The results of all this activity in the rising numbers of women munition workers have already been pointed out. The gain during the war of 424,000 in the metal trades, which was nearly three times the prewar level, the introduction of 25,000 women into Woolwich Arsenal, and the statement by representatives of the Ministry of Munitions in November, 1917, that 80 per cent of all munitions work was then performed by female labor, have been cited.
Yet, as late as October, 1916, the Ministry of Munitions stated that the “average of dilution remains very low.” Beginning March 31, 1917, all contracts for shells were let on the conditions that on all shells from two and three quarters to four and one-half inches, 80 per cent of the employes must be women, and that on all larger shells the instructions of the Labour Supply Department as to the proportion of women, semi-skilled and unskilled males must be obeyed. Nevertheless, in March, 1917, it could be said that “we have by no means reached the limits of the possibilities of employing women in connection with war work,”[69] and in May the Times complained that only a fraction of the replacement which had been proved possible had actually been made.[70]
While in America in November, 1917, Mr. G. H. Baillie, the “Chief Technical Dilution Officer” of the Labour Supply Department, said that “dilution” was progressing on a large scale, and even up to the last months of the war the increase of women in the munitions trades continued.
“Dilution” in Other Industries
by Trade Union Agreement
In a number of other trades besides engineering where union rules hindered the replacement of men by women, agreements were reached between employers and employes which permitted substitution during the war period. The agreements were not the subject of legislation, but were, in most cases, the result of trade conferences called jointly by the Board of Trade and the Home Office at the request of the Army Council. The purpose was to reorganize each industry so as to release as many men as possible for the army.
Most of the agreements were made during 1915 and 1916. Among the industries covered in that year, either nationally or in some localities, were cotton, hosiery, leather, woolen and worsted, silk and felt hats, printing, bleaching and dyeing, woodworking, biscuit, pastry baking, wholesale clothing, boot making and earthenware and china. In 1916, similar agreements were concluded in lace making, hosiery finishing, printing, electroplating, cutlery, textile bleaching, tobacco and brush making. Heavy clothing and flint glass decorating were covered in 1917, and several local agreements were also made in light leather tanning and scientific instrument making, two occupations in which women substitutes were particularly successful.[71]
The trade unions were, on the whole, as unfavorable to the introduction of women in other new lines as they were in munitions and yielded only reluctantly, under pressure of the necessities of war. Even after agreements had been signed in the electroplating and leather glove trades, the continued opposition of individual workers greatly hindered the progress of substitution. They frequently alleged that a given kind of work was unsuitable for women on moral or physical grounds. But their real objection was probably the fear either that women would lower the men’s wage rates directly, or that the existence of a reserve of experienced female labor would endanger the men’s position in any postwar industrial depression.
The union’s point of view is revealed in the conditions which they required before they would sign substitution agreements. “The operatives,” said the factory inspectors, “not unnaturally asked for guarantees that those who left to join the Forces should have their places kept open for them, that suspension of rules should be regarded as a war emergency only, that there should be a return to former conditions at the end of the war, and that there should be a fair settlement of the wage question affecting the employment of women or other labor called in to take the place of the men.”[72]
The conditions of the agreement made in June, 1915, between unions and operators in the leather trade, whose needs had been greatly increased by the demand for military equipment, were typical of these settlements, and of the precautions taken to safeguard the regular employes. Women were to be allowed on “men’s work” during the war period when men could not be obtained. Their work was, however, limited to operations “they are physically fit to perform,” they were to be paid men’s rates, and the local trade union officials were to be consulted in each case before substitution was made. When men and women were employed in the same department, it was recommended that they be separated, as far as possible.[73] It should be emphasized that wherever women replaced men under these agreements or under the munitions acts, unless the trade unions consented to other arrangements, the women were supposed to hold their new positions only during the war period.