R.A.F. MAN OFFERED £84 A YEAR JOB

Rotorua Morning Post, Issue 5299, 11 January 1947, Page 2

R.A.F. MAN OFFERED £84 A YEAR JOB

In 1941, before he joined the R.A.F. \s a teleprinter operator, Frank Mar.ine, of Easter Road, Edinburgh, vorlced for £49 a year as'a 20-year-ild office boy in a firm of shippingigents. When he returned he was offered his old job back at £84 a year. At Edinburgh the chairman of the Reinstate.ment Tribunal (Professor Alexander Gray) told the manager of che tirm — Messrs. Molfat and Warden, -)£ Leith — that the offer was absur ! It seemed incred'ible that in 1941 sw'h a wage exsted for a person of 20. "Were you seriously meaning this offer of £84 a year?" he asked. Martine' nodded agreement when Professor 'Gray, with a smile, told him: "I think you should pull your socks up and find another job." The Tribunal," with "some compunction in isstuing a reinstatement order at a wage so low," ordered that the firm should pay Martine £132 a year. When the firm's manager said it was the custom for boys employed by them to find other jobs at 17 or 18, Professor Gray said: "Well, it is >a most undesirable custom to -engage people and then have tbem leave at that age without giving them a proper training. Anyway, this boy was kept on until he was 20. "Even if you were going to kick people out if yoo have no place for them, it shouild be done earlier."