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CHAPTER 15
Manpower is Directed

TOWARDS the end of 1941, with more than 81 000 men and more than 1000 women gone from industry into the Services, it was clear that the work-force would very soon have to be directed, focussed and increased. Appeals in the public interest against military service, hitherto the only stabilising factor, had become inadequate when all other workers were free in the growing labour shortage to sell themselves to the highest bidder. Plans for control, modelled on British experience, were on the stocks well before December 1941,¹ but were brought forward by Japan's attack, which at once sucked thousands into the Army while vastly increasing the need for industrial and defence construction workers.

Civilian manpower controls began on 10 January 1942 and were gradually extended. The Government Placement Service, once concerned with relief of unemployment and the matching of jobs with people, became overnight, in its 22 centres, the Manpower Office, a branch of the National Service Department. To begin with it was decreed that workers in industries declared essential could not leave or be dismissed without the consent of the District Manpower Officer. A worker wanting to leave, or an employer wanting to be rid of him, had to give this official at least seven days' notice, and receive his permission. For serious misconduct an employer could still dismiss a worker, but he might be reinstated, not necessarily to the same position, if the Manpower Officer thought the dismissal unjustified. In such matters, either side could appeal to Manpower (Industrial) Committees in the main centres. Despite better pay offering elsewhere, the outflow of labour from essential work was checked, though as the future soon proved, a good deal of job movement was still possible within ‘essential’ boundaries.

Traditionally, New Zealand labour was highly mobile. Conditions in many firms were spartan, often worse, but both workers and management accepted this as normal, and the desirability of a job was

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measured mainly by the money paid. Although most factories were relatively small and relations based on understanding might have been possible Dr A. E. C. Hare, who during the early Forties pioneered research into industrial relations, found otherwise. With a few happy exceptions, businessmen relied on the surplus of labour that enabled them to engage and dismiss at will, without needing to build up a permanent staff, so that ‘employers tend to regard labour only in terms of cost, without regard to the complicated tangle of human emotions involved in the employment relationship, and the workers regard employment solely in terms of its advantages in cash.’² For more than a year the war had promoted restlessness by favouring the worker: increasingly, he would shift from job to job without compunction, in pursuit of a bigger pay packet; he could even afford to dislike the boss. It was necessary to restrict this movement, which besides disrupting supplies and services, pushed up wages and inflation; it was considered not expedient, probably not possible, to arrest it altogether.

‘Essential’ industry became a term of very wide application. The first lists contained such obvious essentials as munitions, defence construction, mines, timber-mills, power supply, freezing works, butter and cheese factories. These lists were rapidly extended, often through the interdependence of one industry or unit on another, to cover not only whole industries and services needed by the war and the community, but many separate businesses producing, often remotely or only in part, for military orders. When an industry or firm officially explained that it was unable to obtain enough labour, the National Service Department would investigate its situation, suggesting adjustments or alternatives that might appear helpful. A declaration of essentiality, if recommended by the Department and approved in turn by the production committee of the War Council and by War Cabinet, would be signed by the Minister of Labour and published in the New Zealand Gazette. For instance, on 25 June 1942 the boot and shoe repairing industry was declared essential; on 15 July 1942, all commercial laundries, dry cleaning and dye works, except those run by Chinese.³ Firms or sections of firms were added or deleted by amendments to previous orders: in July 1942, the Wellington Slipper Company was added to the list, as were Dalgety's at Wellington, with respect only to the repair, maintenance and installation of sheep-shearing machines, and Berlei at Auckland,

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with respect only to battledress-making.⁴ In August 1942 the fourteenth list added 73 undertaking firms to the essential score, along with the Public Service, tobacco manufacturers, pastrycooks, plumbers and gas fitters.⁵

Meanwhile, to provide these essential industries with more labour than they attracted to themselves, men and women in various age groups, and all men with experience in certain hard-pressed trades, were required to register at local Manpower offices and were liable to be directed to urgent work. Such registration was required in March 1942 of men aged 46–9, women of 20 and 21 years, and men aged 18–70 with experience in building, engineering and metal trades. All men of 50 registered in April; in May, men aged 18– 65 who had timber work experience; in July, women of 22 to 25 years living near Hamilton (for a local munitions factory). Women of 22 and 23 years registered in August, those of 24 to 30 in September, and men aged 51–9 in October 1942.⁶ In February 1943 scientists and technicians and women of 18–19 years filled in their forms and, the following January, women aged 31–40. Aliens who were not naturalised were included with everyone else, except alien males of military age who were left out till 8 October 1942, when they were required to register for industry.⁷ Men aged 18–45 found unfit for military service were automatically listed for essential employment.

To lessen the paper work, from the outset persons already in essential occupations or unsuitable in various ways were not required to register. Thus invalids, war pensioners and those in hospital or prison were exempt from registration, along with merchant seamen, farmers, working proprietors of businesses, civilians employed in the Services, police, firemen, miners, railwaymen, gas and electricity suppliers, doctors, dentists, opticians, chemists, hospital workers, judges, magistrates, ministers of religion, members of Parliament. Fit men held on appeal from military service were also excluded.⁸

To prevent luxury or frivolous undertakings enticing workers away from occupations more valuable to the community but not protected by being declared essential, labour inflow to the low priority jobs was checked by an order in May 1942 (1942/135). This made Manpower consent necessary for the engagement of any employee in

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listed areas where labour was scarce in scheduled non-essential occupations (such as making beer, cordials, confectionary, fancy goods in general, washing machines, lawn mowers and refrigerators, frocks, millinery, umbrellas) and work in retail shops except those selling food or drugs. The inflow check was stiffened in November 1942 by another regulation (1942/319), which required Manpower consent in labour-short areas for the engagement of any worker except for work in five categories: in any essential industry or firm; on any farm, orchard or market garden; on any ship or wharf; at midwifery and nursing; in casual work lasting not more than three days.⁹ From May 1942 to August 1945, employers sought permission to engage 86 791 persons for non-essential work and were refused in only 4550 cases. Women were more readily permitted to engage in non-essential work than men were and there was automatic consent for persons of less than 18 years, for widows of servicemen and for down-graded returned servicemen.¹⁰ Women over 40 years of age and most men of 60 or more were outside Manpower range.

Through the 22 District Manpower Offices, the State reached out into the lives and occupations of thousands as it never had before. The officials themselves were not over-numerous: they totalled 195 men and 48 women in March 1942, 317 men and 189 women a year later, and increased only slightly thereafter.¹¹ But the word ‘Manpower’ came into wide and varied use, indicating how these regulations penetrated the whole fabric of employment: ‘Manpower is holding on to him’; ‘He's been Manpowered into cement’—or carpentry or the meatworks; ‘How did he get past Manpower?’; ‘Her firm came under Manpower last week’; ‘Manpower will catch up with him sooner or later’. By 1945 it could even enter the title of a locally-produced children's book, The Three Brown Bears and the Manpower Man.

