The Northern Advocate Daily “NORTHLAND FIRST” MONDAY, JULY 18, 1938. An Award For Clerks

Northern Advocate, 18 July 1938, Page 6

The Northern Advocate Daily “NORTHLAND FIRST”

MONDAY, JULY 18, 1938. An Award For Clerks

Registered for transmission through the post as a Newspaper

THE most remarkable feature of the new clerical workers award, which comes into operation in certain districts today, and will be extended to other districts as current awards expire, is the decree that all workers entering the profession, at the a«e of’2l or over are to be automatically classified as seniors, drawing" a senior’s pay, irrespective of ability or experience. In the case of male clerks, the award rate of a senior worker is £5/10/- a week, and in the case of a female it is £3/5/-. Very few businesses, it is safe to say, will feel disposed to pay these rates to inexperienced workers, and it may therefore be taken as definite that future gaps in clerical staffs will be tilled from the under 21 ranks. There is nothing objectionable in this, except that men in their early twenties who have perhaps drifted from one occupation to another before finding one that is suitable will no longer lie able to obtain positions as clerks, nor will business firms be able to offer clerical positions to unemployed men, as they often have done in the past, merely to tide them over, unless prepared to pay £5/10/- a week, which, is a lot to pay when a job is beinggiven as a favour. A curiously illogical feature of the award is that though anyone entering the clerical ranks at the age of 21 or over has to be paid the maximum award rate, those entering it below this age may not reach £5/10/- a week until they are in their late twenties. Thus, a young man of twenty, accepting a position as a clerk, has to be paid £2/15/- a week, from which figure his salary rises by yearly increments until in eight years (and not until then, except by special favour of his employer) he will be receiving the maximum award wage of £5/10/- a week. In the meantime, however, a colleague who happened to be twenty-one when he entered the profession will have been earning the full wage all the time, though no more experienced, and presumably no more useful. The absence of logic or reason in this is so glaring as to give the impression that it could have been done for no other reason than deliberately to discourage recruiting of clerks at over the age of twenty years. The remaining general provisions of the award provide for a general increase in wage rates and for a fortnight’s holiday on full pay. fSo long as business firms can stand the increase to the payroll, there is nothing objectionable in this. Indeed, to the contrary, it is commendable. A better general standard of living will be given if everyone has more money, and no one will be any the worse, provided the money is earned by competent service, and the employer is not bankrupted in paying it out. It is nevertheless open to question whether clerical workers, in the long run, will be any belter oft* as a result of the unionisation of their profession, and its subjection to the hard and fast and inelastic governing regulations of an industrial code. Hitherto, clerical work, as a ‘‘white collar” occupation, has had a certain dignity and prestige, with a give-and-take relationship between master and man. The joke about the office-boy getting time off to see a cricket match on the pretext of going to his grandmother’s funeral is hoary with age, but it expresses something of the spirit prevailing in most offices where leave for special reasons, such as sporting engagements, was easily obtained. Few offices refused sick pay or similar concessions, and the result was a general spirit of harmony. Trusted employees received, good salaries, and often graduated to executive positions, or even into partnerships. From now on this will he harder to do. Employers, for their own protection, will have to stick closely to the terms of the award. In many cases, the indolent and the diligent will be paid tiie same, irrespective of their true individual value. All clerical workers are henceforth to be fitted into the standardised mould devised by the Arbitration Court. It is inevitable, as a result, that many an ambitious young man will from now on find advancement harder to win.