The committee are satisfied that there is a significant amount of physical disability among women in factories which calls both for prevention and treatment ... the lifting and carrying of heavy weights and all sudden, violent, or physically unsuitable movements in the operation of machines should, as far as practicable, be avoided.... Prolonged standing should be restricted to work from which it is inseparable.
Conditions of work are accepted without question and without complaint which, immediately detrimental to output, would, if continued, be ultimately disastrous to health. It is for the nation to safeguard the devotion of its workers by its foresight and watchfulness lest irreparable harm be done body and mind both in this generation and the next.
The committee desire to state that, in their opinion, if the present long hours, the lack of helpful and sympathetic oversight, the inability to obtain good, wholesome food, and the great difficulties of traveling are allowed to continue it will be impracticable to secure or maintain for an extended period the high maximum output of which women are undoubtedly capable.[251]
The conclusions of the factory inspectors in 1915 as to the health of women munition makers and the results of later investigation under the auspices of the committee reiterate similar though perhaps slightly more favorable conclusions. “Reports of inspectors from all parts of the country” did not show that, as yet, the strain of long hours had caused “any serious breakdown among the workers,” though there were “indications of fatigue of a less serious kind.” “Individual workers confess to feeling tired and to becoming ‘stale’; there are complaints of bad time keeping, and there is a general tendency towards a reduction of hours.”[252]
Two examinations of the health of large numbers of women munition workers were made for the Health of Munition Workers Committee, the first in 1915-1916 and the second in 1917. The first covered 1,326 women in eleven factories and the second 1,183 women in eight factories. In both examinations nearly 60 per cent of the women were pronounced “healthy,” about a third showed evidences of slight fatigue and only the small remainder exhibited signs of “marked fatigue.”[253]
| Date of Study | No. of Women Examined | No. of Factories | Per Cent Healthy | Per Cent Slightly Fatigued | Per Cent Markedly Fatigued |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1915-1916 | 1,326 | 11 | 57.5 | 34.0 | 8.5 |
| 1917 | 1,183 | 8 | 58.5 | 35.8 | 5.7 |
But these results were not believed to show the full burden of overwork, since much was unrecognizable and since those worst affected tended to drop out. The examination could only detect “definite and obvious fatigue”, amounting almost to sickness. The physical defects most frequently observed included indigestion, serious dental decay, nervous irritability, headache, anemia and female disorders. These were found in about a quarter of the women examined, but it is not stated whether any of them were supposed to result from the employment.
In the manufacture of fuses, where fine processes involving close attention were in use, some evidences of eye strain were found. In one factory 64 per cent of the women in the fuse department had eye defects, while only 19 per cent of those cutting shells by machine were similarly affected.[254]
Another hazard to the overfatigued woman worker is suggested by the increase in industrial accidents under the stress of long hours. With a twelve hour day and seventy-five hour week, accidents to women were two and a half times as frequent in one munition factory as when the shifts were reduced to ten hours. At another shell factory, when the working hours of men and women were equalized, lengthening the women’s week nine and three quarters hours and reducing the men’s nine and a quarter, the ratio of women’s to men’s accidents rose 19 per cent for the day shift and 61 per cent for the night shift.
Factors likely to be injurious to health included the frequent twelve hour shifts and the premium bonus system of payment. There were numerous complaints of the strain of twelve hour shifts, which usually entailed ten and a half hours of actual work. Particularly in the case of married women with children the strain of these hours appeared to be excessive. The factory inspectors stated in 1915 that especially at night the twelve hour shift “for any length of time for women ... is undoubtedly trying, and permissible only for war emergencies with careful make-weights in the way of good food and welfare arrangements.”[255] The last hours of the twelve hour night shift were often found to yield but little additional output.