OFF THE DOLE.

Waikato Times, Volume 110, Issue 18521, 29 December 1931, Page 10

OFF THE DOLE.

ENDING A SCANDAL. MARRIED WOMEN QO. A WIDESPREAD SWEEP. (Evening P/ost Correspondent.) LONDON, Nov. 18. Under the Unemployment Insurance Anomalies Act thousands of women throughout the Kingdom are having to appear before Courts and referees, so that their claims to receive the dole can be gone Into. The comb-out Is taking place ' with striking effect. Women married without the intention of working again, but who have haul the dole, have been put out of benefit. On the Tyneside, the women disallowed benefits include the wives of a railway clerk, an omnibus inspector, and a corporation tramway worker. A young woman still in the early twenties, who married less Ilian two years ago, left her employment a few months later and for 18 months lias been receiving the dole. All (lie lime her husband lias been regularly earning about £4 a week as a clerk. Her claim was disallowed. In scores of cases Hie women have been receiving benefit for 12 months, and in a large number of cases it was found that employment ceased within a very short time of marriage. The majority of the women whose benefits have been stopped are between 20 and 30 years of age. Large numbers of married women in Stoke-on-Trent have been disallowed further unemployment benefit as a result of decisions by the Courts of Referees. In the -Hanley district alone 600 married women have been disallowed the dole, and a big list of cases still remains for consideration, in Sheffield 3000 married women have had to appear before the local referees, and 2500 have been disqualified.

It Is calculated that savings will-re-sult of over £3,000,000 a year. Details up to ye Iter-day include the following, compiled by the Daily Mail:— Glasgow: Wives’ claims are a majority in 4329 disallowed; 500 doles sLopped in one district. Edinburgh and Leith: 900 married women deprived of dole. Tyneside: 1200 women’s claims be-ing-disallowed; possible saving £42,000 a year. Bradford: 700 doles stopped. Huddersfield: 1300 disallowed. Nottingham: 800 women disqualified. Leeds: 1700 out of 2500 women’s doles stopped. Derby: 90 per cent, of wives’ claims disallowed. Birmingham: 1664 claims failed. Northampton: 450 women disqualified. Camberwell (London) : 800 wives lose the dole. Easily Arranged. It seems to have been ridiculously easy for a robust young woman to get on "the dole, married -or single, and panel doctors are among the people who have recognised the subtle procedure adopted by those who have deliberately transferred themselves from employment to the luxury of the dole. When a girl worker married, not infrequently a man on the dole, she did not -give up her job. Siie “arranged” to get discharged and then drew unemployment pay without any real intention of trying to secure work. Then, young people would deliberately make a home in some suburb where -there was no factory of the -kind to which they had . been accustomed. Therefore, a woman would -calmly say, ('I have been In a corset factory for years, but there is not one anywhere near here, so I am out of work.” Result, the dole —apparently without demur. And once on the list, always on It.

Now, to the relief of every' decent citizen, many thousands of married women who have been In receipt of unemployment insurance benefit have had their claims disallowed by the Courts of Referees in -the great oountry r -wlde “comb-out” recently Inaugurated. A Huge Saving. It is calculated that this clearing off tho unemployment exchange registers of married women whose husbands are receiving a steady income will effect a saving of £60,000 a week, or more than £3,000,000 a year. The widespread nature of the sweep was shown by the fact that in Glasgow, up to November 6, the Courts had considered 5285 cases, out of which 4329 were disallowed. A Ministry of Labour official said that the bulk of the 4329 claims disallowed In Glasgow were those of married women.

Courts of Referees arc busy In many manufacturing centres of the Midlands. At Nottingham (according to the Daily Mail) it is estimated officially that not more than 400 of ihe 1800 married women on the register will be allowed to remain. Many of ihe married women arc described as tobacco hands. They were formerly employed in making cigarettes by Messrs John Player anil Sons, who have a strict rule that a woman worker must leave on marriage. As tliis Is the only firm of cigarette manufacturers In the city these women could not return to their old trade so long as they remained in Nottingham. Yet scores have continued to draw the dole.

The same state of affairs has obtained In regard to women formerly employed in the drug factories of Messrs Boots, tho chemists, who have a similar rule. In Derby it is estimated that 90 per cent, of claims to benefit by married women have been disallowed. A local authority states that no appeals have been made. Out of the first 2000 cases examined In Birmingham 1664 were struck out of benefit. This proportion is exceeded by oilier towns in (he district, where as many as 90 per cent, of recipients have been unable to prove anv real claim to Hie dole money.