Women in Modern Industry

by B. L. Hutchins

The Board of Trade’s Report on the State of Employment in October 1914 gave the reduction of women’s employment in London as 10·5 per cent in September, 7·0 per cent in October. But this estimate was for all industries taken together, some of which were in a state of “boom” owing to the war, and it is certain that the occupations referred to above must have suffered much more heavily than the average. Many girls spent weeks in the heart-sickening and exhausting search for employment. In November the dressmaking, mantle-making, and shirt- and collar-making were in a worse condition than in the previous month, although trade generally had improved.

The Woollen and Clothing Trades.—In these trades the war brought a veritable “tidal-wave” of prosperity. The industrial centres of our Allies were to a considerable extent in the hands of the enemy; thus, not only new clothes for our regular troops and reserves, and uniforms for the new armies that were shortly recruited, but also those for the troops of our Allies were called for in the West Riding of Yorkshire. The woollen towns of this district became the busiest places in the world, and orders overflowed into Scotland and the somewhat decayed but still celebrated clothing region of the West of England.

The first expedient to cope with the enormous pressure of orders was to relax the Factory Act. In normal times no overtime is allowed in textile industries to workers under the operation of the Act (viz. women, girls under eighteen, boys under eighteen, and children), and employment is limited to ten hours a day. In view of the tremendous issues involved, permission was given to employ women and young persons for two hours’ overtime. The results, as it turned out, soon showed, however, that overtime is bad economy, for the number of accidents increased greatly in the period of greatest pressure, and averaged one a day in the December quarter, and the secretary of the Union also reported that the period during which these very long hours were worked coincided with a remarkable increase of illness among the operatives involved. Probably one-third more cases were on the Approved Societies’ books during December than in September and October.[59] Although the women rose most pluckily to the occasion and did their heavy task cheerfully in the consciousness of supplying their country’s need, it is certain that many were taxed beyond their strength, and in January 1915 the overtime permitted was reduced to nine hours weekly. The women, when they complained, complained not of overwork but of insufficient pay. An increase of 1½d. per hour during overtime was asked, and considering the strain involved, seems a far from excessive demand; but the trade is unfortunately much less well organised than the cotton trade, and female workers—73 per cent of the whole—could not in most districts enforce this claim. Khaki is more trying to the operatives than some other kinds of cloth to which they are better accustomed, and it is more difficult to weave. Even with overtime work the women did not earn much more than they would working usual hours on ordinary cloth. The wages paid appear to have been, as so often is the case with women’s work, chaotic. Many employers honourably paid a fair or recognised price; others took advantage of the weakness of the workers to pay rates not far from sweating prices. In the clothing trade the Government was conscientiously paying handsome rates to contractors for the making of uniforms, but without effectively enforcing the payment of fair wages to labour by the contractors. Hence even the Trade Board minimum—a low standard, especially considering the rise of prices—was successfully evaded by some firms.[60]

Maladjustment and Readjustment.—The question may well be asked, why women should suffer unemployment in war-time at all. War produces an urgent demand for a great deal of the work women are best fitted to do, such as nursing, the making of clothes and underclothes, the manufacture of food stuffs and provisions on a large scale, the organisation of commissariat and hospitals, the collection and overlooking of stores. In point of fact, the requirements of the troops, as we have seen, provided increased employment for some women, though probably not for nearly as many as those who suffered from the shrinkage of ordinary trade at the beginning of the winter; later on the demand became so great that there was an actual scarcity of women workers in many trades.

One strange feature of those autumn months of 1914 was that while recruits were continually to be seen marching in plain clothes, without a uniform, numbers of London tailors and tailoresses were without employment. Many of the recruits were also, at first at all events, unprovided with needful elementary comforts, and amateurs were continually pressed to work at shirts and knitting for them. Women employed in the manufacture of stuffs or clothing for the troops or in certain processes of the manufacture of armaments or appurtenances were overworked, while other women were totally or partially out of work. The characteristic immobility of labour was perhaps never more clearly seen.

It may be admitted of course that a wholesale transference of workers from the area of slump to the area of boom would never be possible all at once. The machines necessary for special work will not at first be forthcoming in numbers sufficient to meet a demand suddenly increased in so enormous a proportion. Then, again, a new demand for labour is usually a demand predominantly for young workers, and the older women thrown out of work may find it very difficult to adapt themselves to new requirements. Skill and practice in the handling of machines are necessary; machines differ very greatly. A dressmaker cannot, off-hand, be set to make cartridges or even uniforms. In some branches of industry a high degree of specialised skill may be a positive disadvantage in acquiring the methods of an allied but lower skilled trade; e.g. it has been found that tailors and tailoresses who have become expert in the handwork still largely used for the best “bespoke” work, the aristocracy of the trade, cannot easily adapt themselves to the modern “team work” tailoring, in which division of labour and the use of machinery play a considerable part; they may even impair their own special skill by attempting it.[61] In some processes a delicate sensitiveness of finger is a first essential for the work, and the operatives dare not take up any rough work which might impair this delicacy, their stock-in-trade and capital. Again, the difference of wage-levels in different industries is a cause of immobility of labour. Lancashire cotton workers might have adapted themselves without much difficulty to the processes of the Yorkshire woollen trade, but they could not have accepted the rates current in an imperfectly organised trade, and there would have been obvious difficulty in paying imported workers at a scale higher than those enjoyed by the local operatives.

A good deal of dovetailing, however, can be done to bring the work to the workers or the workers to the work, and much more could have been done if the Local Government Board had taken the question of unemployment more seriously in the years preceding the war. But the local bodies were uninstructed, and in many cases had little idea of anything better than doles. In spite of the funds collected, there can be little doubt that much suffering, especially among women, was neglected and let alone, and the irregular payment of separation allowances at the beginning of the war added to the distress.

Voluntary effort, it needs hardly saying, was instantly ready to do its best to meet the occasion. The Suffrage Societies, in especial, did splendid work in improvising employment bureaux and relief workrooms for the sufferers. A special fund and committee were also formed, under the style of the Central Committee for Women’s Employment, to find new channels of employment for women. This Committee was presided over by the Queen, and was aided in its labours by specialists highly versed in industrial conditions, and its efforts for adjustment are full of interest.

The primary aim of this Committee was to equalise employment in factories and workshops. The problem was how to achieve the adaptation, as far as possible, of unemployed firms and workers to new and urgent national needs. It had been supposed that only certain special firms could make army clothing, and that the numerous women and girls thrown out of work in ordinary wholesale tailoring would be unable to do unaccustomed work. A business adviser of the Committee suggested to the War Office authorities some simplifications in the make of military greatcoats and uniforms. The experiment was tried, with the result that many thousand great-coats and uniforms were made by firms which under the dominance of red tape must have stopped work. In the shirt-making, also, much unemployment occurred at first, and the Committee gave information to firms not previously employed by Government that they could apply for contracts. Carpet-yarn factories were utilised for the supply of yarn to satisfy the enormous demand created by the war. Numbers of orders for shirts, socks, and belts were placed in dressmakers’ workrooms, and carried out by women whose normal occupation had failed them.

Another field of this Committee’s work was to stimulate the introduction of new trades and open new fields of work for women wage-earners. This is a difficult undertaking at a time when spending power must be much curtailed, but it may be destined to have good results in happier times, and in any case any widening of the field of employment for women, any development of their technical skill, is much to be welcomed.[62]