WORKROOM OR COUNTER.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 12775, 20 October 1919, Page 6

WORKROOM OR COUNTER.

WHAT GIRLS PREFER.

(Melbourne “ Argus.'’) “ WANTED, 50 White Workers, for an up-to-date workroom; Saturday mornings off; 45 working hours, morning and afternoon tea provided; highest, wages.’’

■Surely no girl who desires to be a white worker can resist such attractions. One can imagine not fifty gills, but a hundred and fifty, rushing to he engaged in such congenial circumstances. Sometimes the advertisement varies, inasmuch that dressmaking or millinery hands are required. In any case such appeals for workers are continually appearing in the advertising columns of ilie dailv papers, and Lhc ordinary harassed housewife whose eye may lie caught by the attractive conditions offered ,-ighs as she ica-sures herself that the factories catch all the girls who otherwise would be glad to lie domestic helper-. That- this is a totally wrong impression is the store which tho heads of the great business houses in the city have to tell. " Workroom girls, as the factory operatives are now usually called, are aimo-t as. scarce to-day as tho domestic helper. Wo aro assured by those whose business is languishing from a shortage of white workers, tailorosscs. blouse hands, and so ou, that; the- response to tho apparently most desirable appeal is at tile rate oi 1 per cent. Even then applicants aro most critical, and the forewoman is cross-questioned backwards and forwards as to the privileges and conditions, and few girls ever dream of engaging themselves without making a round of the other places first. “ I'll let you know Inter on if I’ll come ” is all the satisfaction that the employer is iikely to get at the first interview. POPULAR WORK. At this stage the question arises as to what kind of work is popular with girls who enter and leave the citv in thousands each day. This is answered <it once. They prefer to bo typists or clerks, and next to that they like to serve behind the counters. At one big shop in the heart of the city the official whose business it is to engage tho staff hands says ho daily receives over fifty applications for situations as shop assistants, and not one of these, be says, will for one moment con.-ider the idea of going into the workrooms. lliere is no difference in the wages, at least for the first throe years, and the conditions under which the counter hand spends her day arc not nearly so comfortable as those of the workroom girl, who in most of tho more important “ houses, ’’ gets flic whole of ifaturday free, while tea is served to her three times a day under extremely pleasant conditions! For her there is no work on Friday night until half-past nine or ton. She is the privileged person who can shop in tho evening, and if sho so desires she can got away on kriday night for a clear week-end to the country. No girl may be employed m cither workroom or shop before she is fifteen, and ; according to the Wages Board regulation her first pay must he ® s . fkl per week. In the workrooms this rate rarely obtains, for aro encouraged by a higher wage. ” EVENTUALLY EARN GOOD PAY. Of course, it must bo remembered that such employees are the veriest beginners, some of whom hardly know iiow to thread a needle. From that time they keep on learning more and more each six mouths, and at the end of three years it is reasonably supposed that tho trade or business is mastered. After all. it is merely a matter of age, lor no girl over twenty-one can hope to enter a shop or factory, for according to tho Wages Board Act for the first three years wages are paid according to age, not by ability. After a girl is .twenty-three, and lias spent the preceding years learning her business, she is entitled to 37s 6d per week, whether sho bo a counter assistant or a workroom operative. ‘Whether she remains at that wage depends on her own initiative.

WORKROOM GIRL AND SALES LADY.

A clover needlewoman or macliinist, who Ims the gift of original design, can easily make herself worth £4 to £o per week or more, whilo the smart girl who takes a lively interest in her counter work, and has a good memory as well as good manners, can also benefit herself, for “ commissions” on sales are allowed in some of the shops. There is no doubt, hoiover, that the advantage lies with the workroom girl, for she learns a trade which she can always turn to, and at any age, while the “ sales lady” practically cuts hcrsc-If off from most chances of regaining her position should she meet with adverse circumstances in after life.

In any case, it would seem that, compared with the possibilities of earning those excellent wages, matrimony offers but little inducement, and one girl summed up the matter as follows: —. All he had to offer was £7 a week, and I was getting £5 on my own. Wouldn’t I be a fool?”