The policy of the League in regard to legislation was broadened. The protection of women through the instrumentality of the Factory Act was no longer resisted, but was recognised as a powerful force for good, to be aided in its administration and developed whenever possible. The League also indicated by the adoption of the title “Trade Union League,” and by gradually dropping the former style, “Protective and Provident,” that it was inaugurating a more active policy. As a matter of tactics the League officials when appealed to for help in labour difficulties among women-workers, always endeavour first to get the matter settled by negotiation; but direct action is now by no means excluded from their programme, and strikes have been called in recent years, sometimes with considerable success.
The W.T.U.L. is not a Union: it has no strike fund and pays no benefits. It is an organisation to promote, foster, and develop the formation of Unions among women. Any Union of women, or Union in which women members are enrolled, can be affiliated to the W.T.U.L. All secretaries of affiliated London Unions are ex-officio members of the League Committee, on which also are a certain number of members elected at the Annual Meeting. The W.T.U.L. also enjoys the services of an Advisory Committee of leading Trade Unionists, who are present at the Annual Meeting.
The officials of the League are a Chairman, a Secretary, two Official Organisers, and an Honorary Treasurer. The League acts as the agent of women Trade Unionists in making representations to Government authorities or Parliamentary Committees in regard to the legislation required. Abuses or grievances in particular industries are brought forward in the House of Commons by members who are in touch with the League. Complaints of breaches of the Factory and Workshop Acts can be sent to the League, and are investigated by its officials and forwarded to the proper department. A legal advice department also forms part of the League’s functions, and deals with such matters as the assessment of compensation, disputes with Insurance Companies, deductions from wages, non-payment of wages, wrongful dismissal, claims for wages in lieu of notice, and such cases. A few instances, culled from recent Reports, will give an idea of the range and complexity of these cases.
A worker in a sweet-factory was injured by the strap of the motor falling on her head, and suffered from shock and chorea. The employers were foreign, and it was with special difficulty that they were got to admit that the accident had even happened. Being threatened with proceedings, the matter was referred to their Insurance Company, who eventually paid the full wages during incapacity.
In the slack season seven dressmakers’ hands, some of whom had been three years in employment, were dismissed without notice. The League’s adviser applied for a week’s wage in lieu of notice for each worker. After some correspondence the money owing was handed over. This last case is a sample of many similar ones, and points to the urgent need of organisation in the dressmaking trade.
A syrup boiler in a jam-factory slipped on the boards which, owing to imperfect drainage, were slippery with syrup, and fractured her left arm. Compensation was paid at the rate of 5s. 6d. a week.
The League has always been singularly successful in attracting the sympathy, interest, and service of able and gifted helpers, both men and women. It has been also happy in securing active co-operation with many Trade Unions, and also with societies such as the British Section of the International Association for Labour Legislation, and the Anti-Sweating League, with both of which it is closely connected in work and sympathy. No less than 170 societies—societies, that is to say, constituted wholly or partly of women members—are now affiliated to the League. The most recent activities of the League have been a campaign of instruction and organisation to explain the provisions of the Insurance Act, and a special effort of propaganda and organisation among the workers in some of the low-grade and ill-paid industries now coming under the Trade Boards Act.
A comparison of the list of affiliated societies now appended to the League’s Report with the societies first enrolled shows not only, as would be expected, a considerable widening of the field, but also a change in character. Whereas the societies first formed were of women only, and in London, nearly all the societies at present enrolled are mixed, and most of them are not London societies at all. The great textile societies, the weavers, winders, beamers, twisters, and drawers, card-room operatives, and so forth, form the great majority of organised women; and in these, women are organised either together with, or in close connection with, men. Some of the largest are many years older than the League, but have affiliated in comparatively recent years. There are also a vast number of Unions of miscellaneous trades—tobacco, food, tailoring, etc.; and even societies mainly masculine are affiliated, such as the London Dock and General Workers’ Union (including sixty women in 1910). Many Trade Unions consisting wholly of men make donations to the League as a recognition of the importance of its work in organising women.
In Manchester there are two societies to promote the organisation of women-workers, which are doing excellent educational work in fostering the habit or tradition of association among workers in miscellaneous trades, many of which are totally unorganised and grievously underpaid. If we compare these Manchester societies with the policy of the Women’s Trade Union League in London, a certain difference of outlook is perceptible. The Manchester societies prefer organising women by and for themselves; the Women’s Trade Union League is in touch with the larger Labour Movement and favours joint organisation wherever possible.
The Movement among Unorganised Workers.—The “New Unionism for Women,” if we may so term it, first attracted public attention in July 1888, when a few scattered paragraphs found their way even into the dignified columns of the Times. There was a strike among the match-girls in the East End. Meetings were held, and next came the inevitable letters from the employers, representing the admirable condition of their factory, the desire of terrorised workers to return to work, the responsibility of “agitators” for the strike. Then a small Committee of Inquiry was started, its headquarters being at Toynbee Hall, and this Committee reported that it found the girls’ complaints to be largely justified. The piece rates had been cut down on the introduction of machinery more than in proportion to the saving of labour per unit produced. Vexatious charges for brushes and excessive fines were imposed without reckoning or explanation. The wages ranged upwards from 4s.—4s. to 6s. predominantly—and never exceeded 13s.