RELIEF WORKERS

Evening Post, Issue 36, 12 February 1935, Page 10

RELIEF WORKERS

long- queues, long ;■.,; .waits; ■ conditions at bureau Relief workers have some hara things to say about conditions at the Employment Bureau in Buckle Street and if what a "Post" reporter was told and saw there this morning 'may be taken as a sample of what officials and the men, but more particularly the relief workers, have to put up with as a general rule,' it is not proper that the position should be ignored. For the past two days men on. the unemployed roll'have had to attend the bureau for various purposes, and their story is one of long queues and long waits. The process in the downstairs portion of the building is not so bad from the point of view of ventilation, but upstairs it is quite another story. Conditions there on a hot. day. with a large number of men waiting to receive attention are certainly such as few would wish to endure. • • .: The offices in the upper part; of the building are reached by a narrow and rather steep flight of stairs. This morning, at least two hours after, the men, began to arrive at "the': bureau, there were men standing in a queue on the ill-lighted stairway waiting their turn to get to the room above.. It was necessary for them to do it, though some of those at the end of the queue were dreading the ordeal, not so much, it seemed, because of the time they would have to wait—although that was bad enough—but because of the atmosphere of the place upstairs. "Have you ever been up there?" inquired one of the men in a well-spoken voice. "You can cut the. air-with a knife. We fellows find the conditions very trying and it is a wonder to some of us how the officials behind the windows stick it out." ' . It was stated that it.was not an uncommon occurrence for relief workers to faint at the bureau. Those who have not been forced to seek relief know nothing of the conditions that, for example, prevailed at the bureau this morning.