Boy Workers

Press, Volume LXXII, Issue 21733, 16 March 1936, Page 10

Boy Workers

It has to be assumed that the Christchurch Boys’ Employment Committee was in possession of sufficient information when it decided to protest to the Minister for Employment on matters affecting young workers in Christchurch. The first cause for complaint was that boys were being dismissed by some firms when they qualified for higher pay; the second concerned excessive overtime calls on boys who might have been able to use/ spare hours profitably at night school. Possibly the Boys’ Employment Committee has been informed of bad isolated case’s, but even so, a protest is justified if no more than one or two employers have so slight a conception of their responsibilities towards young workers that they throw them out into the world simply because they are; through increased usefulness, entitled to higher pay. It may be cheap and profitable to use a succession of boys in this way, but it can scarcely be reckoned as decent conduct on the part of an employer. Just what the Minister for Employment can do in the circumstances is not easy to say, but if there has been abuse it is fairly certain to be circumvented-, in the future. The working of overtime falls into a different category. There may be a simple enough explanation of that. A few isolated reports do not necessarily mean that there is a considerable amount of sweated labour. However, if the Boys’ Employment Committee feels that there have been abuses it was justified in deciding to draw the Minister’s attention to the complaints.