Mannequin Union

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 72, 17 December 1938, Page 7 (Supplement)

Mannequin Union

Fashion Models Make Demands

(‘•Dominion” Special Service: By Airmail.) LONDON, November 30. QPL’RRED on, perhaps, by the successful way in which domestic servants have established their trade union, a determined party of mannequins assembled in Brook Street, Alayt'air, last week and formed their union. Already the union can boast of a membership totalling more than 200 —with applications still pouring in. This is what they are demanding: Taxi fares home aftex- a late fashion show if buses and tubes are not running. Compensation at the rate of half a guinea a halfday for time spent travelling to or from a display. A minimum salary of £3 a week for permanently employed mannequins, and a minimum of £l/1/- a day for “free lances.”

Air. A. V. Colledge, who for years has organized fashion displays in London and throughout the provinces, is the general secretary of the newlyformed union. The entrance fee is 2/6 aud the annual subscription is £2 2/- for full benefits and £l/1/-, excluding the sickness benefit. There are, it seems, 6000 mannequins throughout the country, and these girls have had to bear many hardships without any insurance scheme of their own.

A model must be smartly dressed to get employment in the first place, and the result is that she has little or no money to put by against accidents or illness.

The object of the mannequins’ union is to guard against these dangers. Health insurance benefits have already been arranged.