DOMESTIC WORKERS’ UNION.

Evening Star, Issue 22810, 19 November 1937, Page 15

DOMESTIC WORKERS’ UNION.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —I believe that at last the domestic workers have begun to blaze a trail to better conditions, but would they not do better to devote their energies to the business of road-making, since they have commenced, and not worry about the obstacles they have had to encounter in reaching the place where they now stand? Let them press forward, giving their whole strength to the work they have undertaken, and bring it to a successful finsh if possible I find reflection of Mr M. E. Storey’s letter of the 16th most informative concerning one aspect of the situation. Is it possible that the_ chief ambition of the average domestic worker is marriage? If this is the case, it is a possible explanation of the almost constant shortage of competent workers. _ I have been inclined to think that girls left housework to obtain other employment while they were still of an age to do so. However, if they marry, this is all to the good, though it decreases the supply of experienced workers _if the girls realise their ambition within, say, six years of commencing work. Proficiency in any one branch of housewifery may be attained in one year; but proficiency in evefy branch would not be reached in lees than six: so if a girl commenced work at 16, and married at 22, she would be marrying just at the time when she was reaching her greatest usefulness as an employee—a sad state of affairs for employers, but how joyous should the husbands bel It would nearly seem that employers will have to offer counter-attractions to marriage if they wish to retain the services of these ambitious girls. And that would not be right, because we need lots of happy homes. They are much better than making a series of social evenings a substitute.—l am, etc., Observer. November 16.