BROAD GENERAL PLANS.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume XXXIII, Issue 8726, 27 November 1913, Page 6

BROAD GENERAL PLANS.

The United States Department of Labour has recently issued a bulletin on welfare work that makes interesting reading. In the introduction Dr Elizabeth Lewis Otey, Ph.D., the compiler, says that some working men condemn welfare work on the ground that it is tinctured with paternalism and fosters a spirit of dependence on the goodwill of the employer that is incompatible with the aims of labour, and as a result the workers never reach their full development. Furthermore, they claim that welfare work is at the expense of wages, and if the employer did not spend money on his fad the sum would be added to wages. Dr Otey points out that-"this view is based on', an assumption impossible of proof," and adds that "in the cotton industry in the South the presence or absence of welfare work bears no relation to wages." It must be obvious that in a country where wages are standardised and the labour is as powerful as it is in the United States, the employee is in iio danger of having his wages reduced because of his employer's generosity.. The ■ money spent on welfare work is simply an- addition to wages',:! not a subtraction.- v

Welfare work is now conducted on broad general plans, modified to suit special" requirements and dependent to some extent on the personality of the directing head of the firm or corporation. One of the first of the large concerns; to organise a regular welfare department, as well as one of the most liberal in its appropriations, is a company whose works are at Dayton, Ohio.^ This company's welfare department has a staff of eight persons. In the various branches of the factories the workrooms are light, airy, and sanitary, and everything is kept spotlessly clean. Lavatories are in charge of male and female attendants, fresh towels and j soap are provided free, there are bath j tubs and ..showers. Once, a week the employees may bathe at the expense of the company, for which they are allowed 25 minutes that is not deducted from their time. The women are especially well looked after. They are provided with freshly-laundered aprons and "sleevelets" twice , a week, the company maintaining, a laundry for, that purpose. In every room where women are employed there is, Dr. Otley writes, "a beautiful rest room, equipped more like a sun parlour of a luxurious hotel than the resting place for the employees of a factory. Here a, piano, easy chairs^ couches, and 'plants add to the attractiveness.". Every morning at 10 o'clock the women are allowed to rest for 10 minutes, and in j the afternoon they have a similar recess. Food is served at cost, a bowl.of soup at a penny, and coffee a halfpenny a cup. The cooks are paid by the company. There is a. restaurant for the office -force where luncheon is served at cost. The health of the employees is carefully looked after. A physician spends an hour every day at the factory, and a nurse and an assistant are in constant attendance. Every person applying for employment is first examied, by the physician, and those suffering from tuberculosis' or any other communicable disease are rejected.