The Waikato Times, THAMES VALLEY GAZETTE, AND KAWHIA ADVOCATE. Established Thirty-Four Years. THE OLDEST DAILY NEWSPAPER IN THE WAIKATO. THE LARGEST CIRCULATION OF ANY DAILY PAPER SOUTH OF AUCKLAND. MONDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 1906. DOMESTIC SERVANTS.

Waikato Times, Volume LVII, Issue 8049, 5 November 1906, Page 2

The Waikato Times, THAMES VALLEY GAZETTE, AND KAWHIA ADVOCATE. Established Thirty-Four Years. THE OLDEST DAILY NEWSPAPER IN THE WAIKATO. THE LARGEST CIRCULATION OF ANY DAILY PAPER SOUTH OF AUCKLAND. MONDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 1906. DOMESTIC SERVANTS.

The desire to combine to take advantage of the provisions of the industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act has lately spread to domestic servants, and the servants of Wellington,or some of them, have banded themselves together in an industrial union of workers, under the management of Mrs Tasker, who has for some time been interesting herself in the conditions of female labour. The union is not at present an important body. Many of the better class servants are inclined to treat it as a joke, but its promoters are confident that it will some day grow ami be a power in the laud. The Union intends to cite twenty or thirty employers to start with, and if everyone does not come to terms in a legal way it is intended to bring them into line by proceeding to the Arbitration Court. Mr A. K. Barclay, M.H.R. for Dunedin North, delivered an address to about twenty members of this union the other night, in the course of which lie

made some remarks that housewives probably take exception to Domestic servants very often wen into a house wheie they were to a large extent prisoners. They got out only to go home or to visit friends on rare occasions, and such a thing as a half-holiday was very rare. Then, again, the social position of the domestic worker was not such as it should be. Their sleeping quarters were generally small backrooms, and the domestic was not treated as a girl who was doing useful and honourable work should be treated. When the shop girl went to a place of business she was called "Miss" Brown, or whatever her name might be. Hut not so the domestic, who called plain "Mary Jane" or " L'olly Ann," Further, the shop assistant had her regular hours and a weekly half-holiday, and was treated by most employers as a young lady should be treated. It was not generally reme.ubered that the domestic worker performed duties exactly the same as the mistress or her daughters would have to do if they did not have a domestic. It was honourable, necessary work. The term " so: vaut " was never applied to men's work, and he thought it objectionable as applied to domestic yorkers. He considered the most appropriate name that could be used was " house assistants." which was a dignified term, explaining the exact position occupied. House assistants should certainly be treated no less respectfully than the girl assistants in the shops were treated. He was of opin'on that their status should be improved, and placed on a level with that of nurses. As he had said before, domestic servants engaged in 'Honourable, useful, necessary work. \V:it excuse could be found for not plac'ng tl em on the same social plane as nurses or young lady shop assistant v No doubt there are employers, who ij;: Marclay says, don't know how to treat then domestics, but we refuse to believe that in the majority of cases domestic servants are subjected to tlm treatment lie describes, in the matter of hours and pay, the average domestic servant has probably as little to complain of as any worker, and they j certainly come better out of the comparison than the shop assistants, to I whom the member for I hinedin I North directed the envious attention! of his hearers. Domestic servants now-a-duA s> mv not the servants of old. They are un exacting body of workers, and they command high wages. If their work is to be raised to the status of a profession and placed on a level with that of nurses, who are required to undergo a long course of training and pass stiff examinations to qualify, the " help " will bfecoiny a parson that most mistresses would prefer to do without. We await with interest the hrs*. case brought before the Arbitration Court by the industrial Union of House assistants.