Personal Narratives.—In support of what has been here stated as to the general conditions of shop work, I may add some particulars gleaned from one or two lady shop assistants who have been kind enough to tell me frankly their experience. Both are now employed in shops with whose management they are perfectly content, but their previous experiences were of a far less agreeable nature. Miss Smith served for some time in a drapery establishment in a second-rate quarter of a large town. The hours were from 9 a.m. to 9.30 p.m., and to 10, 10.30, or later on Saturdays. No annual holidays were given; the assistants were supposed to have one free day a month, but often they did not get it. An hour was allowed for dinner, which the assistants had to provide either in or out of the building. As my informant’s home was half an hour distant she brought her own dinner, and thus was unable to have warm food. When engaged in the millinery department she divided her time between the showroom and the workroom, and was often kept until 12.30 on Saturday night, or rather Sunday morning, finishing orders. Her sister had been similarly employed in a small country town for eighteen months, during most of which time the working hours were so long that from Monday morning until Sunday morning she only left the counter for bed. “At the end of the time,” added Miss Smith, “she was carried home in blankets,” having broken down completely under the hard conditions of her life. “Country shops,” remarked Miss Smith, “are the worst of all; the work is never at an end.” Asked if she had ever found deficient sanitary arrangements, she stated that in an otherwise well-managed shop the housekeeper had at one time, from some whim, taken to locking the lavatories, opening them only at certain intervals. The rebellion that ensued, however, had forced her to relinquish the practice. Some small shops, it was added, were “merely square rooms,” and were unprovided with offices.
Miss Jones had had a varied experience. In her first situation—a suburban shop, where she lived in the house—the hours were from 8.30 a.m. to 9.30 p.m., with the usual additional hours on Saturday. “I always went straight to bed after my work,” she said, “for there was only the kitchen to sit in, and one could not go out at that time of night.” A large second-class shop in a provincial town was not much better. The hours were from 8.30 a.m. to 8.30 p.m., twenty minutes being allowed for dinner, and a quarter of an hour for tea. A week’s holiday was given in summer. The assistants lived in the house; no talking was allowed at meals; and if, as was not unnatural among a gathering of young people of both sexes, the place of conversation was supplied by giggling, the “governor” seated at the head of the table growled his disapprobation. “Our only amusement was to kick each other under the table to make one another laugh,” observed Miss Jones; “but where I am now we talk as much as we like, and enjoy ourselves.” In the first-named establishment there were many fines, in the house as well as in the shop. Four girls slept in a bedroom, two in each bed; if the gas was left lit after a certain hour, the room-mates were all fined 6d. a head, innocent and guilty alike.
My informants laid stress upon the time taken up by straightening the shop after closing hours, an extra burden which is sometimes unavoidable. In a shop which closed at 6.30 Miss Jones had sometimes been busy “straightening” gloves (i.e. arranging them in their boxes and sorting the sizes) till 10 o’clock or even later. At sale times such extra work is frequent. Neither speaker objected to the system of fines if reasonably administered, but they thought it hard to be fined for not making a sale when the article demanded was actually not in stock. About the pressure put upon assistants to effect sales they had some amusing stories. On one occasion a buyer brought a lady customer to the counter where Miss Jones was serving, with the request that she would show her “furniture fringes,” adding in a low tone, “And see that she gets them.” Miss Jones, who knew that furniture fringes were not in the shop, was at her wits’ end. “I showed her everything I could think of,” she said, “and kept her there until I saw the buyer move away, when I whispered hastily, ‘We haven’t got any furniture fringes,’ and the lady took her departure. Fortunately the buyer forgot to ask me any questions afterwards. Another time a lady asked for a kind of beaded dress front which we did not keep; but because I let her go without calling up the buyer I was fined 2s. 6d.”
The details here given from personal experience amply bear out what has been said about the difficulties and disagreeables of a shop assistant’s life, and they may be multiplied ad infinitum by anyone who cares to make personal investigation into the subject.
Warehouses.—The conditions of life in warehouses are much the same as in shops, but some of the special grievances of the latter are absent. Fines, though not wholly unknown, are not customary, and “living-in,” though practised to some extent, especially among London city firms, is not general throughout the country. Women are much employed in furriers’ and trimming warehouses. Wages are poor—often only from 7s. to 10s. a week; but a good saleswoman in a wholesale house may earn as much as £1 a week. Long hours, poor wages, and insanitary conditions are the chief grievances of warehouse assistants, and they are making common cause with workers in shops for their removal.
Combination among Assistants.—Strenuous efforts are now being made to secure combination among shop assistants, but the task is not easy. Shop assistants are apt to regard such measures as suitable only to artisans and labourers, failing to perceive that from lack of combination they themselves are often much worse treated than the labourers whose methods of self-defence they despise. No artisan would think for a moment of enduring the conditions with regard to fines, forms of agreement, and method of living, which are imposed upon shop assistants, whose hours of labour are also, as I have shown, far beyond those worked by factory “hands.”[14] The fear of dismissal is a more real cause for hesitation; but if the union is carefully organised, and causes of offence are avoided during its early days, there seems no reason why this objection should not gradually disappear. There are now in existence the “United Shop Assistants’ Union,” the “National Union of Shop Assistants, Warehousemen, and Clerks,” with head-quarters in London, and branches in most of the large towns, and the “National Union of Clerks”; besides an outside society, the “Early Closing Association,” which works for one special object—the shortening of shop hours. The others are unions for mutual help and defence, and the “National Union of Shop Assistants, Warehousemen, and Clerks,” which has about 2,000 members, is constituted upon genuine Trade Union lines, giving sick benefits and out-of-work pay upon a graduated scale for payments of 1s. 2d. to 2s. a month.
The passing of the Shop Hours Regulation Act can hardly be expected to effect any general improvement in shop hours; but if efficiently carried out it should do something to shorten the working hours of those for whom it is specially designed—children and young persons. It is satisfactory to note that several towns are appointing inspectors, without whose aid the Act would remain nugatory, and that a number of women are among those appointed. It is highly improbable that public opinion will rest content with such a very imperfect piece of work as the Act of 1892; and before long we may expect to see the working hours of all shop assistants limited by law. If the coming legislation affects all shops alike (with necessary exceptions for special trades, such as chemists), it is not likely to meet with strong opposition, since it is the competition of one shopkeeper with another which forms the chief obstacle to a voluntary change. Often the refusal of a single shopkeeper prevents the adoption of early closing in a whole district. If all are obliged to close no injury is done, and large employers of labour gave evidence in this sense before the Select Committee. Happily, in this case, the question admits of being considered upon its own merits, and we need not fear the appearance of that familiar hindrance to labour reform, the bugbear of foreign competition.
[14] Miss Collet’s tables of factory and shop hours (Report, p. 85) corroborate this statement.
ADDENDUM.
This chapter was written before the publication of the Blue Book on “The Employment of Women,” which contains detailed and valuable reports upon the work of shop assistants by Miss Orme and Miss Collet. As the evidence given above is fully confirmed by the Commissioners’ Reports, I have left the chapter as it stood, with the addition of a few foot-notes, as an independent contribution to the study of the question. Those who wish to pursue the matter further may do so profitably by reading the Reports in full. I cannot leave the subject, however, without quoting Miss Collet’s impressive summary of the effects of shop work and life upon the health of those employed (p. 88).