A WIVES' TRADE UNION.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10710, 30 September 1912, Page 4

A WIVES' TRADE UNION.

;vir Georgo Lansbury, M.P., in a recent article in a London nowspaper, recommends the wives of working men to form themselves into a trade union with a view to securing some relief from the perpetual drudgery which at present fills their lives. He, does ( not suggest that women should dis- I obey St. Paul's injunction and combine against their husbands, but that they should combine to place their work under better and more eonvenii ent conditions. A wives' trade union, [Mr Lansbury suggests, could compel | the municipality to organise a supply lof boiling water to reach home. Washr ing day could bo completely reorganis- [ e<l by the provision for each group ol 1 houses) of" a model wash-house, with [ up-to-date labour-saving .machinery and drying-horses, nil put up by the ! municipality and to be used at the i lowest fee consistent with business- ! like administration. Something, might jalso be attempted, .lie consider?, in the wav of providing facilities for the recreation of women, and he suggests the reorganisation of working men's clubs on lines which would make these institutions proper places to which a man could take his wife and daughters fr-r an evening's entertainment. n-irls employed in shops and offices should ho "included in the union, and should bo helped to demand before mnrria.™ conditions of life calculated to give women a chance of intelligent development. The question of wager, for '.vives would also come within the scope of the union's activities. Men would be obliged to realise that housej work is as real work and as hard work as any other. Mr Lansbury admits that tho time may not yet be ripe for a union such as he suggests, hut he appeals .to the mothers' unions organ--1 ised by various churches to quit the idle, discussion of things that don't 1 really matter and discuss thp actual ' grievances of working women.