BLIND WORKERS

Evening Post, Volume CXL, Issue 148, 20 December 1945, Page 6

BLIND WORKERS

HELP IN INDUSTRY

FOUR MEN DO GOOD JOB

Four blind men are today happily working in a Wellington tobacco factory, glad to be able to earn their own living, and proud of the fact that they are doing a genuine job and a service to the community. They are there as a result of the untiring efforts of (he District Man-power Officer, Mr. M. C. Smith, who had to explore practically every avenue of manual .labour before finding them

their .present employment. The men were originally engaged in munitions work in a Hutt Valley plant, through their desire to do something towards the war effort, and when the plant shut down shortly after VJ Day they found that the inactive life was too tedious for them. They approached Mr. Smith." who at once became interested in their case. They were tested in a number of simple manual jobs. Making elements for electric appliances was one likely employment, but tests showed that despite their dexterity their production was so far short of that of sighted people that it was uneconomic to employ them. * Another firm was eager to help and for some weeks had them wrapping soap. The firm's engineer made special jigs for them to operate, but again it was the same. Thenspeed was good, but it was not good enough. The women they worked with offered to work on -Saturday mornings to make up their quota for them, but of course the men did not want to be carried by other workers, and Mr. Smith started making more inquiries. BONUS EARNERS.

Several firms attempted to strike bargains. "If you can only give us some more girls," they said, "we will be glad to put your men on the payroll." But as well as being somewhat unethical, this also implied that the men would be mere iDassengers and not useful workers. Eventually, the tobacco factory was suggested and the staff manager agreed to take one man on trial, folding two-ounce tobacco packets. The trial was entirely satisfactory, and within a few weeks all four men were at work. For production figures better than 800 packets a day they are paid a bonus, and already two men are bonus earners, one in the 1000 class and the other reaching 1200 in his second week on the job. It is true that these figures are a little less than the 1500 a day achieved by a fairly good girl worker, but these men are slower in their movements and have to be supplied with a boy as a guide when they are moving about the factory during the morning and afternoon tea breaks and for other reasons, and the extrs few minutes they take at these times must affoct their production rate. The staff, manager holds the. view Ihat the presence of these men gives the women operatives, especially the older ones, an added interest in life; "they like to be just a little motherly —while the men themselves are par♦icularlv happy to be working among a bunch of cheerfully chattering girls whose conversation gives them plenty to be amused about.