Part 9 (1/2)
The other tendency is towards the organisation of women either jointly with men or in close connexion with men's Unions. In these cases there have been many failures and some successes. The question of adjustment is highly complicated, and cannot be settled on broad lines as with the cotton weavers. ”Equal pay for equal work” is not a ready-made solution for all difficulties, for the work is very often not equal at all. In most cases it is absolutely distinct, and in many there is a troublesome margin where the work of men and women is very nearly the same but not quite.
The men often regard women as unscrupulous compet.i.tors, and though they have mostly abandoned the old policy of excluding women, they are apt to try and organise them from their own point of view, without regard to the women's special interests. Rough measures of this kind only give a further impulse to schism, confusion and bitterness. At present undeniably there is here and there a good deal of ill-feeling, especially in districts like Manchester or Liverpool, with a number of ill-organised, ill-paid trades, and competing unco-ordinated Unions.
If Trade Unionism is to be effective, if members.h.i.+p is to be co-extensive with the trade and compulsory, as in the future we hope it will, there is no question that better methods are needed, greater centralisation, a more carefully thought-out policy, to avoid the present waste and compet.i.tion.
It is not so much a change of heart as a coherent policy that is needed.
The organisation of women has been taken up merely where it was obviously and pressingly needful, in order to safeguard the interests of the men immediately concerned. In the case of the cotton weavers, an altogether special and peculiar cla.s.s, the problem was comparatively simple. It was of vital importance to the men to get the women in, and on the other hand, the men could do for the women a great deal which at that stage of social development and opinion the women could not possibly have done for themselves. The cotton weavers exhibit an interlocking of interests, so patent and unmistakable that it was not only perceived but acted upon. The card-room operatives lagged behind for a time, the organisation of women being not quite so evident and apparent a necessity, but they have now almost overtaken the weavers. In other industries the problem is more complicated and has taken much longer to grasp. Take the interesting and suggestive industry of paper-making. How is the strongly organised, highly-paid paper-maker to realise that it matters very much that women should be organised in his trade? His daughter may earn pocket-money at paper-sorting, but merely as a temporary employment. She will marry a respectable artisan and abandon work on marriage. The rag-cutters, on the other hand, belong to an altogether different cla.s.s, being usually wives or widows of labourers. There is not enough cla.s.s feeling to bind together such different groups. It is true enough that the problem of labour is a problem of cla.s.s-solidarity, and that the women must in no wise be left out. ”Whoever can help to strengthen Trade Unionism among women workers will be conferring a benefit on more than the women themselves.”[40] But the depth and truth of this statement is by no means fully realised, and in many cases women have little chance of being organised by the men of their own trade. As Mr. Cole has told us, the weakness of British labour is the lack of central control and direction.
Outside the special case of the skilled workers in cotton, the organisation of women becomes more and more a question, not of craft, but of cla.s.s. This is seen in the different form and type of organisation demanded by the ”new unionism.” The cotton weavers need in their secretary before all things the closest and minutest acquaintance with the technical mysteries of the craft. The secretary of a modern labour Union including all sorts of heterogeneous workers cannot possibly possess intimate technical knowledge of each. Personality, power of speech, the force and warmth of character that can draw together oppressed and neglected workers and make them feel themselves one, these are the elementary gifts needed to start a workers' Union, whether of men, women, or both together. But also if such a body is to be kept together and do effective work, it is especially in the ”new unionism” that the need of central control and direction is felt. A national policy must take into consideration the needs of women and harmonise their interests with those of men. The success of the Women's Trade Union League is very largely due, not merely to the personality of its leaders, though no doubt that has been a considerable a.s.set, but to the fact that it has a national policy and a definite aim.
Frau Braun eleven years ago saw that the labour woman ran some danger of being caught into the feminist movement and withdrawn from her natural place as an integral part of the Labour Movement itself. It is to be hoped that she has followed English social history in the interval with sufficient closeness to be aware of the far-sighted statesmans.h.i.+p shown by the leaders of the Trade Union League in avoiding such a pitfall.
However unsatisfactory and inadequate the organisation of women has been and still is, a review of the situation does not suggest any inherent incapacity of women for corporate action. In the cotton weavers'
societies, although the main responsibility for organisation has rested on men's shoulders, yet the women and girls have consistently paid contributions amounting now to a relatively high figure, and they have constantly aided in the work of recruiting new members. Experience is now showing that in certain districts where the industry is becoming more and more a woman's trade, the women have not been lacking in capacity to take over the work of managing the Union's affairs. The absence of women from the Committee of so many weavers' Unions at the present day is due to inertia and long surviving habit rather than to any real incapacity. In the recent ballot on the question of political action, the enormous proportion of votes recorded shows that a large proportion of women must have used the vote. In many of the small women's societies in Manchester a working woman is the secretary. In certain cases local Unions of women have been successful, notably the Liverpool upholstresses, the Edmonton ammunition workers and some others. The working woman is in fact beginning to show powers, hitherto unsuspected, of social work and political action.
The Insurance Act has demanded women officials as ”Sick Visitors” and ”Pay Stewards,” and the new duties thrown on the secretaries and committee by that Act are likely to bring about an increasing demand for the partic.i.p.ation of women. The rapidly increasing numbers of women in the Shop a.s.sistants' Union, the movement for a minimum wage in the co-operative factories, the increasing number of women in general labour Unions, all these are hopeful signs of a movement towards unity. The milliner and dressmaker in small establishments and the domestic servant will probably be the last to feel the rising wave. Even of these we need not despair. With the development of postal facilities, easy transit and opportunities for social intercourse, such as we may foresee occurring in the near future, there may be a considerable development of cla.s.s-consciousness even among the workers among whom it is now most lacking, while the Women's Co-operative Guild and the Women's Labour League, in their turn, are finding a way for the a.s.sociation of non-wage-earning women in the working cla.s.s.
FEMALE MEMBERs.h.i.+P OF TRADE UNIONS, 1913.
+----------------------------------------------------+ | | |Per cent| |Occupation |Numbers.| of | | | | Total. | |----------------------------------|--------|--------| |Textile-- | | | | Cotton preparing | 53,317| 149 | | Cotton spinning | 1,857| 05 | | Cotton weaving | 155,910| 438 | | Wool and worsted | 7,738| 22 | | Linen and jute | 20,689| 58 | | Silk | 4,247| 12 | | Hosiery, etc. | 4,070| 11 | |Textile printing, etc | 9,453| 26 | | |--------|--------| | Total | 257,281| 721 | |Non-Textile-- | | | | Boot and shoe | 9,282| 26 | | Hat and cap | 3,750| 11 | | Tailoring | 9,798| 27 | | Printing | 5,893| 17 | | Pottery | 2,600| 07 | | Tobacco | 2,060| 06 | | Shop a.s.sistants | 24,255| 68 | | Other trades | 8,742| 24 | | General labour | 23,677| 66 | | Employment of Public Authorities| 9,625| 27 | | |--------|--------| | Total | 99,682| 279 | | |--------|--------| | Grand Total | 356,963| 1000 | +----------------------------------------------------+
CHAPTER V.
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION OF PART I.[41]
_Changes effected by the Industrial Revolution._--We have seen that the industrial employment of women developed partly out of their miscellaneous activities as members of a family, partly out of their employment as domestic servants, partly out of the work given out from well-to-do households to their poorer neighbours. Weaving and spinning, the most typical and general employments of women, were carried on by them as a.s.sistants to the husband or father, or as servants lending a hand to their masters' trade, or were done direct for customers. In the last case, the work might be done either for the use of the manor or some other well-to-do household, or in the case of spinning and winding, the product might be sold to weavers directly or through a middleman. To a more limited extent, the same kind of conditions probably applied to work other than textile. The women acted as subordinate helpers or a.s.sistants, whether in the family or out of it. In the former case they were probably not paid but took their share of the family maintenance; in the latter they were earners. When the circ.u.mstances of the trade were favourable, _e.g._ when the demand for yarn exceeded the supply, women-workers may have earned very fair wages; but on the whole it appears that they were in an unfavourable position in selling their labour. The fact of working for nothing, as many did in the home, would not promote a high standard of remuneration, and the women who took in work from the manor or other wealthy households would probably be expected to regard employment as a favour.[42]
When the industrial revolution came, and the man with capital found himself in the exciting position of being able to obtain large returns from his newly-devised plant and machinery, the women and children were there waiting to be employed. Enormous profits were made out of the cheap labour of women and girls. The only alternative occupation of any extent was domestic service, then an overstocked and under-paid trade. The women and girls, accustomed to work at home, were not aware how greatly their productive power had increased, and had no means of justifying claims to an increased share of the produce, even if they had known how to make them. Many, as we have seen in Chapter II., were reduced to terrible poverty through the failure of work to the hand-loom weavers, and were ready to take any work they could get to eke out the family living.
_The Survival of Previous Standards and Conditions._--The development of the great industry, the use of machinery and the concentration of capital, came at a time when the working cla.s.s was peculiarly helpless to help itself, and the governing cla.s.s was unable or unwilling to initiate any adequate social reform. The Enclosure Acts had weakened the spirit and independence of the agricultural working-cla.s.s and increased dest.i.tution and pauperism, while wages were kept down through the operation of the allowance system under the Old Poor Law. Local depopulation in rural districts sent numbers of needy labourers, strong, industrious, and inured to small earnings, to swell the industrial population of towns.[43] But the crowning cruelty, the extremest folly, was the prohibition to combine.
The special characteristic of the industrial revolution was the a.s.sociation of operatives under one roof, performing co-ordinated tasks under one control to produce a given result. Now this new method of a.s.sociated labour was not only immensely more productive, but it also potentially held advantages for the workers. It brought them together, it gave them a common interest, it brought all sorts of social and civic possibilities within their reach. But to realise these possibilities it was essential that they should be able to join together, to take stock of the bewildering new situation which confronted them, to achieve some kind of corporate consciousness. This was denied them under various pains and penalties. Yet the State did not for a long time itself take action to give the factory cla.s.s the protection they were forbidden to seek for themselves. The effect was that while the workers were bound, the employers were free or were restricted only to the very slight extent of the regulations of the early factory acts, and could impose very much such conditions of work as they pleased. What those conditions were has been reiterated often enough. Work far into the night, or even both night and day; sanitation of the rudest and most defective kind where it was not absent altogether; industrial disease from dust, fluff and dirt, or from damp floors and steaming atmosphere; workrooms overheated or dismally cold; wages low, and subject to oppressive fines and fraudulent deductions,--such, and worse, is the dreary recital of the treatment meted out to the workers. The introduction of power machines was not _per se_ the cause of these evils. Women had been accustomed to do the work that no one else wanted to do. The servile position of the woman-worker, the absence of combination among the operative cla.s.s, and the lack of State or Munic.i.p.al control over the conditions of industry and housing, all combined to provide ”cheap and docile workers” for the factory system. And no doubt the factory system took full advantage of the opportunity.
Capital inevitably seeks cheap labour. The governing cla.s.s had carefully and deliberately provided that labour should be cheap.
_What the Factory Act has done._--The awakening cla.s.s-consciousness of the factory workers in Lancas.h.i.+re and Yorks.h.i.+re led to agitation and pet.i.tions for a restriction of the hours of work. Leaving out of account the earlier Factory Acts, which were ill-devised and weak, the first effective regulation was the Factory Act of 1833. This Act was timid in the regulations imposed, which were too elastic to effect very much, but in the providing for the appointment of a staff of factory inspectors it a.s.serted the right and duty of the State to control the conditions of industry, and also indirectly secured that the Government should be kept in possession of the facts. Only young persons under eighteen were included under this Act, but in 1844 women also were included, and in 1847 and 1850 the working day was restricted to ten hours, and the period of employment was carefully defined to prevent evasion. In 1864 some dangerous trades were brought within the scope of the Acts, which had previously included textile and allied industries only, and in 1867 other non-textile industries and workshops were added. In 1878 a consolidating Act was pa.s.sed to bring the employment of women and young workers under one comprehensive scheme. The plan of the Act of 1878 was retained in the Act of 1901, but a considerable number of new regulations, especially in regard to health and safety, were included. In 1893 a step of great importance for working women was taken, in the appointment of women factory inspectors.
It does not come within the scope of this volume to describe the history of factory regulations and control, but we may here ask ourselves the question, How much has been done for the women in industry by the State?
What is the present position of the woman-worker?
In the first place, we note that sanitary conditions in factories and workshops are greatly improved and conditions as to health are more considered than was formerly the custom. This is not entirely due to the regulations of the Factory Act, but partly to the progress of public health generally, and to the development of scientific knowledge and humaner ideals of social life and manners. It is true that we are only at the beginning of this movement, and much remains to be done, as any one can satisfy himself by getting into touch with industrial workers, or by studying the Factory Inspectors' Reports, but it can hardly be doubted that the woman-worker of to-day has a very different, a very much more civilised industrial environment than had her mother or her grandmother.
The appointment of women inspectors counts for a great deal here, for in earlier times the needs of women-workers were not considered, or if considered were not known with any accuracy. In the second place we note that there has been a considerable development of special precautions for dangerous trades, and that in one instance of a dangerous substance, viz.
white phosphorus, its use has even been prohibited, and the terrible disease known as ”phossy jaw,” formerly the bane of match-makers, has been stamped out. In regard to certain sweated industries measures have been taken to regulate wages through the instrumentality of the Trade Boards, and, as it appears, with a considerable measure of success.
_Present Position of the Woman-Worker._--Otherwise it is strange to notice how very little the position of the woman-worker has been improved in recent years. She is still liable to toil her ten hours daily, just as her grandmother did, for five days in the week, though on Sat.u.r.days the hours have been somewhat curtailed. In non-textile factories ten and a half hours are permitted, though in many of the industries concerned a shorter day has become customary, whether through Trade Union pressure or a recognition on the employers' part that long hours ”do not pay.” Ten hours, or ten and a half, with the necessary pauses for meal-times, involve working ”round the clock,” which is still the recognised period of employment even for young persons of fourteen and over. The five hours'
spell of continuous work is still permitted in non-textile factories and workshops, although the inspectors have long been convinced that it is too long for health and energy, and Miss Squire reports that it is now condemned by all concerned with scientific management. In certain trades overtime is permitted, and the result is that girls and women may be employed fourteen hours a day, and if the employer takes his full advantage of it, as occasionally he does, the inspector can do nothing, the proceedings being perfectly legal.[44]
While the hours of work have been but very little shortened since 1874, the strain of work has been considerably increased, as we have seen, through the increased speed at which the machines are run. This is especially the case in the cotton trade, though it occurs in other factory industries. The demand upon the worker is much greater than formerly, and the reduction of hours has by no means kept pace with the increased strain. The backwardness of the Factory Act in these and some other matters is almost inconceivable. So important a matter as the lighting of work-places is still outside the scope of regulation. The nervous strain and serious risk to eyesight involved by doing work requiring close and accurate visual attention in a bad light need hardly be emphasised. The inspectors receive many complaints of badly-adjusted or otherwise defective artificial lighting of work-places, but have no weapon to use but persuasion, which happily is in some cases successfully invoked.
Another serious factor in the working woman's position is the weakness of the Truck Act, especially in regard to fines and deductions. Deductions, _e.g._ for spoilt work, are sometimes made on a scale altogether out of proportion to the weekly wages, and fines for being a few minutes late, or for trivial offences of various kinds, are often oppressive to a degree which can only be described as preposterous when compared with the value of the worker's time and attention measured in the payments they receive.
In some cases convictions and fines are secured, and in other cases, even in some which are outside the law, the inspectors are able to obtain the adoption of reforms by employers, but many hard cases remain unredressed owing to the difficulty of interpreting the Acts.