.” Not “a slavey” to a tyrannical mistress, for any domestic worker can relieve herself of this position by giving a week’s notice, but “a slavey” to a Union and to all its mechanical restrictions. By joining a Union she places herself in a position to be punished under the Arbitration Act for any failure of observances which will then hedge in her service. Of these conditions she probably knows little, and, perhaps, she will learn them best by a practical experience under the Act itself. If good advice would help any domestic worker we would say to her, “Don’t fool with Unions. Do your work well, draw the highest wages it will command, put all the money you can spare in the Post Office Savings Bank, and don’t rest satisfied until you yourself becomes mistress of a household!”