DOMESTIC LABOUR

Waikato Times, Volume 194, Issue 22354, 22 May 1944, Page 2

DOMESTIC LABOUR

WOMEN FOR FARM HOMES The Director of National Service, Mr H. L. Bockett, has notified manpower officers that domestic labour is to be directed to farms where it is required, and in his letter the director outlined the policy to be adopted by manpower officers. Inquiry in Hamilton shows that the project had been given effect to already, so far as was practicable, but there are obstacles, not the least being the routine of inquiries from the individual it is proposed to draft and the prospective employers, this involving a good deal of +; me. The Director of National Service has enjoined manpower officers that every effort must be made to provide domestic assistance on farms where the catering for paid labour was more than the farmer’s wife and family could reasonably handle. The same applied to cases of illness, expectant mothers and aged persons where no person was otherwise available to cares for the sick or undertake home duties. Hospitals and mental hospitals must, however, continue to have first claim on domestic labour available for transfer out of their home districts. Director’s Recommendation “It is therefore recommended,” the letter continued, “that manpower officers should arrange with local branches of the Women’s Division of the Farmers’ Union and the Royal New Zealand Society for the Health of Women and Children to keep the manpower officer advised of any urgent or necessitous cases and to check over those living in their districts whom the manpower officer has been unable to utilise for higher priority purposes and to advise him of any who might be called on to give fulltime or part-time domestic assistance in their home districts. The aim of the manpower officer will be not only to fill existing urgent vacancies, but to form a reserve pool of women who can he directed in circumstances of sufficient urgency to help their neighbours for either a few hours daily or for full-time periods.”