Such power had to be used discreetly, if it were not to excite resentment and defeat its purpose. From registration forms Manpower officers sorted out those already in work of national importance, leaving them as they were; from the others they strove to meet the stream of assorted vacancies that poured upon them, some straightforward, some incessant and difficult. The first directions were of persons whose transfer would make the least disturbance to themselves and their employers: those not employed, or in light-weight

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jobs, those who lived near vacant jobs, those whose skill, training and current pay matched positions needing them. It was not policy to shift skilled workers to unskilled jobs or to pay them less than they were receiving or to drain any particular undertaking in comparison with others. Manpower respected industries not declared essential but still important in community value, and even in less essential concerns sought to leave a nucleus sufficient for rapid recovery when peace came. In each group, registered direction was progressive; the easiest directions were made first, but after further groups were registered and sifted to the same extent, earlier groups were squeezed again, with dislocation and hardship gradually increasing as national need persisted.¹²

Apart from the willingness or unwillingness of workers to accept new jobs, the reluctance, often anguish, of employers faced with the loss of valued staff perplexed Manpower officers and appeal committees. For instance: a flatlock machinist who produced 24–5 dozen men's athletic vests daily was, declared her employer, the best girl he had ever had, 20 per cent ahead of the rest. Her work made a difference of 100–120 dozen to the weekly ouput of his small firm, which although it had obtained an Army contract could not be declared essential because it had fewer than 12 hands. She had been moved to a double sewing machine in a firm with war contracts and a staff of 85, who were asked to work 53 hours a week and were expected to produce a minimum of 10 canvas kitbags each an hour. This firm, finding her versatile and a very good worker whereas most of those sent by Manpower were of very little use, held her against the appeal of her first employer.¹³

Tact was officially prescribed. ‘Interviews should be conducted in a spirit of mutual understanding in the light of the national emergency and Manpower officers should try to obtain the willing co-operation of every man interviewed, at the same time explaining the powers vested in them under Regulation 31.’¹⁴ After a year, National Service claimed that administration had been ‘carried out with a wide exercise of discretion and the avoidance of harshness, and in the early period considerable leniency was allowed.’¹⁵ More robustly, an Auckland Star article had stated earlier: ‘People are not sent into industry willy nilly … it is largely a question of “horses for courses”. Were it otherwise, industry while getting the required number of workers, would not get the required production.’¹⁶ In the first few

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months of 1942, up to 30 June, only 4066 directions were issued to men and 475 to women, but by the end of that year Manpower officials had grown bolder, giving out more than 4000 directions in December 1942, more than 6000 in both April and May 1943, though the monthly number thereafter eased back considerably. The rate was to quicken during 1944—5 when the Third Division returned to the labour field, with a peak of 9375 in July 1944.¹⁷

With workers tied to jobs, it was established that firms would not be declared essential unless their wages and conditions were up to the general standard of the industry.¹⁸ Current rates of pay, even if above award levels, could not be reduced and incoming workers received the same rates.¹⁹ In October 1942, as protection against loss of pay if work were intermittent, minimum weekly wage rates covering all essential industries were fixed: £5 10s> for men, £2 17s 6d for women and £1 15s for juniors.²⁰

Transfers were limited by the difficulty of sending workers to highly essential jobs with lower pay than they were already receiving. Manpower did not wish to install aggrieved workers, and the Federation of Labour asked in October 1942 that those transferred should not suffer financial loss.²¹ Some might be willing and able to accept reductions as part of their war effort, slight when ranged against soldiers' sacrifices; for others it would mean a severe and unequal reduction of living standards. Manpower authorities proposed financial assistance, pointing out, for instance, that a Christchurch girl, on £2 15s a week as a shop assistant, if transferred to the Kaiapoi woollen mills, would receive £2 4s 9d, less 7s 6d in bus fares, leaving £1 17s 3d a week, an effective reduction of 17s 9d or 32 per cent of her former earnings.²² Treasury proposed that losses in earnings of transferred workers should be made up for three months, giving them time to adjust, urging that continued subsidising would be costly and create jealousy among the other workers.²³ It was finally decided by War Cabinet that workers transferred to lower paid jobs could claim compensation, up to a maximum of £2 a week for men or £1 for women, with total income, exclusive of overtime, not exceeding £8 or £5 respectively.²⁴ Further, a married man directed away from his home and maintaining it while paying board could

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claim separation allowance of 30s a week; for workers sent away from home fares were also to be paid.²⁵

Up to 1944, National Service ran such assistance very thriftily. On compensation for direction to lower paid jobs, only £2,650 had been expended by March 1944 (£1,753 to men, £897 to women); in the following year subsidies to women totalled £5,210, to men £2,726 and in 1945–6 rose to £15,713 for women, £8,378 for men. This was distributed over a wide range of industries, but farming, clothing, tobacco, engineering, woollen goods, railway and social services such as hospitals claimed the largest shares.²⁶ Separation and travelling allowances expanded similarly. The former totalled £8,364 up to March 1944, rising steeply to £22,391 and £27,526 in the next two years, while travelling expenses totalled £9,068, £11,778 and £16,682 for these three years.²⁷

By the end of 1942, essential industries had claimed some 230 000 workers, about one-third of the working population.²⁸ By March 1944 this figure had increased to 255 000, about 180 000 men and 75 000 women, 40 per cent of the 634 000-strong labour force.²⁹ At the same time, another 153 000 were in farming, which despite its importance was never declared essential, though its labour demands were eased by other means: by direction, by braking on military recruitment and by seasonal or more lasting releases from the Army—apart from some 2000 Land Service women, and teachers and students working in their summer holidays.³⁰ Farming was not declared essential partly because unwilling workers could not be trusted with animals and partly because the living arrangements of farmers and their workers were often so close that holding reluctant parties together would have produced intolerable situations.³¹

Within those industries classified as essential there was plenty of room for movement, provided that reasons could be given to Manpower officials. Up to March 1943 there were 62 000 applications to terminate employment, many from seasonal work and unavoidable, and only 8400, or 14 per cent, were refused. Of the rest, 22 per cent transferred to other employers in the same industry, 50 per cent to another essential industry, 5 per cent to non-essential industry

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and 23 per cent retired altogether. However, Manpower authorities claimed ‘a very considerable reduction in labour turnover’, stating that many thousands who would otherwise have left their employment had refrained, realising that their applications would have little chance of success.³² During 1943–4, some 6000 changes a month, a turnover of 2.3 per cent, were permitted, making a high yearly labour turnover of 27.6 per cent,³³ mostly within essential industries. By March 1946, applications to terminate employment had totalled 304 218. Of these, 93 033 were from employers, of which 2676 or 2.9 per cent were refused, and 211 185 from employees, of which 30 733, or 14.6 per cent, were refused.³⁴ The regulations required work to be performed with diligence and Manpower authorities were aware of some directed workers' attempts to make their employers glad to be rid of them.³⁵

Figures of directions into essential industry show the volume of Manpower work, while the directions withdrawn, slightly more than one in ten up to March 1943, rather less during 1943–4, and slightly more again thereafter, suggest readiness to accept argument.³⁶

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Between April 1945 and March 1946, men complied with 21 427 directions, women with 5128, making 26 555 for the final year and 176 088 for the war's total.³⁷

With so many industries classed as essential the question arose, how essential was essential? Employers could and did claim that the making of prams or corsets or hair curlers or teddy bears, plus the continued existence of their own firms, was necessary for public well-being and morale.³⁸ The Press on 13 March 1943 held that application of the term had been so widened that the purpose of the regulations, to distinguish plainly between essential and non-essential industries and to provide labour for the former at the expense of the latter, had been whittled down and blunted. Certainly problems were complex and far from clear-cut. Every woollen mill employee was necessary to clothe and blanket the forces and the nation; there could be no question about the need for munition workers or railwaymen, and presumably many public servants were needed, but it was hard to see the whole Public Service in this light or to be sure that every girl typing or driving for the Army would not be more usefully employed by her old firm; it was hard to see that a man could properly leave plough or cow to make mattresses or gumboots or biscuits.

With sections of firms declared essential, there was inevitably a good deal of looseness: one week 20 girls might be sewing khaki shirts while 10 sewed women's dresses, but the proportions might vary from week to week. Manufacturers were supposed to notify Manpower when military contracts ended or were reduced, and such commitments were supposed to be under constant review, but inevitably there were blurrings and time-lags. An employer with an Army contract would be loath to lose staff and have to queue again at the Manpower office if the contract might be renewed in the next month, and meanwhile there would be keen civilian demand for anything he could produce. For instance, an Auckland engineering firm which had contracts for munitions and for service buckles and badges claimed that at times about 80 per cent of its staff of 47 were on essential work, but an investigator from National Service found the munitions contract almost complete and the buckle-makers producing trinkets of jewellery, brooches and badges which had lately ‘been on the market in some abundance’. The Manpower office promptly removed six girls and threatened to take more; they were doing work ‘just the antithesis of what we expected’.³⁹ A further

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employment restriction order of 23 March 1944,⁴⁰ requiring Manpower consent to the engagement of almost any worker, attempted to check on degrees of essentiality.

There were penalties, fines of up to £50 or three months in prison, for evasions of the regulations but Manpower was not hungry for prosecutions. Its declared policy was reasonable leniency and the benefit of the doubt; anything else would have aroused self-defeating hostility. Its 1944 report stated:

Those who would advocate … rigorous severity … show little appreciation of the realities of work under wartime conditions, where pressure of work, shortness of staff, the lack of understanding of the import of regulations, and various other factors lead to the unintentional commission of minor offences by employers and where long hours of work, unfamiliar work and personal difficulties and worries frequently bring about the commission of offences by workers which do not imply any wilful evasion of obligations. In the view of the Department penalties exist for dealing with more serious and deliberate offences, and with persistent offenders, employers and workers.

It was pleasing that although 255 000 persons were subject to control, and so far more than 90 000 directions had been issued, only 796 prosecutions had been instituted in two years; 136 of these were withdrawn, 82 were incomplete, there had been 520 convictions and 58 dismissals.⁴¹

Manpower officers handled an immense amount of work and served long hours, often being available for interviews in evenings. They were aware of dealing with complex human and industrial problems, of their duty to treat both industry and workers fairly, within the framework of the war's needs. The report of 1944 stated that it was no easy thing to direct a worker to change his employment, to decide on an application to leave essential work or to deal with alleged absenteeism.

Workers and employers are thinking human beings with their own views, their own plans and tastes and hopes and interests and temperaments. Each is striving towards some goal, and is prepared to try various means of reaching it. Before a decision or direction is given, much investigation, interviewing and recording work must be carried out. Some workers and employers accept the direction or decision without question but in many cases a

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whole train of further interviews and negotiations is opened up by each action of the District Man-power Officer, leading at times to a modification of the step being taken or (in a few cases) to appeal, which means still more work.⁴²

Manpower's vision of itself may well have been more sympathetic than its appearance to workers or employers, but not many appealed to the Manpower Industrial Committees set up in the four main centres (each with an employers' representative, a workers' representative and a government-appointed chairman). The 1944 report recorded that a steady 3 per cent of direction to essential work had given rise to appeals, about half of them successful; 2.5 per cent of decisions on terminating essential work produced appeals, about one-third succeeding; 3.5 per cent of fines for absenteeism led to appeals, of which a quarter succeeded.⁴³ By 1946 a total of 494 618 decisions and directions, in these three areas, had been given, 14 450 or 2.9 per cent of them producing appeals, of which 5361 were won.⁴⁴

From mid-1944, as shown by the figures listed,⁴⁵ directions increased steeply, reflecting the shift of emphasis in the war effort from soldiering to production. The 3rd Division returned from the Pacific, some 9500 men being directed into essential work, while home service forces were firmly reduced. Also, under the replacement scheme, the long-service men of the 2nd Divison became available for direction. In their case most directions were merely formalities, given only with the full agreement of the men, though Grade I men under 41 years with fewer than 4 children were temporarily directed to essential industry to fill gaps left by men drawn into the Army.⁴⁶ When fighting ended in Europe, Manpower controls were reviewed and at the end of June 1945 revocations of essentiality began,⁴⁷ both for industries and for groups of people. By VJ Day (15 August 1945), undertakings employing in all about 10 000 workers had been freed from control by revocations, and from about this date consent was automatically given to any worker leaving a job except to men of 18 to 44 years inclusive who had not served overseas and single women of 18 to 19 years. Even within essential industries control was lessened. From the end of November 1945 it was not necessary to obtain Manpower consent for the engagement of new labour, provided that the engagement was notified within 48 hours.

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This requirement finished at the end of January 1946 when no employer needed official consent to engage or dismiss labour.⁴⁸

After 30 August 1945 the Public Service was not designated essential, and revocations during the next three months freed 109 000 workers. In September, among the industries cleared were footwear repairs, shipbuilding, engineering, pastry-cooks' and butchers' shops; by mid-November biscuit factories, food canning, soapworks, road transport; by 6 December abattoirs, flax and paper mills, teaching, woolscouring and fellmongery were among those lately freed. On 31 January 1946 a large list included builders and their supplies trades, woollen, knitting and hosiery mills, plumbers, fertiliser and flour mills, furniture, gas, rubber, sack and tobacco manufactures, Public Works, tanneries, hotels and restaurants, timber yards, joinery, electricity, water supply and sanitation. Thereafter essentiality remained only on hospitals, tramways, dairy factories, freezing works, sawmills and coal mines. By 31 March 228 300 workers were cleared out of the 255 000 originally affected; only coalmining, meat freezing and sawmilling remained essential. By 29 June 1946 these last declarations and all remnants of industrial manpower regulations were withdrawn.⁴⁹

To complement Manpower regulations in making the best use of labour there was fairly limited development of works councils and of manpower utilisation councils and committees. Before the war there was little consultation between workers and employers over production conditions and methods. Most employers did not welcome advice on how to run their factories, many employees were too new to their work to have much advice to offer, and trade union effort was towards obtaining wages and conditions as favourable as possible from employers and the Court of Arbitration. Pre-war works councils existed mainly in the large railway workshops, in meat works and in coal mines, and though concerned mainly with welfare complaints and disputes dealt also with production and efficiency.

Under war pressure, and advocated by the Federation of Labour,⁵⁰ these works councils increased till by 1944 there were between 90 and 100; about 25 in meat works, 18 in coal mines, 8 in railway workshops, 17 in small government-run linen flax mills and about 30 in other undertakings.⁵¹ In general they did not function vitally; those in coal mines, notably, fell into disuse as mining's industrial

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relations deteriorated—but in some industries and branches of the Public Service, notably the Post and Telegraph Department, various efficiency committees proved helpful.⁵² In the war-activated building industries, James Fletcher, Commissioner of Defence Construction, advocating works councils in each firm with more than 30 men, circulated a draft constitution to employers and workers. But insistence that they should be optional and that employee's representatives should be chosen by management was unacceptable to the unions and deadlock resulted.⁵³

As part of its Manpower activities, the National Service Department in 1942 began to organise national manpower utilisation councils and local committees in the chief industries. On these, workers and employers were represented in equal numbers, a National Service official was chairman and concerned government departments were also present. They were purely advisory bodies, to inform government on the manpower situation of the industry and on the effectiveness or otherwise of Manpower measures, and they met seldom. In some industries local committees, tributary to these councils and replicas at district level, were set up. They were more active than the councils, their advice improving the use of labour and keeping military service appeal boards aware of local pressures.⁵⁴ By 1945, there were Dominion councils for about 22 industries. A few, such as food canning and preserving, butter, cheese and biscuit making and tanneries, had no local committees. Others, including the baking trade, clothing, gas making, electrical trades, footwear, plumbing and laundries had committees in the four main centres. A few, road transport, printing and publishing, engineering and furniture making, had 12 to 20 local committees; others ranged in between. Coal distribution had no Dominion council but four local committees; shipbuilding had its one committee at Auckland.⁵⁵

The search for all available labour led even to prison gates. From July 1943, beginning in Auckland, all men and women on release were interviewed by District Manpower officers to place them in suitable essential work. This hastened the rehabilitation of ex-prisoners while avoiding waste of time and labour.⁵⁶

For men, used now to military conscription, industrial conscription was not remarkable, but for women it was new and at the start

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it was tackled rather nervously. Later it became firmer, but continued to be gradual, tactful and far from universal. Authority tried to disturb employers, parents, conventions, and the girls themselves, as little as possible.

