It is difficult to tell how far these new schemes will change the conditions of housekeeping and lessen unemployment by attracting women to domestic service. But the fact that they were put forward is an interesting sign of the extent of the movement for reconstructing the national life on better lines.
Dilution and Equal Pay
The other two chief problems of the women workers in the reconstruction period, that of the “dilutees,” who had taken up men’s work during the war, and that of “equal pay for equal work” and an adequate standard of wages for women workers generally, were closely related to each other. Much of the opposition of the men workers to the entrance of women into new occupations was based on the fact that women’s wage standards were lower than those of men. In most cases, it will be remembered, dilution had taken place under promises that it would last only during the war. Parliament, by the Munitions Act, had given the government’s pledge that departures from prewar practices should be merely temporary in the establishments covered.[278] Similar clauses, often even more explicit, were found in practically all the substitution agreements made by private employers with labor organizations.[279] Meanwhile the fixing of women’s wages by law had been widely extended, and, in the opinion of close students of labor problems, “a removal of the statutory regulations might well be followed by a serious and immediate fall in wages.”[280]
The government in several instances took action on matters connected with women’s wages and occupations after the war, but it is not too harsh to say that a disposition to tide over difficulties temporarily rather than to define any very clear line of policy was evident. Two laws were passed affecting the after war wages of women. The Trade Boards (minimum wage) Act was extended in 1918, before the close of the war, as a measure of preparedness for peace. “There is reason to fear that the after war dislocation of industry will make the problem of adequate wages for unskilled and unorganized workers, especially women, very acute,” said an official explanation of the changes in the act.[281] “Eight years’ satisfactory results of Trade Boards pointed to these as the best way of meeting the situation.” The new law provided that boards might be formed wherever wages were unduly low, instead of exceptionally low as in the original law. The general wage level for women workers was so low before the war that it had often been difficult to prove an “exceptional” condition. Provisions were also made to have minimum wage awards come into force more quickly. By the spring of 1919 new Trade Boards had been formed in eight industries.[282] They apparently fixed wages for women on the basis of the necessary cost of living for a single woman—28s. ($6.72) for a forty-eight hour week in laundries, for example.
But the Trade Boards covered only a fraction of the industries of the country, and further measures were considered necessary to prevent a dislocation of wages. Following the advice of a committee appointed by the Ministry of Reconstruction, the Wages (Temporary Regulation) Bill was passed November 21, 1918. This act required employers to pay the “prescribed” or “substituted” rate which prevailed at the time of the armistice for a period of six months. In May, 1919, the provisions of the act were extended for another six months. Under this law an Interim Court of arbitration was set up which handled the arbitration of disputed wage cases. During the year of its existence it made 932 awards and advised on several others. On November 20, 1919, this Interim Court was displaced by the Industrial Courts Act, which in addition to its function of voluntary arbitration, extended certain parts of the Wages Temporary Regulation Act until September 30, 1920.[283] At the close of the war the greatest number of women were substituting for men on semi-skilled and repetition processes, and it was therefore semi-skilled men who were menaced most immediately by the danger of undercutting by the women. But in the rapid extension of specialized work during the war lay an evident threat to the position of the skilled worker. A right solution of the two questions, in which the interests of all the groups concerned would be safeguarded, would apparently involve a modification of prewar conditions, rather than a return to them.
Three points of view were evident in English opinion about women’s work and wages after the armistice. The first point of view was, briefly, that women workers would and should return to their prewar occupations. But little attention was given to the question of their wage level. Whether such a return was possible or just to the women themselves, or whether they might not be excluded for a time but remain potential competitors with low wage standards, thus bringing about the very danger they were trying to avoid—all this was seemingly not considered. Though relatively seldom expressed in print it was a viewpoint held widely and tenaciously. Government officials, visiting America in November, 1917, for instance, said that marriage, the return of married women to their homes and the revival of the luxury trades and domestic service, would relieve the situation. Many old line trade unionists also believed that women should not be allowed to remain in most of their new lines of work, and demanded the literal fulfilment of all pledges to that effect. The general secretary of the Postal and Telegraph Clerks’ Association, at a conference of “Working Class Associations” said as to the basis of suitable occupations:
My own view, for what it is worth, is that this problem could be solved with very little trouble. I think a careful study of the census returns for the last thirty years would help to solve the problem of the basis of suitability. We could safely conclude that the occupations which, according to the census, show a steady and persistent increase in the number of women employed are suitable occupations for the extension of women’s labour. I think we must face it ... that, as far as we can see at present, the prewar standard for fixing wages as between men and women is likely to remain.
