“THE RIGHT TO A JOB”

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29776, 20 March 1962, Page 14

“THE RIGHT TO A JOB”

N.Z. Altitudes

Criticised

( N.Z. Press Association) WELLINGTON, Mar. 19.

The welfare state had tended to make New Zealanders think they had a right to a job rather than a right to work, said the president of the Chartered Institute at Secretaries, Mr Malcolm J. Mason, of Wellington, addressing the institute at Palmerston North on Saturday night. According to a statement supplied by the institute today, Mr Mason said: ‘“Die right-to-a-job attitude is fairly general, many of us will think, particularly amongst the more vocal unionists. It's so often to be found in the factory amongst the machine operatives, in the office among the rank-and-file clerks, in the shop among the counterhands. Happily, we think, it can't apply to us—the secretaries, the executives.

"But doesn't it? Are ojr attitudes in general any different? Aren’t a lot of us in New Zealand just coasting, taking it easy, consoling ourselves with our own famous (or infamous) philosophy—she’ll be right? “We’ve got the welfare state in New Zealand. That means that if trouble comes upon us we don’t need to worry too much. If it’s illness there’s the Social Security fund to carry all the expense. or if our job is in jeopardy we can easily, with all the vacancies there are, get another and perhaps better one. And if something like a recession should come, either in our own industry or throughout the whole economy, well, what’s the Government going to do about it?”