In reviewing the probable position of women workers after the war, the committee noted that outside the metal and chemical industries, the bulk were in commercial and clerical occupations. It recommended the establishment of still another committee to “consider the conditions of women’s employment” in these lines. A fairly comprehensive program for the “demobilization” of temporary clerks in government departments was laid out. A special employment exchange working with the Civil Service Commission, the arrangement of training courses, special consideration to the temporary clerks in making new appointments and determination of the future position of women in government employment were urged. But in behalf of clerical workers in private employment the only recommendation was the provision, when necessary, of advisory committees in connection with the employment exchanges. Women farm workers were not believed to need help in adjusting themselves and on the railways the future position of the women could be settled only by agreement between the companies and the unions.
Despite the protests of the workers and the efforts of official committees, anticipations as to widespread unemployment were all too accurately fulfilled. In the month before the armistice, October, 1918, the official Labour Gazette reported the state of employment as “very good. Much overtime was worked in nearly all the principal trades.” But by December there was “a marked decline in employment, especially for women.” In the first week of the new year, nearly 225,000 women were receiving the weekly “donations” for unemployed war workers,[270] in contrast to 101,000 men. Four months later, in May, of the 63,930 persons receiving reduced donations after having been paid for thirteen weeks, nearly two-thirds were women. The number of civilians in receipt of “donations” rose each week until the first week in March, when it reached a total of 494,000 women and 234,000 men. From that time on the number of unemployed war workers gradually decreased, until on November 21, three days prior to discontinuance, there were only 34,271 female applicants for out-of-work donations.[271] Yet on the whole, even though there was for a few months an alarming amount of unemployment among women workers, officials held that British industry adjusted itself to peace more quickly than it had to war. A long list of factories which had changed from war to peace products, for instance from airplanes to furniture and from fuses to electric equipment, was given as early as February. Government control of raw materials was used to aid the transition, and priority was given to certain essentials in using the productive capacity set free from war work.
The independence among women workers which had developed during the war was reflected in their attitude during the period of great unemployment. In the similar crisis at the beginning of the war they had been inarticulate. But on February 15, 1919, their organizations arranged a meeting in Albert Hall, London, attended by women representing nearly every trade, at which women speakers dwelt on the folly of unemployment while the country was in need of all kinds of manufactured articles. Resolutions were passed giving the three points of the “Women’s Charter”—“the right to work, the right to live and the right to leisure.” It was held that all workers by hand or brain should unite, and that work should be provided for the unemployed. An adequate living wage, an eight hour day and a forty hour week were advocated as standards for working conditions. A deputation was organized to take the resolutions to the Prime Minister, but apparently he did not reply to them.[272]
The measures actually adopted by the government show many traces of the Civil War Workers Committee recommendations, though, hastily put in force as they were, they were much less complete, and in some cases widely different. The arrangements made but little distinction between men and women workers. The whole process of “demobilizing” war workers was put in charge of a “controller general” responsible to the Ministry of Labor, who controlled the employment exchanges, a new “Appointments Branch” for “men of office rank” and the labor departments of the Ministry of Munitions, the Admiralty and the War Office. The employment exchanges were made the center for the transfer of war workers. By the day after the armistice the recall of employment exchange officials from the army had been arranged. Staff and premises were enlarged and additional local advisory committees formed. Various efforts were made to provide raw materials and to hasten the change to peace time work by munition manufacturers. Instructions to manufacturers asked them to avoid an immediate general discharge of workers, to abolish all overtime and piece work at once, and to retain as many workers as possible on short time. If wages under this plan fell below certain levels, which were for women 25s. ($6.00) a week, the government agreed to make up the difference. In case of actual discharge, a week’s notice or a week’s pay was to be given, and free railway passes home or to new work places were provided. “The loyal and cordial cooperation of all employers” in carrying out the directions was invited, but nothing is at hand to show to what extent they were observed or how far they lessened unemployment. It will be noted that men and women workers were treated practically alike under this scheme. The “Waacs” and other women auxiliaries of the army and navy were demobilized under the same conditions as all members of the military forces, receiving, besides certain gratuities, a civilian outfit, four weeks’ pay and a railway pass.
