WELFARE WORK

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 17, 20 July 1926, Page 9

WELFARE WORK

FREE SERVICE OF ALL KINDS

HEALTHIER, HAPPIER

EMPLOYEES.

(From Our Own Correspondent.)

SYDNEY, 15th July.

Industrial hygiene, or, as it is sometimes narrowly termed, welfare work, is probably regarded by some people as an academic fad, but to follow the working of it in some of Sydney's biggest factories and workshops and mills is to understand what a vital human factor it is in industry to-day. It has, definitely and beyond dispute, made for healthier and happier employees; for that contentment which is the most effective check to strikes, and for the maintenance and increase of output by the employer, and of earning power on the part of the employee. In one big hosiery and underwear factory or mill in the metropolis, the army of more than 2000 girl and women employees have at their beck and call, at all hours of the day, not only a trained nurse, a doctor, and a dentist, but also a hairdresser and an expert chiropodist. The employment of the hairdresser, to bob or dress or shingle tho girls' hair at any time, and the chiropodist, to remove some troublesome corn or bunion, or relieve some other pain of the pedal extremity, largely the result of the previous night's dancing, is an innovation in welfare work in Sydney. It saves the time and maintains the earning power of the girls, who are mostly on piecework, and it maintains the firm's output. It has proved a good investment. The girls, for instance, wero in the habit of getting time off to go into tho city to have their hair attended to. Skilled hands, the firm could not ignore their request, but it meant a couple of hours' lost time to the employees and the interruption of the firm's output. The firm decided to instal a hairdresser on the establishment, at the free service of the girls at any hour. The same with the foot specialist. If now one of these" mill girls wants her hair dressed or" bobbed, or a nastly little corn removed, she is back at her machine in about 15 minutes, where formerly she had to waste about two hours in running into town. When the influenza was at its worst, and an average of from 50 to 75 girls were away a fortnight, the firm's output was actually a record. Those remaining had pulled a bit harder to get the firm out of a difficulty. It was one of the fruits of a contented body of employees. In Sydney to-day big employers are spending very, cheerfully large sums in the application of industrial hygiene in their establishments. It is one of those abstruse items of expenditure which do not show any direct return, but the return is definitely there. That outlay has purchased goodwill as between employee and employer. One goes into a big factory, for instance, to find a girl lounging back in sweet idleness for ten or fifteen minutes in the restroom which is part of a minature hospital. Before long the girl is back at work. Employers in the old days would have stood aghast at the mere thought of one of their employees leaving her work of her own volition and idling precious minutes away on a lounge. To-day they offer their employees facilities for resting themselves. It pays, they find. The last occasion on which a census was taken in one of Sydney's biggest establishments it was calculated that there had been saved to the workers, in time gained, 131 days which would have been lost if they had had .to seek, outside, the medical attention that was available to them free of cost at their work, it saved their time and it served to maintain the firm's output.