SIR,—Discussions on the pay of bank clerks overlooks the one
unique feature of their plight. Their troubles are not merely the result of rising living costs, but are mainly caused by the temporary disappearance of promotion prospects. A salary may be adequate for a young man of thirty with a newly furnished home, and yet quite inadequate for the same man fifteen years later when the carpets arc shabby and the children need educating.
There are thousands of men in thc banks today, men of forty to fifty with the ability to manage branches, who yet remain clerks and will remain clerks all their days.
We who were recruited in the 1920s were told that promotion prospects were good. All but a tiny percentage could expect to be cashiers or chief clerks by the time we were thirty. The size of our first appointment and our subsequent careers depended on our abilities, but the chance of an appointment was certain.
We thus expected our chances by 1942 or 1943. Ten years later the majority of those 1920 recruits were still withoLt an appoint- ment, ynd thousands of us will never rise above mere routine duties.
Our plight is not due to wars, slumps, in- flation, bad luck or anything like that. It is due to faulty recruiting in the 1920s. When I was recruited in 1924, with promises of pro- motion, the bank could have found out from its own records exactly how many men would be due to retire every year for the next forty years, and exactly how many appointed officers would retire in the ensuing thirty years. It should thus have been clear to them in 1920 that the age bulge of 1945-55 would be inevitable. It should have been clear that their promises of promotion could not be fulfilled.
Should not the banks bear the financial burden of their faulty recruiting policy after the First World War by paying more to us elderly men who have never had the promised chance and never will have that chance?— Yours faithfully,
BANKER'S CLERK
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