As the range of work accepting and seeking women widened, the number of women willing to do tedious or unattractive tasks shrank. Many girls, especially those in shops and offices, instead of waiting for direction to some distasteful task, sought out essential work acceptable to themselves, or volunteered into the Services, causing a ripple of job-movement ahead of Manpower pressure.⁵⁷ There was general willingness to replace men directly, as on postal rounds, driving, on the trams and in work such as munitions-making that obviously contributed to the war effort.⁵⁸ But there were many necessary, unglamorous jobs, such as domestic work in hospitals and hotels, waitressing, mental nursing, jam and pickle making, in woollen mills and meat canneries, which did not quicken the patriotic pulse and where employers turned anxiously to the Manpower office.

Several of the first industries declared essential, notably clothing, woollen mills and boot and shoe making, were largely staffed by women, who were thus in the Manpower bag from the outset, and other such declarations followed. There was no delicacy about holding women in jobs that they had already chosen, but there was, especially at the start, concern at giving directions to those who registered by age groups. At no stage were women caring for children under 16 years old obliged to register, though they were asked to volunteer if they could make arrangements for their children or for part-time work.

Besides the general recognition that willing workers were better than conscripts, authority did not wish to have industry studded with martyred ladies thrust into situations repellant to them. The Manpower approach could itself affect workers' attitudes, and tact was again clearly prescribed: ‘In the direction of women into essential work considerable care should be exercised in the method of approach which should be in the nature of the offer of an opportunity to give practical and valuable assistance to the war effort, and not a dictatorial direction to do so compulsorily.’⁵⁹

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At the start WWSA interviewers helped to sort out registered girls as available, possibly available and not available;⁶⁰ then Manpower officers interviewed the first two groups. Foremost for direction were those not working or in jobs of light responsibility and those, such as dressmakers, with skills that could be switched to war purposes. Girls willing to transfer were shifted first, and those who had no solid reason for objecting were coaxed, cajoled or ordered to move. At first, childless women keeping house for their husbands were not directed to work but, as pressure grew, policy changed and by the latter half of 1943 mere marriage was not enough to keep women from work of national importance.⁶¹ At Auckland in 1942 the first transfers of young women were from clothing establishments without service contracts to factories making uniforms etc.⁶² In Wellington by mid-May, 62 women had been directed to new jobs, 50 as clerical workers in the Services, while among the others a housemaid and a dressmaker became battledress machinists, a metal press operator was moved from match boxes to munitions and an upholsterer from civilian furniture to ships' upholstery.⁶³ In Christchurch by the end of August, 120 women had been directed, mainly to the clothing trade, hospitals, woollen mills and to firms making gas masks.⁶⁴

More than with men, it was ‘horses for courses’: girls from Remuera homes were not pushed out to Westfield. Manpower officers tried to match the girl and the job, and to offer choices. For instance, an Auckland office assistant in 1943 was offered laundry work, the Westfield cannery or mattress-making. The smell of meat and the thought of slaughter put Westfield beyond the pale, while mattres-smaking would fill her hair with fluff, but the laundry, though hot and exhausting, proved acceptable, with a cheerful atmosphere and plenty of pleasant company assembled from many a more elegant occupation.⁶⁵ There was little embarrassment about a wide range of work that normally would have been considered unsuitable: hairdressers were happy as postgirls, shop assistants as railway porters or cooks.

Of course, not all were willing to change, for various reasons, and here Manpower officers had to decide whether or not compulsion would produce worthwhile returns. A mother objected to her daughter going to the Kaiapoi woollen mills lest, mixing with the crowd

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of girls there, she might learn to drink or smoke or forget her home training.⁶⁶ A doctor's receptionist, with experience of filing in a government department, when asked to work in the records of Inland Revenue promised that if compelled to go there she would confuse every file that she could lay her hands on; she heard no more of the proposal.⁶⁷ A nurse-attendant at Greenlane Hospital, who early in 1942 had accepted this position as the least of several evils, after some months no longer enjoyed the work and wished to leave in order to join one of the Services. Her appeal was dismissed, the chairman of the Auckland Manpower (Industrial) Committee saying, ‘Many people conscripted into positions are not happy, but today if they do not like it, they must be disciplined.’⁶⁸ A 19-year-old wardsmaid, after three court appearances, was gaoled for 48 hours for failing to take up and remain in employment at Wellington Hospital.⁶⁹ Three probationers who had volunteered for nursing later sought release on grounds that they had been mistaken in taking up this profession. This was refused by Manpower authorities, whereon they staged a sit-down strike at Blenheim hospital. ‘Have you ever worked at a job you loathe?’ one asked the magistrate, and another said that he could not force them to stay at nursing against their will. He replied that young men in the Army were giving their lives in work they did not like, and that he had power to make the girls work for three months in a place much more uncomfortable than the hospital. They were each fined £5.⁷⁰

Some jobs were acutely unpopular, with mental hospitals and Westfield probably well in the lead. The enlarged canneries of the Westfield Freezing Company, working on overseas orders, needed about 450 women and were chronically plagued by staff shortage and absenteeism.⁷¹ The difficulties of transport, despite the Army truck pick-up system begun in 1943,⁷² work on Saturday mornings, the closeness of the main freezing works and the heavy smell of cooked meat were powerful detractions, despite publicity about pleasant facilities, good cafeteria, locker rooms, showers, gay chatter, no raw meat, and the sense of directly serving the fighting men; wages were from 45s to 70s 6d according to age, for a 40-hour week.⁷³ A woman factory investigator cheeringly reported that the

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main room where the meat was cooked resembled a huge kitchen; the smell, though strong outside, was not noticeable within and there were hot and cold showers ‘so that girls need not take the atmosphere of their work away with them, as they did at some other factories.’ It was not, she concluded, a ‘job that we would seek in normal times, we girls from shops and offices, but it is not so terribly terrible as we would believe. The outside is a long way worse than the inside.’⁷⁴ Despite such assurances a young woman, told in the Manpower office that decision on her case was reserved, withdrew declaring ‘I won't go to Westfield, I won't’, her mother following with a firm ‘Manpower or no manpower, she won't go to Westfield.’ The officer in question stated that every young lady sent to Westfield had protested vigorously, but more would have to be found.⁷⁵

