MIDDLE-AGED EMPLOYERS

Hokitika Guardian, 14 November 1930, Page 2

MIDDLE-AGED EMPLOYERS

AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL PROBLEM.

SAN FRANCISCO, October 3,

One of the leading authorities on industrial safety in the United States is" Commissioner Will J. French, director of the California State Department of Industrial Relations, an official who -is recognised as one of the foremost in the world as an originator of “safety, first” methods. He is a native of Auckland, New Zealand, and has had a most notable career in Western - America, championing the cause of the workers. He has just attracted considerable public attention in California by issuing an ultimatum to the effect that industry must find some means'of utilising the mature skill of middle-aged and elderly men, ’Or face the costly alternative of the lowering of the age limit to which State pensions must apply. He said that elderly workers cannpt be simply discarded. They represent a social and industrial problem of (he utmost importance, and it had to be met properly, He blamed prejudicial personnel policies, business mergers, and industrial pension plans for a new attitude wnich sacrifices workers of advanced age, despite their mental and physicial qualifications. Summarising: 2.808 confidental reports received from Californian employers, Commissioner French had found that the older workers find : curtailment of employment through arbitrary age limits. While only 11 per cent.. qf ; the firms reporting had fixed age limits, they hire $) per cent, of the men ’employed, And although the other concerns have no definite policy; according to them managements, investigation . proves nevertheless that younger workers are favoured.

“Maximum hiring age limits have a demoralising effect not only on those who are refused employment because of their ages, but also upon other workers'employed in the establishments, says the bulletin- issued by Commissioner Freneh j which adds: “The refusal to hire ’ middle-aged and older persons is all the more deplorable m view of the fact that, in the latest three decades there has been a, great increase in the number of such persons in the , United States.”