Organization for Aiding Unemployed Women
During this period the chief agency helping unemployed girls and women was the “Central Committee on Women’s Employment.” The committee mainly owed its origin to the War Emergency Workers’ National Committee, which was formed as early as August 5, 1914, to protect the interests of the workers during the war, at a hastily called conference of nearly all the important national socialist and labor organizations. In the first days of the war an appeal to women was sent out in the name of the Queen asking them to make garments and “comforts” for the troops. The workers’ national committee protested against such use of the voluntary labor of the well-to-do at the very time when thousands of working women in the sewing and allied trades were in need of work.
As a result of such protests an announcement appeared in the newspapers of August 17 to the effect that details of the Queen’s plan for raising money to provide schemes of work for unemployed women would soon be announced. It was stated that “it is the wish of Her Majesty that these schemes should be devised in consultation with industrial experts and representatives of working class women,” and that the aims of the Queen’s needlework guild had been “misunderstood.” “Voluntary aid was meant to supplement and not to supplant paid labor.” A few days later the Queen asked amateur sewers not to make any of a list of garments which the military authorities would ordinarily buy from business firms.
On August 20, the “Central Committee on Women’s Employment” was appointed. Mary Macarthur, secretary of the National Federation of Women Workers, was honorary secretary, and five of the fourteen members were representatives of working women approved by the workers’ national committee. This central women’s committee was given control of the Queen’s Work for Women Fund.
Though the committee met with many delays before it could start its undertakings, and though it was able to provide for only a small fraction of the women in need, its general principles and methods might well be taken as a standard for action in any similar emergency.
The first principle on which the committee worked was that “it is better that workers should be self-maintaining than dependent upon relief, even when that relief is given in the form of work.” To increase the volume of employment the committee set up a “contract department” which aimed to enlarge the number of firms having government contracts. Three different methods were used in doing this. One especially ingenious device was that of inducing the War Office to simplify certain details of the army uniform, so that it could be made up by firms not used to the work. “Thereafter full employment in the clothing trade coincided with a greatly improved supply of army clothing.”[18] Firms in need of orders, who could make shirts, khaki, blankets and hosiery, were brought to the attention of the War Office. Finally, by taking large contracts from the government and dividing them the committee supplied work to a number of small dressmaking and needlework firms, which were too small to secure the contracts direct. Two million pairs of army socks, 10,000 shirts a week cut out in the committee’s own work rooms, and 105,000 flannel body belts for the troops were given out in this way. It is important to note that the work was “only undertaken when the ordinary trade was fully employed.” As a matter of fact, at the same time that thousands of women and girls were out of work, others were working overtime and the government was unable to secure sufficient clothing for the troops. Except that the committee sometimes made advances of working capital, to be returned when the contract was finished, the work was self-supporting. Ordinary trade prices and, after the first few weeks, the usual methods of wage payment, prevailed.
The other main branch of the committee’s work was the provision of relief work rooms under its own supervision in London, and elsewhere under women’s subcommittees of the local representative committees formed by the Board of Trade. The subcommittees were required to include representatives of working women’s organizations among their members. The committee reports that its decision to have the relief work carried on under the auspices of such committees “caused some disappointment to the promoters of certain private charities who hoped to procure grants.”[19]
The work rooms were not allowed to compete with ordinary industry, for which reason their products were not supposed either to be sold or to be given to persons who could afford to buy them. It was stated, however, that this rule was difficult to enforce because many of the provincial work rooms were anxious to make articles for the troops. The work was supposed to be of a nature to train the workers and improve their efficiency, and in this the committee’s aims seem to have been generally realized. The making of cheap but tasteful clothing and other domestic training was usually provided. In many places the women were taught to cook wholesome low cost dinners for themselves. In one work room a rough factory hand who had hardly handled a needle before became so enthusiastic over her handiwork that she remarked, “It’s nice to be learned.”
In London a few “sick room helps” were also trained, some clerical workers were given scholarships to learn foreign languages, and a small number of factory girls were sent into the country to become market gardeners. In selecting applicants girls under sixteen and nonworking wives of unemployed men were not taken, and the younger, more intelligent and more teachable women were given preference. Workers were obliged to register at the employment exchanges[20] and to accept suitable employment if found.
The wages paid by the work rooms aroused not a little controversy. The committee fixed 3d. as the hourly wage rate, forty hours as the weekly working time, making maximum weekly earnings 10s. ($2.40). This wage scale was hotly denounced by certain labor representatives as “sweating.” The committee justified it on the ground that the hourly rate was approximately that set by the trade boards, and that the weekly wage must be kept sufficiently low so that women would not be attracted to the work rooms from ordinary employment. After careful consideration, the scale was endorsed unanimously by the War Emergency Workers’ National Committee.[21] In March, 1915, on account of rising prices, a working week of forty-six hours was permitted, increasing weekly earnings to 11s. 6d. ($2.76). But by this time the state of trade had greatly improved and it had already been possible to give up some of the work rooms. The others were soon closed and the committee gave its attention to investigating new fields for the employment of women. At the end of 1916 it was also running an employment bureau and acting as a clearing house for related organizations. About 9,000 women had passed through its work rooms up to January, 1915, at which time about 1,000 women were employed by the central committee in London, and about 4,000 by the local subcommittees.[22]