Appeals against work in mental hospitals were also conspicuous: for example, of 13 young Nelson women so directed 12 lodged appeals;⁷⁶ in June 1943 there were 20 appeals, on the grounds of fear and hardship, against direction to Porirua;⁷⁷ a month later, out of 31 girls so directed, there were 13 appeals, 6 allowed.⁷⁸ The remoteness of some of these institutions, plus cold and cheerless staff quarters, may well have increased reluctance,⁷⁹ and there was scattered public protest about the unsuitability of such work for young women, for instance from a few clergymen and others,⁸⁰ by H. Atmore MP⁸¹ and the Mt Eden Borough Council.⁸² At first girls were persuaded to volunteer, but the shortage continued, intensifying the work of existing staff; direction was toughened, and there was strong reluctance to release anyone who wanted to leave.⁸³

By March 1943 there were 110 503 women listed for work of national importance: 21 436 were aged 18–19 and 41 322 were 20–3; in the 24–30 years group, 20 898 were single, 13 746 were married but childless, and there were 13 101 others, either married with children but contriving to work, or women of more than 30 years who had volunteered.⁸⁴ When the age range was extended to 40 years, the total rose to 146 862 by the end of March 1944; a further 10 646 registered during the next year, 8212 being the inflow

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of 18-year-olds, the rest of assorted ages, bringing the grand total to 157 508 by 31 March 1945.⁸⁵

Not nearly all these were available for Manpower manipulation. Apart from family responsibilities, many were already in essential work or work of sufficient value for them to be left undisturbed. Thus by September 1942, in the Auckland area where 4233 women of 20–1 years had registered, only 1000 were liable for direction; the second group, of 22 to 23-year-olds, had yielded 2500 registrations of which 600 to 700 could be directed. It was expected that of the 24–30 years group in the Auckland area about one-fifth would be available. Continuous review went on, however, with the threshold of availability being lowered as demand increased.⁸⁶ In the first six months of the regulations 7000 workers, including 1000 women, were drafted to new jobs.⁸⁷ By March 1946, women had complied with 37 580 directions, men with 138 508.⁸⁸ It must be remembered that one person could comply with several successive directions.

The Labour Department reported in 1943 that while thousands of women had entered essential occupations of their own accord, ‘various analyses’ had shown that a ‘fair number’ were not in any employment before direction.⁸⁹ Statistics were not kept until October 1943 but, between then and March 1945, women sent into industry who at the time of direction were not gainfully employed numbered 8205. Of these, farming (which included vegetable-growing etc) claimed 1517, engineering 441, food and drink 705, textiles and footwear 1547, other secondary industries 451, shops and warehouses 82, offices 676, hospitals 1147, hotels 1285, miscellaneous 354.⁹⁰

Apart from those not previously employed, there was a general swing away from shops, offices and less essential factory work to the growing list of industries labelled essential. Sometimes this meant going to quite different work, sometimes movement within one's trade. Among the first to be moved were clothing machinists, from non-essential to priority work. This pressure towards military orders and utility clothing had to be sustained, for neither the girls nor their employers favoured such work, and Service orders fluctuated. By 1943 a pro rata system was established: firms not on war work

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with a staff of 4 to 10 were expected to yield one employee for essential work when demanded, a staff of 10 to 20 would lose two, and so on.⁹¹ Without such a quota system, small businesses depending on a handful of skilled women could have collapsed, worsening existing shortages and leaving the post-war industrial stage very empty. Women, to a greater extent than men, were permitted to engage in work not covered by declarations of essentiality,⁹² though these declarations covered a wide field.

In the clothing trade, for instance, it was not only firms with military orders that bore the stamp of essential industry: those making shirts, pyjamas and other utility lines, and children's clothing, shared the label. An advertisement in January 1943 instances the coaxing tone adopted in the competition for workers, with ‘essential industry’ being an advantage, implying not serfdom but security, with youth no barrier:

Children's Clothing and Underclothing. Apprentices, 13 to 17, are required in this always essential industry. Parents, have your daughter taught a trade that will always be useful in her private life. Light, dainty, interesting work in light, airy, pleasant surroundings, 40-hour 5-day week. Very high standard of pay with easily earned bonuses. Paid holidays, cafeteria under qualified matron. This is a declared essential industry and all our employees' positions are guaranteed permanent.⁹³

When those in essential or permitted occupations, plus those with domestic responsibilities, were sorted out, relatively few were available for direction within range of their homes. In country towns girls remained lightly employed.⁹⁴ Many on their own initiative moved to the cities, finding board for themselves or through friends, and they were urged to do so by the National Service Department.⁹⁵ At Wellington, the YWCA helped both girls and the Department through its transients' hostel, and by systematically searching out good landladies.⁹⁶

Some manufacturers, especially of clothing, met their labour problems by establishing factories in smaller towns. This began in 1942, notably at Masterton which by 1945 had five clothing factories, and at Palmerston North, New Plymouth, Hawera, Wanganui, Napier,

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Levin, Thames and Timaru.⁹⁷ In 1939 there were 515 clothing factories in the four main centres, 70 in secondary towns; in 1945 there were 524 in the main centres, 91 elsewhere.⁹⁸

Other small towns retained numbers of potential factory workers, eyed hungrily by Manpower officers, especially at Wellington and Auckland, but untouchable unless suitable boarding arrangements could be made within reach of their pay. Beginners' wages, especially for girls, were based on the assumption that they would live with their parents. In July 1942, several directions sending country girls to mills at Ashburton had to be withdrawn because those under 21 would receive, after taxation, less than 17s a week.⁹⁹ The obvious answer that the girls should live in hostels was tried in Wellington, with limited success. There was sturdy opposition to girls being drafted to.Wellington, and as the hostels were mainly reserved for such draftees, they did not relieve the housing needs of others, however hard pressed.

Apart from concern for girls' welfare in a troop-ridden city, there was reluctance in country areas to lose those who could help on farms or help farmers' wives. Government respected this view to the extent of suggesting to all rural volunteers for the three Services that they might work in the Women's Land Service instead.¹⁰⁰ Even with hostels provided, the directing of groups of girls from, say, Gisborne or Westport to Wellington industry was vigorously opposed by mayors and local chambers of commerce; in particular, South Islanders were emphatic that industry should be moved south rather than girls be drawn north.¹⁰¹ Maori tribal committees steadily opposed their young women being drawn to the ‘vile’ cities.¹⁰²

Labour and lodging problems were greatest in the Hutt Valley where, besides other industries, Ford Motors employed hundreds of girls on munitions, and Wills, handling much of New Zealand's tobacco, had hundreds more. By February 1943 the government had built at Woburn for £67,993 a hostel consisting of nine 4-unit, 2- storeyed wooden blocks, which could be converted into ordinary flats after the war. Kitchen, dining room, lounges, etc, were in one block, while the eight others could together house about 350 girls, two in

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a room, paying 27s weekly. It was run by the YWCA, as the agent of the government, and the staff included seven superintendents and matrons, who sought to organise recreational facilities and to supervise, more or less tactfully, the leisure of women compulsorily directed far from home and living near an American camp.¹⁰³

At Richmond Road, about half a mile away, a similar, seven-block, hostel was completed late in 1943. It was then diverted to Army use as a convalescent home, but the Army did not actually occupy it. When the Woburn hostel's kitchen and cafeteria were damaged by fire in February 1944, the Richmond Road facilities were used as substitutes for two or three months, and in April 1944 were fully restored to the girls of industry and the YWCA.

