Considerable irritation was aroused among the munition makers, both men and women, by the control exercised over them through certain features of the munitions acts. Strikes were forbidden and provision for compulsory arbitration was made. Special munitions tribunals were set up which might impose fines for breaches of workshop discipline. In order to stop the needless shifting from job to job which was hampering production, a system of “leaving certificates” was established. Workers who left their previous positions without such cards, which could be secured from employers or from the tribunals only under specified conditions, might not be employed elsewhere for six weeks. The clearance certificate system was obviously open to abuses, especially during the first few months of its operation, before a number of safeguards were introduced by the first munitions amendment act, in January, 1916. It created so much unrest among the workers, that it was abolished in October, 1917. The British Government’s experience with these features of the munitions acts which approach nearest to the conscription of labor illustrates the difficulties attendant upon such devices for obtaining maximum output without interruption.
Safety, Health and Comfort
The effect of the war on the working hours of English women and children centers in the changes made in the restrictive legislation in force at the outbreak of the war. This legislation forbade night and Sunday work, and hours in excess of ten and a half daily and sixty weekly in nontextile factories; and ten daily and fifty-five weekly in textile factories. But from the beginning of the war up to the latter part of 1915 hours were lengthened and night and Sunday work became frequent, both by means of special orders from the factory inspection department and also in defiance of the law. Two special governmental committees were finally created to deal with the unsatisfactory situation. The studies by one of them, the Health of Munition Workers Committee, on the unfavorable effects of long hours on output, were a determining factor in securing a virtual return to prewar standards of daily hours, and provided scientific arguments to strengthen the active postwar movement for a general eight hour day.
The introduction of women into factories and offices for the first time often led to the making of special provisions for their safety, health and comfort. In the interests of output, the Ministry of Munitions fostered such developments in the establishments under his control, encouraged the engagement of “welfare supervisors” for women, girls and boys and gave special attention to the well being of munition makers outside the factory. The Ministry allowed owners of controlled establishments to deduct the cost of special welfare provisions for women, such as wash rooms and rest rooms, from what would otherwise be taken by the excess profit tax. It provided housing accommodations on a large scale—for 60,000 workers, it is said, between July, 1915, and July, 1916, and subsidized similar projects by cities and private organizations. That the war brought increased recognition of the importance of measures for safety, health and comfort was evident from the passage of a law in August, 1916, empowering the Home Office as a permanent policy, to make special regulations for additional “welfare” provisions in factories.
Effects of War Work
It was hardly possible to judge the full effects of war work on women and children by the summer of 1919. Among women, while individual cases of overfatigue undoubtedly existed, signs of injury to health were not generally apparent. The effects when the excitement of war work is over and the strain relaxed were still to be reckoned with, however. Higher pay, which meant warmer clothing, sometimes better housing and especially better food, was believed to be an important factor in counteracting injury to health. It doubtless accounted for the improvement in health which was not infrequently noted in women entering munitions work from low paid trades and which is a sadly significant commentary on their former living conditions. Among boy munition makers the evidences of overwork and a decline in health were much more striking.
Particularly in the crowded munition centers, home life suffered on account of the war. Overcrowding, long hours spent in the factory and in traveling back and forth, an increase in the work of mothers with young families, the absence of husbands and fathers on military service, and the more frequent departure from home of young boys and girls for work at a distance, all contributed to the undermining of the home.
Yet even the additional responsibility placed on many women by the absence of their men folk seems to have been one of the stimulating influences which are said in three years of war to have “transformed” the personality of the average factory woman. As a class, they have grown more confident, more independent, more interested in impersonal issues. The more varied and responsible positions opened to women, the public’s appreciation of their services, their many contacts with the government on account of war legislation also helped to bring about the change, which promises to be one of the most significant of the war.
Among the younger workers, on the contrary, it was feared the relaxation of discipline, unusual wages, long hours of work, the frequent closing of schools and boys’ clubs and the general excitement of war time were producing a deterioration in character. “Had we set out with the deliberate intention of manufacturing juvenile delinquents, could we have done so in any more certain way?” said Mr. Cecil Leeson, secretary of the Howard Association of London. A marked increase in juvenile delinquency was noted, particularly among boys of eleven to thirteen, the ages for which school attendance laws have been relaxed and premature employment allowed.