(1) That unions can be formed and carried on upon a firm financial basis even in trades in which wages are very low.
(2) That the demands of a trade union are often sufficient to secure for the workers a rise in wages or equivalent advantages, such as shorter hours or the abolition of fines. Miss Collet, in her report of the Liverpool district, mentions a union of tailoresses which succeeded in obtaining a shortening of eleven hours in the working week. In the lace trade Miss Abraham notes that “In two instances where fines seem to have been heavy, the formation of a trade union among the workers has had the effect of checking the system.” Many other examples might be given.
(3) That unless unions are established, wages, especially in the less-skilled trades, tend to fall. The competition of one employer against another is generally sufficient in itself to bring about this result, unless the workers oppose a solid front to the pressure from above. The older members of badly-paid trades know this well, and it is among them that the keenest advocates of combination are found.
Factory and Home Work.—Trades carried on wholly in factories have hitherto proved the most amenable to combination. Low wages and irregular employment, though sufficiently serious obstacles, are not so prejudicial as the division of a trade into factory and home work, or the existence of domestic workshops. In those of Cradley Heath, near Birmingham, the isolation of the workers keeps down wages, and the home, instead of being saved by the workshop, as some would have us believe, is, upon the testimony of Miss Orme, Senior Assistant Commissioner, almost always “desolate.” Where work is done wholly at home it is difficult to bring influence to bear upon the women to induce them to combine, and yet it is here that combination is most necessary, since the workers have neither the support of companionship nor the protection of the Factory Acts. With regard to domestic workshops, it seems probable that legislation will in time bring these irregular divisions of the labour army into line with the main body. The first step has already been taken in the regulation which compels employers to post up a list of their outworkers. All progress in this direction is an aid to combination. In the joint influence of legislation and unionism, aided where necessary by a more efficient system of inspection, lies the chief hope of improvement in the less fortunate branches of labour.
An evil which appears to belong exclusively to women’s labour is the custom, prevalent among girls whose parents are fairly well off, of working for pocket-money. Even where the parents are poor the cheapness of boarding at home often induces girls to work for a rate of wages which would be cruelly low for those who have to maintain themselves entirely. Miss Collet’s report to the Labour Commission lays great stress on this point. In Bristol, girls working in a cigar factory often earn no more than 7s. 6d. or 9s. a week, pay 4s. or 5s. to their parents for weekly board, and seem “quite content” with their low wages. The disastrous effect of this policy upon the general standard of women’s wages needs no explanation. It is sufficient to point out here that the practice forms a serious obstacle to successful combination among women.
Foreign Competition.—Foreign competition is often advanced as an argument against raising wages, and it cannot be denied that in some cases it has force. It is safe, however, to say that there is little warrant for its employment in wholesale condemnation of attempts to raise wages in the worst-paid trades. We are told, for instance, that matches made in the east end of London are undersold by the still cheaper products of Sweden; yet match factories often pay high dividends, and it is well known that the profits in a trade bear little relation as a rule to the rate of wages paid to the workers. It is generally found that where work is concentrated in large factories under employers possessed of considerable capital fair wages are obtainable, and the wretched rate of payment which prevails in many of the East London trades is probably due more than is supposed to the hole-and-corner manner in which the business is carried on. Where foreign competition is not pressing, the necessity for producing cheap goods is often urged as a valid reason for abstaining from any efforts to secure reasonable wages for the producers. Desirable, however, as cheapness may be, it is possible to purchase its advantages too dearly. If the effect of combination among workers were to be a rise in the price of matches, slop clothing, or fancy boxes, the consumer would have little cause of complaint, and would soon acquiesce philosophically in the altered condition of things. Nor can purchasers, however well disposed toward the working classes, effect any change on their own account. Such devices as a “Consumers’ League,” whose members would bind themselves to deal only with firms paying a fair rate of wages, must obviously fail, or if conceivably successful must do as much harm as good until our means of obtaining information are much more perfect than they are at present. No such rough-and-ready way of forcing on reforms is of the slightest use; the workers themselves must improve their condition by slow and patient effort. Outsiders may aid and stimulate, but they cannot do the work.
DIRECTORY OF WOMEN’S TRADES UNIONS,
WITH NUMBER OF MEMBERS, WHERE KNOWN.
Unions marked with an asterisk enrol both men and women. The numbers refer to women only.