Meanwhile the government had taken over the Orient Hotel at Oriental Bay, Wellington, intending it for about 90 girls, mainly working at Wellington Hospital and at Godfrey Phillips' tobacco factory. It was opened in December 1943, again under YWCA management, though long delays thereafter in completing renovations, fire escapes and heating reduced its capacity.¹⁰⁴

Woburn was occupied fairly consistently, but Richmond Road and the Orient hostel during its first year were by no means fully used. They were reserved for Manpowered girls from outside Wellington, but the girls proved hard to muster and pressure for them fluctuated: some industrial programmes were changed, so that anticipated drafts of girls, to whom rooms were allotted, were cancelled; interlocking uncertainties and inertia kept rooms empty. Richmond Road, which could have housed 276 girls and staff, was in use for barely 18 months before it was returned to the Housing Department in September 1945, and for only a few months in mid-1945 was it fully occupied. Throughout, one block holding 46 girls was used by the WAAC, and for most of its time only three of its blocks were in use.¹⁰⁵ Much the same situation prevailed at the Orient hostel till the YWCA, uneasy about empty rooms while other girls were desperate for accommodation, in September 1944 obtained permission to admit local girls provided they worked in essential industries.¹⁰⁶

These difficulties in Wellington hostels caused National Service to turn down proposals, in July 1944, for hostels at Auckland,¹⁰⁷

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though there was talk about the need for them.¹⁰⁸ But even if Wellington's hostels were not an unqualified success, they eased an acute employment-accommodation problem for, at most, about 550 girls who were working long hours, and they may well have been more pleasant for not being fully packed. The tobacco employers reported that their directed, hostel-living girls worked well and cheerfully, with less ordinary absenteeism than there was among local girls though many, on account of travelling difficulties, were late in returning from holidays.¹⁰⁹ After the war, many chose to remain in Wellington instead of returning to their home towns, those in munitions transferring to other labour-hungry places such as woollen mills, clothing and biscuit factories.¹¹⁰

By 1941 the growing labour shortage had put workers in a position of strength, able to take a day off here and there without fear of dismissal, and employers noticed an unpatriotic readiness to exploit the situation. The term ‘absenteeism’, properly defined as persistent lateness or absence without leave or reasonable excuse, was bandied about by some employers and newspapers, alarmed at labour's recalcitrance and the government's weakness in meeting it. There was little attempt, at the start, to distinguish between absences that were delinquent and those reasonable in the context of industrial conditions and wartime stresses.

Some newspapers gave a good deal of publicity to absenteeism, particularly to belated returns from holidays at Christmas and Easter. Thus, on 9 January 1941, the Evening Post had a double-column article on the war effort being hampered by workers who, despite pre-Christmas appeals by Cabinet ministers and employers, had failed to resume on Monday 6 January. Some factories with war contracts reported high absence rates, one of nearly 90 per cent, and ‘inquiries made today revealed that this practice was general throughout the industrial strata of the city.’ Workers were trickling back, bronzed but unrepentant, their attitudes keenly resented by proprietors: ‘The humiliating part is that I cannot tell them what I think of them,’ stated one. The tendency to take days off without leave or notice had been going on for some time. The cause was high wages. Many young girls, with more to spend on themselves than had the average married man, were working four-day weeks. The manager of a large staff, who had promised a £2 bonus to those who worked full-time

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between 1 October and Christmas, had paid out only £20.¹¹¹ The secretary of the Manufacturers' Association said that there had been an increasing tendency in recent years for workers to absent themselves for trivial reasons, although they now worked 50 fewer half-days in a year than they used to and had other holiday privileges. Yet at many factories large and small throughout the country, especially in Wellington and Christchurch, post-Christmas production had been seriously affected.¹¹² In Christchurch, Millers, a large clothing factory, reported 37 per cent absenteeism on 6 January. There was no trouble at Dunedin, where one large firm had no absences at all and another only 4 or 5 among 830 hands,¹¹³ nor were excessive absences reported at Auckland.

An Evening Post editorial on 10 January reproved the absentees' carefree abuse of their sheltered conditions in the war and called for firm action by the government. Next day Sullivan, Minister of Supply, stated that his inquiries showed that absenteeism was not a disease affecting every factory; some workers had been irresponsible, the majority had loyally returned on time. Ten large Wellington factories showed absentee rates on 6 January varying from 40 to 3 per cent, and at Christchurch the range was from 42 per cent to almost nil. He pointed to the absence of trouble at Auckland and said that relations between employers and staff in individual factories largely affected absences. Besides this, the Post published a further column of local employers' views, claiming that while other parts of the country might not have suffered serious disorganisation, Wellington industrial concerns had been severely affected.¹¹⁴

Staffs in clothing factories were prominent offenders. A machinist whose son had enlisted and who had herself gone back to work but found it too hard, wrote of the industry's background:

This year apparently most workrooms closed for ten to fourteen days. It is not so long since we used to get three to four weeks off at Christmas and the employers did not worry how we managed to live in the meantime. The wages were then 38s per week and very little overtime for thoroughly experienced hands. The girls in these workrooms are not deliberately disloyal, believe me, but modern methods and the bonus system work the girls to the limit of endurance. The awards specify 70 hours' overtime in one

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year unless a special permit is obtained, but most workrooms work far in excess of these, and when Christmas comes the majority of girls are tired mentally and physically. The award rate for clothing employees is now £2 17s 6d, so the girl must work hard to make £3 14s in four days, as one of the employers maintains. Now that the worker is calling the tune and having a fair time for recreation, the employers are kicking and crying disloyalty. I say no, only getting a little of their own back.¹¹⁵

These details show the type of complaints and defences that were repeated during the next two or three years. In another instance an Otago Daily Times editorial on 10 April 1942 attacked Otago freezing workers for late returns after Easter. This drew vigorous and detailed rebuttal in several letters, including one from the union secretary who suggested that the author of the editorial would be ‘more profitably employed on the slaughtering board, guthouse or other appropriate department.’¹¹⁶ Women were the most frequent offenders. Complaints about girls, uppish with overtime and bonus payments, or with plentiful boy-friends, forsaking their machines, their trays or their mops, were heard repeatedly, newspapers giving ample and indignant coverage, especially to clothing and footwear workers. Such absences did not occur in shops or offices, though they were very common among waitresses. In the context of the war, this withholding of effort was obviously deplorable; in the context of work-force feeling it was more comprehensible. Until the demand for skilled labour grew acute early in 1940, girls who stayed away without very good reason would promptly have been dismissed; they might also have been dismissed to balance fluctuations in factory orders. The knowledge that they could take time off without being sacked would be as agreeable to girls as it was disturbing to management. The lamentations from some Wellington clothing factories in November 1941 bear witness. Said one, ‘Girls are the most irresponsible creatures imaginable, yet in these days we are entirely at their mercy.’ Another said that it was now impossible for a man to be boss in his own factory, as he would find himself without employees: ‘Sack a girl because she is useless and with her go all her friends too. They do not care two hoots, knowing perfectly well that when they want to earn some more money they will have no difficulty in getting another job.’¹¹⁷

Tales of 16-year-old girls getting £3 10s a week, even £5 for factory work,¹¹⁸ were exaggerated, said other managers: the starting

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wage was 20s to 25s, with periodical increases for experience, and though some girls of 16 might have two years behind them, generally girls earning high pay were highly skilled. One manager claimed that his absentee rate was almost negligible and his girls were keen, especially on essential production, with overtime willingly worked and just as willingly paid.¹¹⁹ The award wage for an adult female clothing worker was £2 15s (plus 5 per cent cost of living increase), but many firms were paying above award rates to get and keep staff.

