CHARWOMEN’S UNION

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 7978, 8 December 1911, Page 10

CHARWOMEN’S UNION

HEROINES IN HUMBLE LIFE.

OTJR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT. LONDON, October G. 4nv woman who Js.no ws anything ot office life in London knows that-however hard one’s lot may be. compared with that of the average London charwoman, it should appear bearable. - . . That the poor sodden-skiitea creatine ; who, too often in the-winter .mornings, has to wash down endless stairs in <5° id water, should be regarded as a heroine, perhaps seems an absurd ™ ul i^A o rw pect, but when on<e learns, from Last Lnd experience, of the little homes iaitlifufiy kept together by 'these plm*? ladies of the bucket ot children clothed and fed, of an out-of-work husband profßv as if be were one of the children; of the too numerous babies brought into the world when the mother, has sometimes scrubbed out offices on the very' morning of her confinement, it is a hard-hearted being who will deny the epithet heroic to them. , Some little time ago, through the sympathetic action of Miss Susan Lawrence, one ot the two lady members of the LC C a- movement was set going to form the women into a union and there is “ready a roll of 200 This only applies to charwomen employed >by the L.C.C. schools whose grievance was truly a "genuine one. , ... The women have, so tar, earned <d a week, but only while the schools are onen and arc liable to be discharged at any moment. The education committee of the County Council had the matter before them some' time since, and approved a scheme for higher payment and the making of the positions ot the charwomen permanent. The scheme got no further, however, till Miss Lawrence mothered it. owing, it is said, to the opposition of the school-keepers.