WOMEN TO SHARE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 294, 12 December 1935, Page 18

WOMEN TO SHARE.

CHRISTMAS BONUS.

FEW ON OFFICIAL REGISTER. OTHER CLAIMS PUT FORWARD If the Christmas bonus is paid only to women "registered with women's employment committees," very few women in Auckland will benefit. Though a number of women have registered with the Auckland Women's Emergency Employment Committee during recent weeks as unemployed it is stated that nearly all havo been found work, most of them in permanent positions. The acting-chairman, Miss Ellen Melville, stated to-day that there was at present any amount of wofk offering for capable women, and that the committee had not been able to fill all the vacancies which had been offered. Of 77 women who registered with the committee last month 59 had been placed immediately, mostly in permanent employment.

Last week the committee had 15 registrations, and. 14 were placed. "We could have placed more," it was stated. On Saturday last 48 positions had been offered to the committee. They were mostly in and about the city and to illustrate the variety offering the positions included the following:—Domestics, cooks, cook-generals, housekeepers (4), nurse-housekeeper, nurse, housemaid, housemaid-waitress, and four factory jobs. In addition, there was one position offering as manageress of a seaside boardingliouse about 15 miles out of Auckland. For Work or Bonus? The committee had kept a register of unemployed since 1932, it was stated, and previously a similar register had been kept by the Y.W.C.A. It had operated mainly as an employment agency, but financial help had been given where it was required. In the peak week of its operations 130 women had registered as unemployed. Latterly, however, there had been so much work offering for girls and women that the work centre had been closed down. It was, of courso, difficult to place some women.

"During the past two weeks," it was stated, "a number of women have approached us asking to be registered 'for the bonus.' When they were asked to register for work, they said they didn't want work. Some of them were living with their parents, and others were in similar circumstances. They wanted to register 'for the bonus' only."

Apart from this list of "unemployed women and girls" there are the registers kept by the Auckland Hospital and Charitable Aid Board, and by the Auckland branch of the National Working Women's Movement. It was pointed out that the Hospital Board does not deal with relief workers, but that there are a number of women on the list kept there who are more or less permanently unemployed owing to one reason and another, and others who are temporarily unemployed and in poor circumstance owing to illness. It is possible that these women may have some though no intimation has yet been given that this is the case. Over 500 Names. On the list compiled during tho past fortnight by the Working Women's Movement there are now over 500 names, it was stated at the meeting of the movement yesterday. About 250 women attended the meeting, and a resolution was passed unanimously urging the Mayor, Mr. Ernest Davis, to ask the Minister of Employment, Mr. Armstrong, to put into immediate action the special machinery for administering the Christmas bonus to the unemployed. A committee was also appointed "to assist, if required, in the distribution of the Christmas bonus to unemployed women."

There was as yet no definition of a "registered eligible woman," said Mrs. M. B. Soljak, who presided. The register kept by the Women's Unemployment Committee was "more or less moribund," and it had been considered from the start that the register compiled at the Town Hall would be accepted as the basis on which the Auckland distribution would be made. It was as a result of pressure exerted by the movement that women were to share in the Christmas bonus at all. The fact that when the Minister had announced that women were to share in the bonus the Mayor, Mr. Ernest Davis, had agreed to their request that the list should be kept open for another week so that as many women as possible would have the opportunity of registering, was a tacit recognition that their list would be accepted as a basis. Of course, it would have to be inspected and the ineligible names struck out.