They Work Like Trojans -

Fiji Housegirls:

But They Have Their Quirks

From SUE WENDT, in Suva.

Housegirls may be a dying race on Niue (as reported by J.

Edward Brown in January) but in Fiji “the girl” is still an integral part of the European family set-up. Many Fijian and Indian house holds also employ one, or several —though it’s often on a somewhat different, “poor relation” basis.

No-one knows the exact number of housegirls in Fiji—not even the Labour Exchange. But there’s certainly no shortage and with job alternatives few and far between, it looks as though they’ll be around for a few years yet. For the average young Fijian girl, with hardly any education, there’s very little choice.

And for the older ones, who’ve been housegirls most of their lives, there’s no choice at all.

The housegirl can be a person of astonishingly varied talents. She ful fils the roles of washing-machine, dish-washer, housekeeper, baby sitter, cleaner and cook. She’s almost always bi-lingual and, sometimes, tri lingual. She will work like a Trojan at tasks the average European house wife would consider unthinkable— for instance, polishing the floors of an entire house on hands and knees, cleaning the carpets by hand and doing the household ironing on the floor. For all this, she might earn $4 or $5 for a 40-hour week.

Quirks

Payment varies, of course—and though occasional preliminary moves have been made towards standardising wages through some sort of house girls’ union, they’ve met with no success. There are too many girls wanting work.

While there’s not much difficulty in acquiring domestic help in Fiji (one’s next-door neighbour’s girl always has a sister or a cousin or an aunt willing to help out) the really excellent girls are as scarce as hens’ teeth. They are generally snap ped up by the higher-paying ex patriate families.

Housegirls have their quirks, of course. Ours insists on cleaning stainless steel cutlery with the very

expensive silver-cleaning fluid although the difference has been pointed out a dozen times. She also insists on using it for the aluminium legs on the kitchen table—and any thing else she suspects might be metallic.

Having been asked once to clean up a very dusty collection of shells decorating the bookcase, she now spends at least three-quarters of an hour each morning in painstakingly polishing each cowrie and cat’s-eye.

To ask her to desist at this stage would cause a small crisis in her daily routine. To do without her, would cause a major crisis in mine.

Wages vary greatly

Recently, the public affairs com mittee of Suva’s active YWCA con ducted a survey among housegirls and their employers. Only 16 employers—mostly in the expatriate group—and 24 “girls”—most of them working for expatriates—returned their questionnaire forms, but these did give some idea of the hours and conditions under which housegirls are working.

The replies on hours of work were interesting. The girls’ replies varied, but the average was much higher than their employer s’ estimates. The girls said they worked between eight and 12 hours a day (one even said 24!), while the employers claimed it varied between five and eight. Allowing for exag geration on both sides, the true figure is probably somewhere between.

Duties appeared to be much the same—cleaning, washing, etc., with some responsible for cooking and child care as well. Those responsible for the care of children received a slightly higher wage.

The wages varied so much that it

What about quality?

was difficult to work out just how much the average housegirl really does earn.

One girl said she received $l6 a month for working 12 hours a day, six days a week. Another claimed her wage was $3O a month for a 91 hour day, days a week.

An employer who said her girl worked a 44-hour week stated that she was paid $2B a month. Another said she paid her housegirl $l2 a month for working for 4 hours every day of the week.

Housegirls’ replies under the head ing “paid holidays” were listed as either “all” or “none”. The employers’ statements ranged from public holidays only to six weeks annually.

The survey was far from com prehensive, since it couldn’t possibly show the quality of work given, for instance, or the speed at which a girl might work.

The survey’s purpose, according to the committee’s chairman, Mrs.

M. Bamford, was only to illustrate the desirability of standardising the work and pay conditions for house girls.

"Easily exploited"

“We feel this group is easily ex ploited, because it has no method of redress,” she explained. “It might be impractical for many employers to pay their housegirls more money, simply for the sake of it. But there seems to be little or no correlation between working hours, years of ex perience and pay.

Apart from conducting such surveys, the YWCA is attempting to improve conditions for housegirls, by making them better housegirls.

For the past five years it has run a number of clubs, such as the Domain Housegirls’ Club which meets every Tuesday afternoon in Domain Road, Suva. Here girls receive guidance in such homecrafts as cooking and nutrition, first aid, sewing and gardening.

Obviously, those who attend the classes are girls in favoured positions, whose employers allow them time off for the purpose. The vast majority of housegirls just muddle along as best they can—as generations of housegirls have muddled along before them.

The day will come, of course, when it will be virtually impossible to acquire an all-purpose housegirl in Fiji—but it’s not likely to come before the establishment of com pulsory education, full employment and better job alternatives. And that’s not around the next corner. . . .