DOMESTIC SERVICE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23882, 9 August 1939, Page 10

DOMESTIC SERVICE

BETTER CONDITIONS To get housewives who have servants to check up the working conditions in their own homes is a long step toward improving the labour standards of household employees, according to the Christian Science Monitor. The Women's City Club of New York has spotlighted this through a six-month experiment in regulating domestic labour. Once let a housewife discover by her own count that her household helper is working 80 or 90 hours a week, and she is shocked into eagerness to fit her household to the simple standard of approved labour condition* sponsored by this club. The club has found that many women honestly think they are modei employers—until they stop systematically to check themselves with the club's questionnaire. The set of rules worked out two years ago by the club calls for k> maximum of 60 hours a week for servants and a minimum wage of 40 dollars a month. On the whole, tho women reached by the club's questionnaire have been surprisingly eager to co-operate. And since the more specific move to secure better working conditions was launched six months ago, comments and requests for the questionnaire have come from women in many States, from both housewives and domestic employees. This is good news. They are finding that fair labour conditions can be maintained in homes, to the advantage of all concerned.