HAMPERED BY LACK OF HELPERS

Southland Times, Issue 24874, 14 October 1942, Page 4

HAMPERED BY LACK OF HELPERS

Work At Waste Paper Depot Principally because of the shortage of voluntary workers, both men and women, work at the waste paper depot in Esk street is not running as smoothly as it might. There is ample accommodation at the depot for 12 to 15 women sorters to work at a time, but as a rule only about half this number report for duty during the morning or afternoon. Sometimes only two or three women are at work. The attendance on Monday morning is usually poor, probably because it is washing morning for the majority of women. There is, therefore, ample room for more women workers. Mrs H. R. Kingsland said yesterday that the statement that there were 60 women volunteers on the register of the depot required an explanation because if a woman had agreed to work two afternoons a week she was counted twice. Therefore the number of individual workers was not nearly as high as 60. Plenty of work could be found for more. This last statement was borne out by the huge pile of paper stacked on the ground floor waiting to be sorted. However, Mrs Kingsland said she did not wish the idea to get about that they did not want any more paper in the meantime. “People should, go on sending paper in. We have ample storage space,” she said. “Besides if we get more women workers we shall soon deal with it.” Mrs Kingsland said that another difficulty was the shortage of men workers to bale the paper. She had had promises of help, but somehow these promises had not been fulfilled. Mr W. Latham, the attendant at the depot, is to visit the Mataura paper mills today to gather information on the sorting of paper.