HEALTH IN INDUSTRY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25278, 15 July 1943, Page 2

HEALTH IN INDUSTRY

Very properly, the annual report of the Department of Labour indicates, inspectors of factories have concerned themselves closely with the working conditions of women and youths. Actually, in the case of all women, and of boys under sixteen, permission to work overtime must be sought from the factory inspector, and he is required by law to limit his consent to 90 hours in a year with 30 additional hours “in exceptional - cases arising from unforeseen circumstances.” The Industrial Emergency Council has power, however, to relax these requirements. These provisions should preclude the possibility of female workers and youths being required to work hours so long as to be injurious to their health; and the Departmental report declares categorically that “in no case has it been shown that there has been any detriment to health as the result of extended hours approved by inspectors.” That statement obviously can have very little value as evidence, nor can it, in view of the statutory limitations on the hours worked by the classes of employee referred to, be applied generally to industrial experience. It would have been considerably more interesting and helpful to have had some report on the relation between health and long working hours in the case of male employees above the age of sixteen, who form the greater body of workers in many exacting departments of industry. Such a report would probably confirm the conclusion of the inspectors—based admittedly upon inadequate evidence—that work beyond the peacetime norm does not have a deleterious effect .upon the health of the average industrial worker provided the conditions of employment in all respects are satisfactory. That is the experience in the United Kingdom, where conditions in the forc-ing-chamber atmosphere of war industries have been very fully observed. Not only has there been,, to quote from “People in Production”—the interesting report prepared by “ Mass Observation ” “ certainly no sign of a universal decline in industrial health,” but many people, including a large proportion who were never usefully and gainfully employed in peace-time, have benefited in health under the arduous discipline of factory work. Emphasis in this report is laid constantly, from both the employer and the employee point of view, upon the bearing of pleasant and stimulating conditions of employment upon the output of workers and their general well-being. It is not uninteresting to observe that the New Zealand Department of Labour extends its paternalistic eye over the provision of satisfactory ‘ meal breaks” for overtime workers, and it is well known, of course, that many awards contain regulating clauses which cover not meals alone, but also many, so to speak, extraneous questions of employeecomfort. The trend in industry may very,,well be towards the improvement of conditions rather than of wages, which are in New Zealand often so inordinately high as to contain their own economic evil.