On the other hand, Dr. Phillips notes as unfortunate results on women workers, the increase in hours, night work and frequent entrance into unsuitable occupations which overtaxed their strength. There had been a great influx into industry of women with young children, and a “general dispersion and scattering of home groups.” Many young women lived in munition centers in hostels or lodgings away from the restraining influence of family and friends. It was claimed that this system encouraged too militaristic a discipline and unfortunate interferences with the private life of the worker by employers and “welfare supervisors.” But it is reassuring to see that Dr. Phillips, who is not likely to underestimate the evils produced by the war, gives as her final judgment that “the good effects were infinitely more important than the bad ones.”
CHAPTER XV
Peace and Reconstruction
To a far greater extent than in the United States, England, while the war was still in progress, looked ahead to the problems which would inevitably arise when the country shifted back to a peace basis.
As early as the summer of 1916 discussion of methods of adjustment from war to peace had begun. A “Ministry of Reconstruction” was created in August, 1917, succeeding a “Reconstruction Committee of the Cabinet,” which had been appointed over a year earlier. It is noteworthy that as time went on “the idea of reconstruction, of a simple return to prewar conditions, was gradually supplanted by the larger and worthier ideal of a better world after the war.”[267] The aim of the reconstruction movement came to be not simply to tide over the transition from war to peace but also to remedy the prewar evils which war experience had disclosed.
Many conferences discussed “reconstruction,” and a multitude of books and pamphlets kept the printing presses busy. The point of view of labor was put forward in that remarkable document, “Labour and the New Social Order,” later adopted as the platform of the reorganized Labor party. A “Joint Committee on Labour Problems after the War” representing the most important labor bodies also put out a number of pamphlets on special subjects. The Ministry of Reconstruction through numerous subcommittees dealt with a wide variety of concrete problems, such as shipping, finance, the allocation of raw materials, rural development, military demobilization, health, housing and education. The “Civil War Workers Committee,” the “Committee on Joint Standing Industrial Councils,” and the “Women’s Advisory Committee on the Domestic Service Problem,” were among those dealing with questions affecting the woman worker. But when the armistice came many plans were not complete, and in only a few cases had the machinery for putting them into effect actually been created. So in spite of the really remarkable extent of their attention to after war conditions the English had after all to trust in large part to hastily improvised schemes or to chance.
There were three principal problems affecting the woman worker which pressed for attention during the reconstruction period. First, the prevention of unemployment as the flood of war orders subsided was alone sufficient to tax the resources of the best statesmanship.[268] Second, there was the question of industrial opportunities for the “dilutees,” who had taken up work formerly reserved for skilled men under government pledges or unofficial agreements that pre-existing conditions would be restored at the end of the war. Third, equality of payment where men and women were doing similar work had become a burning issue, responsible for no small share of the labor unrest prevalent during the latter part of the war.
While unemployment prevention, though no small problem, was merely a matter of industrial readjustment temporary in nature, action on the other two questions promised to lead to an extensive reconstruction of prewar conditions. In whatever was done it was necessary to take into account the fact that the labor movement was larger and more militant than before the war, with a definite program which would not be satisfied even with the best of working conditions, but which demanded a voice in the shaping of the whole conduct of industry.
Postwar Unemployment among Women
It was generally anticipated that an unemployment crisis would follow the cessation of war activities, in which, as at the beginning of the struggle, women workers would suffer more than men, since so large a proportion of them were working in war industries, taking the places of men only for the duration of the war. Among munition workers in the engineering trade “the great majority of male workers will probably continue,” said the Civil War Workers Committee, “but there can be little doubt that large numbers of women workers will be definitely discharged.”[269] It estimated that 420,000 women munition workers would lose their jobs at the end of the war. Public attention was forcibly called to the danger by the sudden discharge of several thousand women munition makers in the spring of 1917, on account of a change in the kind of munitions needed. The women were suddenly dismissed without the slightest provision for finding them new positions—“turned off,” said one writer, “with as little ceremony as one turns off the gas.” Although many women were then needed in other branches of munition work there was, for a time, much confusion and distress.
The official agency charged with developing a plan for the prevention of unemployment among war workers was the “Civil War Workers Committee” appointed by the Ministry of Reconstruction. The committee was authorized to “consider and report upon the arrangements which should be made for the demobilization of workers engaged during the war in national factories, controlled establishments, in other firms engaged in the production of munitions of war and on government contracts, or in firms where substitute labour has been employed for the duration of the war,” and its six reports outline such plans in considerable detail. Most of the recommendations applied to men and women alike. They included the aid of the government principally through its employment exchanges, in helping discharged war workers find other employment, two weeks’ notice or two weeks’ wages to all employes on government contracts, free railroad passes to those who had left home to work on munitions and encouragement to private employers, the government and foreign customers to place postwar orders before the end of the conflict. As soon as there was “a reasonable prospect of peace” the employment exchanges should canvass employers for peace time openings and register available employes. On the ground that it was impracticable to distinguish between war workers and others and impossible to select with assurance the trades most liable to unemployment during the reconstruction period the committee advised a general extension of the existing plan of unemployment insurance. On a scheme which had received considerable comment in certain quarters, that of granting every munition worker a month’s vacation with pay, the committee reported adversely by a vote of twelve to seven.