A RABBITING JOB

Press, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23263, 25 February 1941, Page 12

A RABBITING JOB

TO THE EDITOR OE THE PRESS. Sir, —I want to give you some conditions of a job I was offered by the Labour Bureau. I am a married man with a family of four, and until recently was employed under the No. 13 scheme. I was offered a job up in the Malvern hills rabbiting, poisoning, and trapping (I am an experienced rabbiter).- The wages were £4 15s lid a week, from which 9s 6d would .be deducted for wage tax and 17s 6d for tucker; which the farmer was to supply, leaving £3 8s lid a week. I had to catch the rabbits, skin them, fat apd stretch, and dry- them, and the farmer was to keep the skins. I had to camp out, and cook my own food. I pointed out to the officer at the bureau that it was not a 40-hour a week job but more like 60 hours, which worked out at just a fraction of Is an hour, and I considered the wages too low. The consequence was that I got notice that as I refused the work without good and sufficient reason, I would be put off, which I was.—Yours, etc., RABBITER. February 18, 1941. IMr A. J. Ridler, Controller of Employment, said when this letter was referred to him that under the rabbiting scheme a man was not supposed to fat, skin, stretch or dry. The scheme covered only the destruction of the rabbits—the subsidy peing payable only on this, and not on time employed on the collection or preparation of skins, which, if done, must be according to arrangements approved by the employing authority outside the subsidy time. The wages under this scheme were £4 15s lid. The skin and carcase were the property of the farmer.]