All in all it would seem that the Ministry of Munitions was justified in its claim that, “when consideration is given to the diverse nature of the trades, the absence of any data on which the department could work when it first took up the question of regulating women’s wages, the absolute novelty of wage regulation by a government department, the extreme urgency of the many difficulties which arose, the reluctant attitude of employers and the interdependence of commercial work and munitions work, the department feels justified in claiming a very considerable adjustment in the matter of women’s wages.”[144] Even Mrs. Webb, in criticising the government attitude toward its wage pledges, admits that the Ministry of Munitions took the agreement “more seriously than other government departments.” The War Cabinet report sums the results of government activity by showing that “the actual average of women’s wages in the metal and munition trades as a result of the orders was increased rather more than threefold as against a rise in cost of living about twofold, and the disparity of wages between the two sexes was very considerably reduced.”
Wage Fixing by the Trade Boards
The trade boards, authorized in 1909 to fix the minimum wage rates for the sweated trades, afford little that is novel in their war activities, but provide an excellent example of the maintenance of existing legal standards in war time. In no case where they had taken steps toward fixing minimum rates did they allow the war to be used as a pretext for interrupting their work. The boards which had been established prior to the war for confectionery and shirt making in Ireland and for tin boxes and hollow ware in Great Britain continued their work, and made awards which went into effect during 1915. Partially effective orders for confectionery and shirt making in Great Britain became obligatory during the same year. Moreover the scope of two boards was extended, of tailoring to cover certain branches of retail work, and of lace finishing to include “hairnets and veilings.” A new board was even set up proposing rates for linen and cotton embroidery in Ireland, which lines had been put under the jurisdiction of the trade boards act before the outbreak of war. But during the war period proper the act itself was not extended to any new industries.
The more direct effect of the war, however, was to cause all of the existing boards to make considerable advances in their minimum rates in an effort to meet the rising cost of living. For instance, the British tailoring board raised the rate for experienced women from 3¼d. (6½ cents) to 4d. (8 cents) an hour in January, 1915, to 4½d. (9 cents) in July, 1917, and 5d. (10 cents) in March, 1918. A special minimum rate of 6d. (12 cents) for experienced women cutters, a class of work in which women had replaced men since the outbreak of war, was fixed in April, 1916. Similarly confectionery had been raised from 14s. 1d., weekly ($3.38), to 16s. 3d. ($3.90), then to 19s. 6d. ($1.68), and by the end of the war 28s. 2d. ($6.76) was proposed. But it should be remembered that 28s. 2d. was in November, 1918, roughly worth but 13s. before the war, and 5d. was equivalent to little more than 2d. Even the most considerable of these changes failed to keep pace with the rise in the cost of living. “The Trade Boards have not increased rates proportionately to the increase in the cost of living,” says G. D. H. Cole, “but only by so much as they thought the industries concerned would be able to support after the war.”[145]
Wage Changes under
Trade Union Agreements
A third method by which the wages of many women were regulated was through agreements with the trade unions. Such agreements really formed a phase of the “dilution” question. Women must be prevented from becoming unfair competitors and from undercutting the standard rates. Consequently, as has been described, the agreements usually prescribed that women substitutes should be paid the men’s rate. This was the standard used in admitting women to men’s jobs in such important industries as cotton, woolen and worsted, china and earthenware, and boots and shoes. Women were for the first time admitted to work on the more important knitting machines on condition that they should receive the men’s piece rates. In such instances the real wages of the women were undoubtedly materially improved.
Another important wage agreement made by the railway unions in August, 1915, secured for the women in grades where they had not been employed before the war the minimum pay given men of the same grade. The agreement did not cover women taken on as clerks, however. In October, 1915, the men’s war bonus was increased to 5s. a week ($1.20) and a number of women applied for it. The companies claimed that the August agreement tacitly excluded the women from participation in the bonus, and the Committee on Production, to whom a test case was referred, agreed. But when the men’s bonus was increased to 10s. ($2.40) in September, 1916, it was “generally felt that it would be only fair to grant the women something.”[146] Accordingly, in November, 1916, those over eighteen were given a bonus of 3s. weekly (72 cents) and those under eighteen, 1s. 6d. (36 cents). In three subsequent increases of the bonus during the war period, men and women shared alike, making a total war bonus of 21s. 6d. weekly ($5.16) for women as compared with 33s. ($7.92) for men.
In a few cases, the trade unions were satisfied, because of the reorganization of the work, with something less than the men’s rate for women substitutes. In the agreement for the bleaching and dyeing trades, a minimum of four-fifths of the men’s rate was fixed for time workers though where women turned out the same quantity they were to be paid the same piece wages as men. The Shop Assistants’ Union was content with four-fifths of the men’s rates for the women, since a few men had nearly always to be retained for heavy lifting. As a matter of fact, in many cases the organization was not strong enough to secure even as much as this.
Wages in Other Trades
Other government departments were not so generous to women workers as the Ministry of Munitions, and paid even less attention to the equal pay pledge of the Treasury Agreement. The Admiralty adopted a minimum time rate for all workers, which was gradually raised from 20s. ($4.80) to 35s. ($8.40) weekly, but which in the case of women substitutes had no distinct relation to the wages of their male predecessors. Previous to the institution of minimum rates, the Admiralty, like the War Office, had given women workers a war bonus of only 2s. (48 cents) a week when they had given male mechanics and laborers 4s. (96 cents). According to Mrs. Webb, the War Office continued throughout the war to “pay what it saw fit, and even stopped a contractor from paying the wages ordered by the Ministry of Munitions.” Both War Office and Admiralty finally joined, however, in the arrangement by which contractors were reimbursed for wage advances ordered by the government.[147] Wage increases in the Postoffice Department were given in the form of war bonuses, which were larger for men than for women. The war bonuses granted all low paid employes in 1915 were 2s. or 3s. (48 cents or 72 cents) for men and only half that amount for women.