A second point of view, which might be termed the “moderate” one, compromising between prewar and war conditions, advocated the retention of women in all “suitable” occupations, together with an extension of protective labor legislation, protection of the wage level by minimum wage fixing, and “equal pay for equal work” where men and women remained in the same occupations. This opinion was evident in the two chief official reports on women’s work which have been issued since the armistice, that of the Home Office on “Substitution of Women in Nonmunition Factories during the War” and that of the “War Cabinet Committee on Women in Industry.” The former described a fairly large range of new employments as “suitable” for women, including positions in scientific laboratory work, supervision and management, as well as factory processes. Even with all unsuitable occupations set aside, there remained “a body of industries and operations offering a hopeful field of fresh employment to women, where their war experience can be turned to account, and should prove a national asset of great value.” Among the approved trades were light leather tanning, fancy leather manufacture, box and packing case making, furniture, scientific instrument making, flint glass cutting and engraving, and cutlery, except scissors manufacture. The factors causing an occupation to be disapproved were the heaviness of the work, the use of dangerous machinery or poisonous substances, the presence of exceptional heat, wet or dirt and the necessity for night work or solitary employment.[284] Basing its conclusions on considerations of “efficiency” and relative output, the War Cabinet Committee decided that women would probably not remain in heavy manual labor and out door work. There had not been time during the war to judge of their effectiveness in skilled work, but in routine and repetition processes, into which the war had hastened their “normal” movement, they had been successful and were likely to stay permanently. Repetition work in the metal trades, light work in chemical plants, certain processes in printing, woodworking and manufacture, agriculture, commerce and government positions, and many of the new administrative and professional openings for educated women, were mentioned by the War Cabinet Committee as providing possibilities for the continued work of women.[285] But both reports recognized that many other factors besides suitability, notably the attitude of the trade unions, would play an important part in determining the position of the woman worker.
The chief purpose of the investigations of the War Cabinet Committee was to decide on the proper relation between the wages of men and of women. The majority of the committee concluded that when men and women did radically different work, it was “not possible to lay down a relation between their wages.” However, for the protection of women workers they urged a universal minimum wage for adult women, sufficient to cover the necessary cost of living for a single woman. The extension and strengthening of protective labor laws was also endorsed, and the possibility of such regulation through international action was welcomed. But when the two sexes had entered the same occupations, the committee subscribed to the principle of equal pay for equal work, “in the sense that pay should be in proportion to efficient output.” The committee believed that piece rates should be equal and time rates should be fixed by trade union negotiation. In the frequent case in which a woman was doing part of a man’s job, the total rate should be unchanged, and the different workers should be paid in proportion to the value of their contribution. Where processes were simplified on the introduction of women, the women should be paid the unskilled men’s rate, unless it could be proved that their work was of less value.
The third position regarding women’s wages and women on men’s jobs was clear cut and uncompromising and was perhaps typified in a minority report to the War Cabinet Committee by Mrs. Sidney Webb. In this report Mrs. Webb expressed the belief that existing relations between men’s and women’s employment were harmful to individuals and to the nation. All occupations should be opened to qualified persons regardless of sex, at the same standard rates and under the same working conditions. “Equal pay for equal work” was an ambiguous and easily evaded phrase. A national legal minimum wage should also be fixed, in which “there should be no sex inequality.” As a corollary to the proposals Mrs. Webb believed that some form of public provision for the needs of maternity and childhood should be established. “There seems no alternative—assuming that the nation wants children—to some form of state provision, entirely apart from wages.”[286]