Under the Ministry of Munitions the idea of “welfare supervision” was extensively developed, and became, in fact, to a large section of the public the most prominent feature of the Ministry’s campaign for better working conditions. The chief duties of “welfare supervisors” within the factories as outlined by Mr. Rowntree, the head of the welfare department,[204] and by an official circular of the Ministry of Munitions included the following: The supervisors should hire or keep in touch with the hiring of new workers and the choosing of foremen, and investigate dismissals, resignations, cases of sickness and lost time, and of poor output caused by ill health. They should have a general supervision over working conditions, especially over night work, and over canteens and rest rooms and should cooperate with the plant doctor and nurse. They should keep watch of the wages received, should investigate complaints by the workers and help in the maintenance of discipline. No woman’s case should be brought before a “Munitions Tribunal” until the welfare supervisor had been consulted.
One of the chief functions of the welfare department came to be the introduction of “welfare supervisors” or “lady superintendents” into munition plants. The work was started in 1916 with thirty-four women, all of whom were appointed through the exercise of the legal powers of the Ministry of Munitions. The department organized a “board of qualified women” to interview applicants and to recommend to employers those found suitable.[205] Over 1,000 such women were at work at the time of the armistice, about half of whom came from the panel formed in this way and the remainder of whom were chosen by the boards of management. Officials of this kind were appointed in all national factories and in those in which “T. N. T.” was used.
The Health of Munition Workers Committee pronounced against the policy of governmental appointment of “Welfare supervisors.”
Welfare supervisors the Committee held should not be appointed by the State. They will probably continue for some time to come at any rate to be appointed by the employer, as the person responsible for the maintenance of satisfactory conditions of employment, though the workers are likely to an increasing extent to seek some voice in the selection. Though the establishment by the Ministry of Munitions of a panel of candidates has been justified as a temporary expedient, it is not desirable that any Department of State should do so as a permanent arrangement.
The welfare department advised that the “welfare supervisor” be “a woman of good standing and education, of experience and sympathy, and having, if not an actual experience, at least a good understanding of industrial conditions.” Experience as a teacher or forewoman was valuable. The worker was to be paid by the employer—in government factories by the Ministry of Munitions—and her “duty was to the firm.” Her success would be found to be dependent on her employer’s recognition of her importance and her own personality. Although the welfare department encouraged the opening of numerous training courses, it proved difficult to find a sufficient number of women with suitable qualifications, and some attempts at welfare supervision are said to have been “futile and misdirected” because of a poor choice of supervisor. Particularly where untrained relatives of members of the firm were employed, there was danger of undue interference with the personal affairs of the employes.
The justification of “welfare supervision,” according to the official point of view, lay in an increased output. A supervisor could look out for details for which the management had no time, but which insured good conditions for its women employes. “Working on this line, lady superintendents perform a most useful service, relieve the management of a large mass of difficult detail; and increase the firms’ output by promoting the health, efficiency and happiness of the workers.” The factory inspectors described a plant where discipline was unsatisfactory, the factory acts violated, and women night workers were not provided with meals or supervised by women. At the end of five months of welfare supervision it was “improved almost beyond recognition. Irregularities had disappeared; a good mess room and excellent kitchen and an ambulance room had been built; satisfactory first aid outfit provided.”
Attack on the Welfare Movement
Nevertheless the whole program of “welfare work” and especially “welfare supervision” was the subject of severe criticism from the labor movement and radicals in general. The feminist Rebecca West even went so far as to say of it that “to women the capitalist can do with impunity all the things he no longer dares do to men.”[206] Mary Macarthur, the secretary of the National Federation of Women Workers, described “welfare” as “the most unpopular word in the terminology of the factory worker.”
The aim of increased output was attacked. The betterment of industrial conditions should be directed toward “improved health, comfort and development” for the workers as ends in themselves, instead of regarding the worker as a means of greater production.
But in most cases a distinction was made between “structural improvements” and better hours and wages on one side and “welfare supervision” on the other. The former were considered “desirable and even imperatively needed,” though it was not best that they be gained through any “welfare movement.” “Structural improvements” should result from factory legislation and the action of factory inspectors; wages and hours should be fixed by collective bargaining between employers and trade unionists. But there were few kind words for “welfare supervision.” The ideal of the “welfare supervisor” was “docile, obedient and machine-like” women workers. “The good welfare worker was the most dangerous” because she was most likely to be successful in reducing independence and turning the workers from trade unionism. As long as she was responsible to the employer, she might be obliged to use her position only to become “a more efficient kind of slave driver.” Her duties, as officially outlined, were “an indiscriminate medley,” much of which involved an interference with the private and personal affairs of the workers. Barbara Drake felt that they covered “the whole life of the worker, working or playing, living or dying.”[207] Other attacks were more moderate and recognized that much depended on the personality of the supervisor: