GIRLS IN FACTORIES

Auckland Star, Volume LXXV, Issue 41, 18 February 1944, Page 4

GIRLS IN FACTORIES

It is rather interesting to read of these girls in shops, who are directed by the manpower to work in factories, refusing to go, and others who will not stay. It seems as if they consider they are too good for that sort of thing. It is a pity they did not stop to think of their brothers and sweethearts overseas, who are putting up with all sorts of trying conditions for them, or maybe they have forgotten them, v/ith all the Americans about town who are giving them such a good time. After volunteering for the Air Force and putting in three years' service, having left my wife to bring up a family, I am now a civilian again. Yet my wife, being a real New Zealander, does not find it beneath her dignity to work in a factory, even though it is only parttime, as she still has a family to bring up, and we have to get on our feet again after three years of our life being messed up. Until just recently my wife was a senior shop assistant in a large departmental store in Auckland, and yet now, not having been directed by manpower, she is willingly working in a factory. I think if she has it in her to do that, it being a big drop in wages, and also hundreds of other women who are doing the same, it is about time girls who make a fuss helped to take a little share of this war on their own shoulders. WAKE UP.