Special provision for unemployed women through training courses was outlined in a pamphlet issued by the government in the spring of 1919.[273] It was stated that a large number of typical women’s trades, such as clothing, textiles, food manufacture and laundry work, would be covered by short training courses of from one to six months’ duration, usually three months. In addition a special course in housekeeping would be offered. The courses might be given in any suitable place, such as a factory, as well as in trade schools and the government instructional factories formerly used for training munition workers. Approved students were to receive 15s. to 25s. ($3.50-$6.00) a week while taking the course, with traveling fares if necessary, and an additional 10s. ($2.40) weekly if obliged to live away from home.
When the government adopted for immediate action the plans for relieving unemployment previously outlined it also put forward certain other schemes for decreasing unemployment during the later reconstruction period, which included the stimulation of orders and contracts, public and private, an increase in public works and improvements and the extension of contributory unemployment insurance to practically all workers.
The chief reliance of the government in dealing with unemployment after the armistice was not a contributory insurance plan, but a system of unemployment “donations.” Before the war contributory unemployment insurance, paying 7s. ($1.68) a week to unemployed workers for fifteen weeks a year from a fund created through small weekly contributions for employers, employes and the government, covered 2,200,000 workers in six trades, almost all of whom were males. In 1916 the law was extended for a period of from three to five years after the end of the war to include most of the chief war industries with an additional 1,500,000 employes, including many women. But by an emergency order made within a few weeks after the armistice, the contributory insurance law was temporarily superseded by a scheme of “donations” applying also to all war workers not previously covered and all ex-soldiers and sailors. Free policies were issued, at first good in the case of civilians for six months beginning November 25, 1918, and in the case of soldiers, for twelve months from the date of demobilization. The policies provided their holders with donations while unemployed for thirteen weeks if civilians and twenty-six weeks if soldiers. The original scale was 20s. ($4.80) weekly for women workers, which was raised after a few weeks to 25s. ($6.00). Additional payments were made for dependent children, amounting to 6s. ($1.44) weekly for the first and 3s. (72 cents) for each succeeding child. A later amendment permitted payments to civilians for an additional thirteen weeks at a reduced rate, which was, for women, 15s. ($3.60) weekly. Later, in May, 1919, when according to the terms of the original order all donation policies held by civilians would have expired, they were renewed for an additional six months. Except for ex-service men and women, the system was finally discontinued on November 25, 1919. At this date 137,000 civilians were receiving donations, of whom 29,000 were females. All donations were paid through the employment exchanges and could be stopped if the recipients refused “to accept suitable employment.”
Undoubtedly the system of unemployment donations prevented much suffering among thousands of wage earners to whom the country was indebted for their war work. But as a whole its operation can not be said to have been satisfactory, particularly among women employes. An entire session of the House of Commons was devoted mainly to criticisms of the system and its defence by the Minister of Labor. Complaints of “slackers” who were taking a vacation at the taxpayers’ expense were met by charges that women were being forced to take places at sweated wages by refusals to pay the unemployment donations. In the five months ending April 25, 1919, claims for donations numbering 141,770 were disallowed, in 100,442 of which cases appeals to the referees were made. Only 27,536 of the appealed claims were finally allowed, 81 per cent of the women’s claims being denied, about half of them on the ground of “refusal to accept suitable employment.”[274]
The Ministry of Labor, which administered the unemployment donations, admitted that an unsatisfied demand for women workers existed in domestic service, laundries, the needle work trades and in some districts in the textile industry at the same time that half a million women were out of work. But the places open were either very highly skilled or grossly underpaid and unattractive. For one firm which needed 5,000 workers, the employment exchanges could find only fifty women who seemed qualified, of whom the firm hired only fifteen.
The association of laundrymen even appealed to the government to bring pressure to bear on the women to accept work, but apparently no action was taken in answer to the demand. The women workers themselves said that when the government had raised the rate of unemployment donations from 20s. to 25s. weekly on the ground that a single woman could not live on less, they could not be expected to enter laundries at 18s. ($4.32) a week.