The doctors were now being assembled and soon a White Paper admonished: “The effective maintenance of ventilation is a matter of increasing importance, because of the large number of women employed, and women are especially susceptible to the effects of defective ventilation.”
Plumbing came next with a White Paper that went exhaustively into the subject of lavatory equipment, with illustrations showing the best fittings: “Fundamental requirements are a plentiful supply of hot and cold water, soap, nail brushes, and for each worker an individual towel at least 2 feet square, to be renewed daily. If shower-baths are installed, it must be recognised that for women the ordinary shower-bath is not applicable because of the difficulty of keeping her long hair dry or of drying it after bathing. A horizontal spray, fixed at the level of the shoulders will overcome this objection.”
EVERY ATTENTION FOR THE WOMAN WHO WORKS
All of this reconstruction was rapidly going on when one day it rained and Mrs. