Part 7 (1/2)
Among women's industries this is not the case to any great extent.
Skilled work like that of book-folding is paid no higher than the almost unskilled work of the jam or match girl. This is said to be due partly to the fact that the lower kinds of work are done by girls and women who are compelled to support themselves, while the higher cla.s.s is done by women partly kept by husband or father, partly to the pride taken in the performance of more skilled work, and the reluctance to mingle with women belonging to a lower stratum of society, which prevents the wages of the various kinds of work from being determined by free economic compet.i.tion. A bookbinding girl would sooner take lower wages than engage in an inferior cla.s.s of work which happened to rise in the market price of its labour. But whatever the causes may be, the fact cannot be disputed that the lower rates of wages extend over a larger proportion of women workers.
Again, the wages quoted above refer to workers in factories. But only three women's trades of any importance are managed entirely in factories, the cigar, confectionery, and match-making[34] trades. In many of the other trades part of the work is done in factories, part is let out to sweaters, or to women who work at their own homes. Many of the clothing trades come under this cla.s.s, as for example, the tie- making, tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs, corset-making trades. The employers in these trades are able to play the out-doors workers against the indoors workers, so as to keep down the wages of both to a minimum. The ”corset” manufacture is fairly representative of these trades. The following list gives the per-centage of workers receiving various sums for ”indoors” i.e.
”factory” work.
s. s. s. s. s. s. s. s. s. s.
Under 4 3--6 8--10 10--12 12--15 Over 15 2.94 p.c. 50 p.c. 2.94 p.c. 5.9 p.c. 14.7 p.c. 22.52 p.c.
Outdoor workers earn from 6s. to 12s., but where more than 10s. is earned, the woman is generally a.s.sisted by one or more of her children.
Generally speaking, the most miserably paid work is that in trades where most of the work is done by out-door workers. Such is the lowest stratum of the ”vest and trousers” trade, where English women undertake work rejected by the lowest cla.s.s of Jew workers, and the s.h.i.+rt-making trade, which, in the opinion of the Lords' Committee, ”does not appear to afford subsistence to those who have no other employment.” In these and other trades of the lowest order, 6s. a week is a tolerably common wage for a work-woman of fair skill to net after a hard week's work, and there are many individual cases where the wage falls far below this mark.
It is true that the work for which the lowest wages are paid is often that of learners, or of inefficient work-women; but while this may be a satisfactory ”economic” explanation, it does not mitigate the terrible significance of the fact that many women are dependent on such work as their sole opportunity of earning an honest livelihood.
-- 3. Irregularity of Employment.--As the wages of women are lower than those of men, so they suffer more from irregularity of employment. There are two special reasons for this.
[Greek: a]. Many trades in which women are employed, depend largely upon the element of Season. The confectionery trade, one of the most important, employs twice as many hands in the busy season as in the slack season. Match-makers have a slack season, in which many of them sell flowers, or go ”hopping.” Laundry work is largely ”season” work.
Fur-sewing is perhaps the worst example of the terrible effect of irregular work taken with low wages. ”For several months in the year the fur-sewers have either no work, or earn about 3s. or 4s. a week, and many of these work in overcrowded insanitary workshops in the season.
Fur-sewing is the worst paid industry in the East End, with absolutely no exceptions.”[35]
[Greek: b]. Fluctuations in fas.h.i.+on affect many women's trades; in particular, the ”ornamental” clothing trades, e.g. furs, feathers, tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs, etc.
Employers in these slack times prefer generally to keep on the better hands (on lower wages), and to dismiss the inferior hands.
These ”natural” fluctuations, added to ordinary trade irregularities, favour the employment of ”outdoor” workers in sweaters' dens or at home, and require in these trades, as conducted at present, the existence of an enormous margin of ”casual” workers. These two chief factors in the ”sweating” problem, sub-contract and irregular home-work, are far more prevalent in female industries than in male.
-- 4. Hours of Labour in Women's Trades.--The Factory Act is supposed to protect women engaged in industrial work from excessive hours of labour, by setting a limit of twelve hours to the working day, including an interval of two hours for meals.
But pa.s.sing over the fact that a dispensation is granted, enabling women to be employed for fourteen hours during certain times, there is the far more important consideration that most employments of women wholly escape the operation of the Factory Act. In part this is due to the difficulty of enforcing the Act in the case of sweating workshops, many of which are unknown to inspectors, while others habitually break the law and escape the penalty. Again, the Act does not and cannot be made to apply to a large cla.s.s of small domestic workshops. When the dwelling-room is also the work-room, it is impossible to enforce by any machinery of law, close limitation of hours of labour. Something may be done to extend the arm of the law over small workshops; but the worst form of out-work, that voluntarily undertaken by women in their own homes, cannot be thus put down. Nothing short of a total prohibition of outwork imposed on employers would be effectual here. Lastly, there are many large employments not subject to the Factory Act, where the economic power of the employer over weak employees is grossly abused.
One of the worst instances is that of the large laundries, where women work enormously long hours during the season, and are often engaged for fifteen or sixteen hours on Fridays and Sat.u.r.days. The whole cla.s.s of shop-a.s.sistants are worked excessive hours. Twelve and fourteen hours are a common shop day, and frequently the figure rises to sixteen hours.
Restaurants and public-houses are perhaps the greatest offenders. The case of shop-a.s.sistants is most aggravated, for these excessive hours of labour are wholly waste time; a reduction of 25 or even of 50 per cent in the shopping-day, reasonably adjusted to the requirements of cla.s.ses and localities, would cause no diminution in the quant.i.ty of sales effected, nor would it cause any appreciable inconvenience to the consuming public.
-- 5. Sanitary Conditions.--Seeing that a larger proportion of women workers are occupied in the small workshops or in their own overcrowded homes, it is obvious that the fourth count of the ”sweating” charge, that of unsanitary conditions of work, applies more cruelly to them than to men. Their more sedentary occupations, and the longer hours they work in many cases outside the operation of the Factory Act, makes the evils of overcrowding, bad ventilation, bad drainage, etc., more detrimental to the health of women than of men workers.
-- 6. Special Burdens incident on Women.--We have now applied the four chief heads of the ”sweating” disease--low wages, long hours, irregular employment, unsanitary conditions--to women's work, and have seen that the absolute pressure in each case is heavier on the weaker s.e.x.
But in estimating the industrial condition of women, there are certain other considerations which must not be left out of sight.
To many women-workers, the duties of maternity and the care of children, which in a civilized human society ought to secure for them some remission from the burden, of the industrial fight, are a positive handicap in the struggle for a livelihood. When a married woman or a widow is compelled to support herself and her family, the home ties which preclude her from the acceptance of regular factory work, tell fatally against her in the effort to earn a living. Married women, and others with home duties which cannot be neglected, furnish an almost illimitable field of casual or irregular labour. Not only is this irregular work worse paid than regular factory work, but its existence helps to keep up the pernicious system of ”out-work” under which ”sweating” thrives. The commercial compet.i.tion of to-day positively trades upon the maternity of women-workers.
In estimating the quant.i.ty of work which falls to the lot of industrial women-workers, we must not forget to add to the wage-work that domestic work which few of them can wholly avoid, and which is represented by no wages. Looking at the problem in a broad human light, it is difficult to say which is the graver evil, the additional burden of the domestic work, so far as it is done, or the habitual neglect of it, where it is evaded. Here perhaps the former point of view is more pertinent. To the long hours of the factory-worker, or the shopwoman, we must often add the irksome duties which to a weary wife must make the return home a pain rather than a pleasure. When the industrial work is carried on at home the worries and interruptions of family life must always contribute to the difficulty and intensity of the toil, and tell upon the nervous system and the general health of the women-workers.
Other evils, incident on woman's industrial work, do not require elaboration, though their c.u.mulative effect is often very real. Many women-workers, the locality of whose home depends on the work of their husband or father, are obliged to travel every day long distances to and from their work. The waste of time, the weariness, and sometimes the expense of 'bus or train thus imposed on them, is in thousands of cases a heavy tax upon their industrial life. Women working in factories, or taking work home, suffer also many wrongs by reason of their ”weaker s.e.x,” and their general lack of trade organization. Unjust and arbitrary fines are imposed by harsh employers so as to filch a portion of their scanty earnings; their time is wasted by unnecessary delay in the giving out of work, or its inspection when finished; the brutality and insolence of male overseers is a common incident in their career. In a score of different ways the weakness of women injures them as compet.i.tors in the free fight for industrial work.
-- 7. Causes of the Industrial Weakness of Women.--This brief summary of the industrial condition of low-skilled women-workers will suffice to bring out the fact that the ”sweating” question is even more a woman's question than a man's. The question which rises next is, Why do women as industrial workers suffer more than men?
In the first place, as the physically weaker s.e.x, they do on the average a smaller quant.i.ty of work, and therefore receive lower wages. In certain kinds of work, where women do piece-work along with men, it is found that they get as high wages as men for the same quant.i.ty of work.
The recent report upon Textile Industries establishes this fact so far as those trades are concerned. But this is not always, perhaps not in the majority of instances, the case. Women-workers do not, in many cases, receive the same wages which would be paid to men for doing the same work. Why is this? It is sometimes described as an unfair advantage taken of women because they are women. There is a male prejudice, it is urged, against women-workers, which prevents employers from paying them the wages they could and would pay to men.