South Australia - Industrial Relations
Banking
Clerks
"Relaxation to Clerks" and a proposed "weekly half-holiday" is discussed in the Register,12 and 17 November 1853, pages 3e and 3e,
13 and 16 December 1853, pages 3e and 3c,
23, 24, 26, 27 and 30 June 1854, pages 3f, 3f, 2g, 2d-3g and 3f:
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We should be glad to see this movement succeed, as there is no doubt that, in a country like this, an occasional relaxation from the toils and confinement of business is absolutely necessary to the promotion of health.
Also see Register, 4, 6, 7, 12, 19, 20 and 22 July 1854, pages 3b, 3b, 3d, 3d, 3d, 3b and 3b.
The plight of unemployed clerks is traversed in the Advertiser, 2 and 12 September 1887, pages 7g and 7e.
Clerk's salaries, under the heading "Another Social Problem", are discussed in the Register on 18 April 1890, page 4f while on the same day at page 7d a correspondent says:
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A clerk's life now is almost on a par with some country mail horses - so long as he can work on what his employers choose to give him well and good. If he cannot live on it then let him die or leave, they can get another in his place...
Also see Register,
22, 23 and 25 April 1890, pages 7e, 6c and 3d,
10 March 1891, page 3f.
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My parents kept a small lolly shop. They were ambitious and saved to send me to PA College. I wish it had been St Peters because the St Peter's men are a cut above the PA fellows; their pedigrees are longer...
Also see Register,
30 April 1890, page 7f and
18 May 1900, page 7g for a plea to form a clerks' union,
25 January 1904, page 4d.
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The question of ill-paid clerks, like many other social problems, will be properly saved only when the relations of man to man are viewed from the right moral and religious standpoint, and when the classes affected have been stirred by a much-needed ethical revival.
"Boy Clerks" is in the Advertiser, 5 and 23 April 1890, pages 7f and 3g.
"A Union of Penmen" is in the Register, 4 November 1898, page 4f.
The formation of a clerks' association is reported in the Register,
31 May 1905, page 3h,
25 July 1905, page 7d:
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In forming the Clerks' Association it is not proposed to admit lady members as we hold the opinion (having their happiness in view) they would be better employed in qualifying themselves for the duties of wifehood and motherhood than sitting in a close office worrying over figures, destroying their eyesight and that bloom in their cheeks we all so much like to see.
This edict raised a storm of protest - See Register,
11, 15, 17, 18, 22 and 26 August 1905, pages 4g, 3f, 3b, 8g, 6h and 3e.
Further information on the union appears on
7, 10, 11, 12 and 16 December 1908, pages 9d, 5c, 3h, 4i and 4e,
20 and 21 August 1909, pages 6d and 7d,
19 August 1910, page 8g,
20 October 1910, page 6d,
22 March 1913, page 15d,
10 September 1915, page 8g.
"Clerks and Strikes" is in the Register,
17 July 1916, page 6g,
"Sex in Industry - Clerks Perturbed by Competition" on
10 and 12 February 1926, pages 11a and 8c.
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