CIVILIAN JOBS

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 79, 4 February 1944, Page 5

CIVILIAN JOBS

REINSTATEMENT OF SERVICE PERSONNEL BILL READ IN COMMONS (Rec. 10.30 a.m.) Rugby, Feb. 3. A further step towards safeguarding the jobs of men and women returning from the war was taken to-day when the House of Commons gave the second reading of the Reinstatement in Civil Employment Bill. This aims at reinstating servicemen in their old peacetime job. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of liabour, Mr McCorquodale, said the Bill arose out of a clause in the Military Training Act which gave reinstatement rights in original civilian jobs to those called up for traning. That clause was designed to .meet the case of men called for a short period of training and was inadequate to cover men who had been serving for years. The present Bill sought to provide workmanlike machinery to carry out what the Government intended. The Bill did not provide for the creation of new jobs. It fixed a minimum period of six months for the retention of a reinstated man. A man desiring reinstatement must apply to his former employer by the fifth Monday after the end of his war service. Substantial grants would be made to meet cases where young men returned and required training to fit them for higher positions.

Mr McCorquodale stressed the need for the retention of a maximum force for the war against Japan and said men retained would not suffer through others being reinstated in civil life before them.