The history of the first determination of the chain-makers’ Board forms one of the most singular passages in industrial history. The Board, constituted half of employers and half of employed, having got to work, found itself compelled to fix a minimum wage which amounted to an increase in many cases of 100 per cent, or even more. The previous wages had been about 5s. or 6s., and the minimum wages per week, after allowing for necessary outlay on forge and fuel, was fixed at 11s. 3d. Poor enough, we may say. But so great an improvement was this to the workers themselves that their comment is said to have been: “It is too good to be true.” The change did not take effect without considerable difficulties. The Trade Boards Act provides that three months’ notice of the prices fixed by the Board shall be given, during which period complaints and objections may be made either by workers or employers. At Cradley this waiting period was abused by some of the employers to a considerable extent. Many of them began to make chains for stock, and trade being dull at the time they were able to accumulate heavy reserves. Thus the workers were faced with the probability of a period of unemployment and starvation, in addition to which a number of employers issued agreements which they asked the women to sign, contracting out of the minimum wage for a further period of six months. This was not contrary to the letter of the law, but was terribly bitter to the poor workers, whose hopes, so near fulfilment, seemed likely again to be long postponed. They came out on strike, and were supported by the National Federation of Women Workers, in conjunction with the Trade Union League and the Anti-Sweating League. A meeting was arranged between the workers’ representatives and the Manufacturers’ Association, at which the latter body undertook to recommend its members to pay the minimum rate so long as the workers continued financial support to those women who refused to work for less than the rates. This practically of course amounted to a request from the employers that the workers’ Trade Union should protect them against non-associated employees. It has been remarked that this agreement is probably unique in the annals of Trade Unionism.
After long consideration the workers agreed. An appeal for support was made to the public, and met with so good a response that the women were able to fight to a finish and returned to work victorious. Every employer in the district finally signed the white list, and more recently the Board has been able to improve upon its first award. The organisation has so far been maintained. Thus a real improvement has been achieved in the conditions of one of the most interesting, even picturesque of our industries, though unfortunately also one of the most downtrodden and oppressed.
No one who has ever visited Cradley can forget it. The impression produced is ineffaceable. So much grime and dirt set in the midst of beautiful moors and hills—so much human skill and industry left neglected, despised and underpaid. The small chains are made by women who work in tiny sheds, sometimes alone, sometimes with two or three others. Each is equipped with a bellows on the left of the forge, worked by the left hand, a forge, anvil, hammer, pincers, and one or two other tools. The chains are forged link by link by sheer manual skill; there is no mechanical aid whatever, and we understand that machines for chain-making have been tried, but have never yet been successful. The operation is extremely ingenious and dextrous, and where the women keep to the lighter kind of chains there would be little objection to the work, if done for reasonable hours and good pay. It is carried on under shelter, almost in the open air, and is by no means as drearily monotonous as many kinds of factory work. On the other hand, in practice the women are often liable to do work too heavy for them, and the children are said to run serious risks of injury by fire.
At the time of the present writer’s visit, now about ten years ago, these poor women were paid on an average about 5s. 6d. a week, and were working long hours to get their necessary food. Most have achieved considerable increases under the combined influence of organisation and the Trade Board, and probably 11s. or 12s. is now about the average, while some are getting half as much again. When the strike was over there was a substantial remainder left over from the money subscribed to help the strikers. The chain-makers did not divide the money among themselves, but built a workers’ Institute. Surely the dawn of such a spirit as this in the minds of these hard-pressed people is something for England to be proud of.
In August 1911 came a great uprising of underpaid workers, and among them the women. The events of that month are still fresh in our memories; perhaps their full significance will only be seen when the history of these crowded years comes to be written. The tropical heat and sunshine of that summer seemed to evoke new hopes and new desires in a class of workers usually only too well described as “cheap and docile.” The strike of transport workers set going a movement which caught even the women. In Bermondsey almost every factory employing women was emptied. Fifteen thousand women came out spontaneously, and the National Federation of Women Workers had the busiest fortnight known in its whole history of seven years.
Among the industries thus unwontedly disturbed were the jam-making, confectionery, capsule-making, tin box-making, cocoa-making, and some others. In some of the factories the lives led by these girls are almost indescribable. Many of them work ten and a half hours a day, pushed and urged to utmost speed, carrying caldrons of boiling jam on slippery floors, standing five hours at a time, and all this often for about 8s. a week, out of which at least 6s. would be necessary for board and lodging and fares. Most of them regarded the conditions of their lives as in the main perfectly inevitable, came out on strike to ask only 6d. or 1s. more wages and a quarter of an hour for tea, and could not formulate any more ambitious demands. An appeal for public support was issued, and met with a satisfactory response. The strike in several instances had an even surprisingly good result. In one factory wages were raised from 11s. to 13s.; in others there was 1s. rise all round; in others of 2s. or 2s. 6d., even in some cases of 4s. In one case a graduated scale with a fixed minimum of 4s. 7d. for beginners at fourteen years old, increasing up to 12s. 4d. at eighteen, was arranged. One may hope that the moral effect of such an uprising is not wholly lost, even if the resulting organisations are not stable; the employer has had his reminder, as a satirical observer said in August 1911, “of the importance of labour as a factor in production.”
Many women were enrolled in new branches of the National Federation of Women Workers. Not all of these branches survive, but there was some revival of Unionism in the winter, 1913-14, and many of the workers who struck in 1911 will be included under the new Trade Boards.
Perhaps even more remarkable was the prolonged strike of the hollow-ware workers in 1912. Hollow-ware, it may not be superfluous to remark, is the making and enamelling of tin vessels of various kinds. This was once a trade in which British makers held the continental markets almost without rivalry; it was then chiefly confined to Birmingham, Wolverhampton, and Bilston. But small masters moved out into the country in search of cheaper labour, and settled themselves at Lye and Cradley, outside the area protected by the men’s Unions. In 1906 the Unions endeavoured to improve conditions for the underpaid workers, and drew up a piece-work list of minimum rates applicable to all the centres of the trade. But they had not strength to fight for the list, and wages went down and down. As one consequence, the quality of the work had deteriorated, shoddy goods were sent abroad, and foreign competitors improved upon them.[33] This in turn was used as an excuse for further driving down wages. The hollow-ware trade, like chain manufacture, employs women as well as men. In 1912 many of these women were working for a penny an hour, tinkering and soldering buckets, kettles, pots and pans from early morning until night; at the week-end taking home 6s. for their living.
It should also be remembered that some processes, especially the making of bright frying-pans, entail serious risk of lead-poisoning. Galvanised buckets are dipped in baths of acid, and the fumes are almost blinding, and stop the breath of an unaccustomed visitor. The work done by women is hard enough. But they did not take much notice of the hardness or of the risk of industrial disease. Their preoccupation was a more serious one: how to get their bread. Wages were rarely more than 7s. a week, and in 1912 a considerate and attentive visitor found their minds concentrated on the great possibility of raising this to—12s.? 14s.? 15s.? What the hollow-ware workers of Lye and Cradley had set their minds on was merely 10s. a week, and to attain this comparative affluence they were ready to come out weeks and weeks on end. As a result of conferences between representatives of the National Federation of Women Workers and twenty of the principal employers, during the summer 1912, it was decided to demand a minimum wage of 10s. for a fifty-four-hour week. Not, of course, that the officials considered this a fair or adequate wage, but because they hoped it would give the women a starting-point from which they could advance in the future, and because, wretched as it seemed, it did in fact represent a considerable increase for some of the women.