It was not hard, given reports of a few outstanding payments, to believe that these were general. It was not widely realised that with production boosted by piecework and overtime, girls on monotonous and exacting tasks became genuinely very tired, and such things as a sunny day (or a very wet one), a headache, a period, or the husband or boy-friend being on leave, seemed plenty of reason for a day off. The regulations, beginning in January 1942, which checked movement from job to job, created worker restiveness while removing still further the threat of dismissal.

Other regulations, passed on 20 May 1942, required employers to report any absence exceeding four hours to Manpower officers, who would investigate. At this stage further and better excuses were usually produced and often it was decided that real absenteeism was not fully proved. Otherwise a warning would be issued in the first instance, and for repeated offences the Manpower officer could direct the employer to deduct up to two days' pay, which would go into the War Expenses Account. Appeal against such fines could be made to the Industrial Manpower Committee, but two fines of pay, or attending unauthorised ‘stop work’ meetings, could bring offenders before the courts, facing fines of up to £50. By VJ Day, Manpower officials had received 48 237 complaints; 11 252 were not proved, there were 29 085 warnings, and 7900 fines were taken from pay packets.¹²⁰

In the DSIR, an Industrial Psychology Division was established. Its first report, for private circulation only, covered research between November 1942 and August 1943 into 34 engineering firms employing nearly 6000 workers, mainly men, and 11 other firms employing 961 women. It found average absentee rates of 6.5 per cent for men and 12.1 per cent for women, very close to current Australian figures of 5 per cent and 12 per cent respectively.¹²¹ It also found that conditions in many factories were unhelpful: heating and ventilation were often not good, and refreshment facilities were

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scanty. Thus, in the 34 engineering factories there were only three canteens, one good, one too small and one poor; ten had reasonably pleasant mess rooms, providing tea or hot water; in three these were unsatisfactory; 18 had neither canteens nor mess rooms, and some firms disapproved of tea breaks. Among such workers, sustained mainly on sandwiches, pies and fish-and-chips, their days lengthened by persistent if not excessive overtime, both ill-health and absenteeism seemed probable. The waiting and weariness of travel on crowded buses, trams and trains which did not mesh with overtime hours would also contribute to fatigue.

Good relations between workers and management, however, emerged as the most important single factor in keeping absence rates low.¹²² The report held: ‘Up to a point absenteeism is an unavoidable outlet for the strains and tensions of wartime industry (fatigue, monotony, irritation and social dislocation).’ Absence rates of 5 per cent for men and 10 per cent for women would be reasonable, and the rates of many firms were well below this. There was no single, simple remedy but the most important contribution would be a ‘substantial advance in methods of personnel management’. This would involve the training of managers in modern practices and outlook; better keeping and use of labour records; less criticism of shortcomings, remembering that good workmen were not born but made, and awareness that absenteeism was to a considerable extent a problem of youth. Fines, it seemed, lessened individual absences, but had no marked deterrent effect on the rest of the firm. Rewards for good attendance had not proved a lasting answer, and more severe penalties, unless applied with great discrimination, would certainly be unjust to many genuinely maladjusted to the industrial situation. There was a case for stepping up penalties immediately after holiday periods, but stringency of the Russian sort was unthinkable. Ventilation and heating facilities for meals, and first-aid and accident prevention, should be improved. Overtime should be limited and monotony lessened, while informative publicity, arousing feelings of urgency, loyalty, interest and usefulness, should be developed along with workers' committees.¹²³ The investigators agreed with the clothing machinist quoted above¹²⁴ in believing that Depression experiences should be kept in mind when assessing the root causes of absenteeism.¹²⁵

The Psychology Division found wide variations in absence rates from firm to firm, suggesting the importance of specific internal

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factors.¹²⁶ Among men the usual reason given was sickness. Women, absent more often, also pleaded business (which included personal affairs, shopping and hairdressing), family (illness of children or husband, husband or boy-friend on leave, household duties, death in the family) and miscellaneous reasons, such as the dentist or a parade in town; or they offered no excuse at all.¹²⁷

Women's absences had been noticed quite early. In June 1940 Sullivan had said that though young girls in factories were doing splendid work while actually on the job, they sometimes stayed away for days at a time, producing serious dislocation.¹²⁸ Only during a few bad times did many New Zealanders doubt that somehow the war would be won. Assurances, often repeated, that workers' full efforts were needed for victory became unreal when reviewed beside the delays and checks which almost inevitably litter factory production, and were even more remote from such tasks as housework in hotels or non-military hospitals or waitressing in restaurants. Probably most women felt less involved in the war than did men, basically because life-and-death military service was not expected of them. Many could not imagine that what they did or did not do could affect the war's progress or outcome. Therefore they sought to live with the war, getting what they could from things as they were. Young girls, with their normal courting and marriage routines disrupted, accepted or sought what fun was going. Mostly such fun was with servicemen, often with Americans, affluent and fascinating. Employers allowed for such factors in assessing staff needs. When girls with husbands on leave stayed away from work, it was rated ‘only natural’, but there was less tolerance for other attachments.¹²⁹ A Dominion article early in 1943 complained, among much else, that free-spending male escorts contributed to the slackness of girls, who were ‘reported to keep very late nights, to be absent from work frequently, and often to be indifferent to the job when they are there.’¹³⁰

For different reasons, absence rates were high among married women. If they had homes and husbands, let alone children, they were doing two jobs. They were not wholly dependent on their earnings and they felt that they did enough for the war effort without putting in every day at the factory.¹³¹ No one could reproach a

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mother who stayed home with a sick child, while even housework and shopping could get out of hand and husbands grow fidgety. By no means all absences were reported to Manpower: up to 31 March 1943 only 7564 persons had been reported, fewer than the workers who would have been absent on a single day.¹³² Some employers, who attributed all absence to irresponsibility and excessively high wages, were exasperated by the kid-glove method of Manpower inquiries and believed that distinguishing between irresponsible and excusable absences might well have been left to the courts.¹³³ They complained that it was no use complaining.¹³⁴ Others, who accepted a high rate of absence, some mentioning 10 per cent, some 20 per cent, as one of the trials of the times, allowed for it in their arrangements and saved themselves the trouble of making charges.¹³⁵ Up to March 1943 the National Service Department had dealt with 6960 of the 7564 complaints, giving warnings in 5109 cases and fining in 424 others, or six per cent; 1427 charges were not sustained.¹³⁶ Fraser told the House in June that on 8 March Manpower officers were instructed to take a more severe line in future.¹³⁷ Later in the year, the National Service Department told employers that it was taking stricter measures and asked them to report absences for which they had not received genuine reasons. The Department recognised that many employers had ceased notifying in view of many experiences of inactivity by Manpower officers.¹³⁸ In the year ending March 1944, of 18 814 cases dealt with, 10 983 were warned, 3272 or 17 per cent were fined, and 4559 were not sustained. In the following year, from 16 298 investigations there were 9451 warnings, 2991 (18 per cent) fines, and 3856 not sustained. Against the total 6687 fines imposed, there were 268 appeals; in 42 cases fines were reduced and in 88 wholly remitted.¹³⁹ In its 1944 annual report, the New Zealand Employers Federation said that on account of National Service ineffectiveness few employers bothered to report absences with the result that the Department claimed that absenteeism was no longer a serious problem; strong enforcement of the regulations would have benefited the nation.¹⁴⁰ In the Wellington

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Chamber of Commerce, discussing a firm's complaint of major absences after Christmas 1944, it was said that both employers and employees were to blame. Early in the war employers were reluctant to report absenteeism, some ‘got into bad odour’ for reporting cases, it was easier to ignore the law and some workers took advantage of the position. Continued strain was also mentioned, and flighty girls with too much money in their pockets.¹⁴¹

