CONDITIONS OF WORKERS

Press, Volume LXXII, Issue 21813, 19 June 1936, Page 19

CONDITIONS OF WORKERS

DOMESTIC SERVANTS* POSITION

LEGISLATION PLANNED {.From Our Parliamentary Reporter] WELLINGTON, June 16. Domestic servants have not been forgotten by the Government in the provisions that have been made for better conditions for workers. This was made clear by the Minister for Labour (the Hon. H. T. Armstrong) in an interview to-day, when he was asked to comment on a Christchurch report that the domestic servants there believed that special legislation would be brought down by the Government to cover their situation.

“It is true,” said Mr Armstrong, “that domestic servants and many other classes of workers were exempted from the legislation when it was decided to delete from the Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Amendment Bill, the clause dealing with workers who were not employed for the pecuniary gain of employers. I talked the matter over with the Government at the time, and it was sug- ♦ sted that the clause should be dropped then; but it was agreed that provision would have to be mad in some other act to safeguard the working conditions and wages of domestic servants and the other employees Who were eliminated.

"In the meantime, I am not in a position to say what form this legislation will take; but I have been discussing it for some time With my colleagues and with the officers of the Department of Labour. Incidentally, there never has been anything in the law of the country to prevent domestic servants from forming unions; but probably if they had formed unions and applied for awards the fact that they were not employed for pecuniary gain would have ruled them out. For certain reasons, however, it has not been considered advisable in the meantime to bring domestic servants and others into the scope of the legislation; but I can say that it would no doubt be to the decided advantage of domestic servants to form a union, and it would even be more helpful to the Government than otherwise for them to do so. We do not intend to discourage them in doing that."