DOMESTIC WORKERS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 83, Issue 3, 5 January 1939, Page 2

DOMESTIC WORKERS

LIMITATION OF HOURS MOVE IN UNITED STATES. I The dismissal recently by the Indus- | ■trial Commission of an application by I the Domestic Employees’ Union of New South Wales in circumstances. that would imply the recognition of ■ domestic service as an "industry" within the meaning of the Industrial I Arbitration Act, lends special interest |to legislation passed recently in the I United States limiting the hours of I J domestic workers. Like every other English-speaking i country, the United States has for. some considerable time been endeav-1 ouring to find a solution to the domes- • tic service problem, but the State of, Washington was the first to succeed I in passing a 60-hour law for household | employees. This law states, "No male or fe-. male household or domestic employee ■ shall be employed by any person for; a longer period than 60 hours in any i one week. Employed time shall in- ■ elude minutes or hours when the employee has to remain subject to the call of the employer, and when the employee is not free to follow his or | her inclinations. In cases of emergency such employee may be employed for a longer period than 60 hours.” At a meeting held in Seattle in the middle of this year and called to discuss this problem, Mrs, Franklin D. Roosevelt addressed an audience of more than 6000 women, both employers and employees. Speaking on “human relationships as a social problem," Mrs. Roosevelt remarked, "Now comes the time when household employment had better go back to being a profession, because if we are going to have satisfactory households we are going to look upon the work in the home as quite as respectable as any work done in a factory, office, or store, but to do it we have got to make it, on the part of the employer as well as the employee, a professional job.” A special effort is being directed toward raising the standards of household employees and employment agencies are being urged to give particular recommendation to girls who have had a good training for domestic service, and are therefore qualified for their work. High schools and vocational schools and the Y.W.C.A., through its industrial girls’ clubs, are endeavouring to educate girls to take pride in their profession as household workers and to strive for j better relationships between them- i selves and employers.