As part of the drive against both absenteeism and failure to register for direction, Manpower officers, along with the police, had authority to question people on private premises and in public places such as hotels, cinemas and billiard rooms concerning their work obligations. In 1944 the National Service Department claimed that raids, carried out ‘tactfully and in a manner to cause the least inconvenience to the public’, had located several hundreds of defaulters and absentees.¹⁴²

This tact may have been slight exaggeration for the official record. After June 1942, hotel lounges were watched for truant women, and there were sporadic raids resulting, by March 1944, in more than 1000 women being interviewed and about 10 per cent of them being made available for work.¹⁴³ Thus, during two days in May 1943 Wellington police and Manpower authorities found 40 ‘known or suspected defaulters’ in hotels;¹⁴⁴ in August, raiding two Hamilton hotels to investigate possible immorality, excessive drinking and Manpower defaulting, officials questioned more than 100 people, finding some who had left employment without leave and others temporarily absent.¹⁴⁵ In January 1944, the New Zealand Herald noted that while more than 200 jobs for women were advertised in its columns, its reporters counted ‘hundreds’ of women drinking in hotel lounges on a Friday afternoon. The practice had been somewhat curtailed during the Manpower raids in the middle of the previous year, remarked the Herald, ‘but the numbers frequenting the lounges have again increased and suggest that further raids could well be considered.’¹⁴⁶

In March and April 1944 these raids were intensified, and people were questioned not only in hotels but in cinemas, tea rooms, billiard rooms and golf courses in many centres. It was widely reported on 13 April that in 163 raids in various parts of New Zealand 110 persons, all women, had been located for direction to work; also 63

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definite cases of absenteeism had been found and others were still being investigated. Further, said H. L. Bockett,¹⁴⁷ Controller of Manpower, the raids had caused many people who should have registered earlier to do so.¹⁴⁸

In the bars of six Auckland hotels the first raids, on the afternoon of 12 April 1944, were generally treated as a ‘not uninteresting novelty’. There were relatively few civilians present, most of them legitimately; they included carpenters and other out-door men who could not work on account of rain, seamen, night shift men and a ‘surprising’ number with medical certificates. About 70 names were to be checked, but were not expected to yield more than eight or nine absentees. In hotel lounges at the same time, few women were absent from work without good reason.¹⁴⁹

At Wellington the Dominion reported in mid-April that of 538 persons interrogated in hotels, cinemas and billiard rooms during the past month only six were absent from essential industry without excuse, while 31 not gainfully employed had been ordered to report to Manpower, nine of them being directed to essential work. A large number of young people proved to be on shift work, had a rostered day off or were actually on holiday, disproving the impression apparently held by the public that numbers of young people at places of public amusement were malingering. The raids, it was held, had deterred absenteeism; some places of amusement were less patronised and one had closed in the afternoons.¹⁵⁰

These reports do not suggest a very large haul. The District Manpower Officer at Christchurch, questioned at this time, would not give figures but said that the greatest value of the raids was ‘not in the absentees detected, but in the absenteeism they prevent’.¹⁵¹ The raids clearly were in response to complaints against absenteeism, but no conspicuous improvement was claimed; there were other places to be in besides pubs and pictures.

It was tempting to believe that longer hours would increase production in proportion; consequently, regulations facilitated longer hours by lowering rates for overtime and by permitting extra work by women and boys. Reports from Britain of dramatic hours worked after Dunkirk were countered, after a few months, by statements that such effort could not be sustained and that production actually

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fell; but, as Dr Hare remarked, ‘The idea that output can be automatically increased by increasing hours of work is deeply ingrained and dies very hard’.¹⁵² After Japan's entry, long hours were worked on defence construction, while in munitions and engineering 10–30 hours of overtime weekly were normal during the first half of 1942.¹⁵³ Engineering efforts, such as the making from scratch and in a rush of Bren gun and universal carriers,¹⁵⁴ involved a tremendous amount of work, spread out in many factories. Pressure extended over many fields: in a firm making and repairing agricultural machinery, men worked 55 hours a week and by July 1942 this was ‘getting them down.’¹⁵⁵ A pamphlet, Hours of Work in Wartime by Leslie Hearnshaw,¹⁵⁶ a Wellington University College lecturer, published in August 1942, concluded that long hours diminished human efficiency so much that production fell, workers' health suffered and overtime pay was handed out for nothing at all. Hare's pamphlet, Labour in New Zealand 1942, also warned against excessive overtime, and his views were supported by some newspapers.¹⁵⁷ Already some Wellington firms, from their own records, had found that overtime was being cancelled out by absenteeism and were reducing it as much as possible.¹⁵⁸

Overtime paid better than normal hours. In Britain ‘Dog-tired men would take the day off in the middle of the week, losing an ordinary day's pay—then turn up on Sunday to earn double pay. A vested interest in Sunday work and in overlong hours was created, and stood against Ernest Bevin's¹⁵⁹ well-conceived attempts to revive sanity.’¹⁶⁰ Overtime and absenteeism, through exhaustion and the pay motive, readily became a cycle in which workers got more money for the same or less work. This was the case in Britain and to some extent in New Zealand. Especially if workers were absent in normal hours, overtime would be needed to catch up on orders. Frequently, awards required that on overtime evenings payments must be made for at least three hours, whether or not the full time was worked. As an instance, trainee girls in a clothing factory on 17s 6d a week had to be paid 1s 6d an hour overtime, with a minimum of three

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hours. Thus they would receive 4s 6d for three hours or less on overtime, but only 3s 6d for eight hours' normal day work.¹⁶¹

By 1943 the excessive post-Japan hours were largely reduced: for defence works, engineering trades and the railways they were usually between 48 and 56 a week, though longer hours—up to 60 and 70 a week—were worked sporadically on the wharves and by ship repairers, railway drivers and cement workers.¹⁶² During 1944 hours continued to shrink, with building and construction trades, railways and engineering work running at between 45 and 48 hours weekly, though there were exceptional cases of 60 hours or so.¹⁶³ Some hours, however, were lengthened. From March 1944 the Auckland Transport Board's traffic staff worked a 6-day week of 54 hours. They had previously been averaging 48 to 50 hours; the increase was to meet the inroads of absenteeism, though it was realised that ‘longer hours before long would bring increased absenteeism.’¹⁶⁴

Throughout, with both men and women absentee rates varied greatly from firm to firm. This was noted by the Industrial Psychology Division researchers who found rates varying from 1.37 to 9.40 per cent among men and from 5.45 to 21.70 per cent among women.¹⁶⁵ Sullivan drew attention to it in January 1941 and at the same time the Otago Daily Times had found in virtuous Dunedin one firm with a very high absence rate.¹⁶⁶

On 4 January 1943, when absenteeism was reported to be ‘rife’ in Australia, Auckland returns to work were satisfactory, except in the clothing trade. In shipbuilding and some other heavy industry, work had continued over the holidays, and there was no trouble at Westfield's freezing works or other equally essential industries. Ten clothing firms questioned in Auckland reported that only a small proportion of their staffs were present on the day the firms re-opened, but it appeared that this day was not held to be compulsory.¹⁶⁷ There was no large-scale absenteeism, however, and some clothing firms that were overhauling machinery had arranged to open later.¹⁶⁸ Again Dunedin was fully on the job, and there were few complaints from Christchurch where most large factories had arranged to re-open a week later on 11 January.¹⁶⁹ At Wellington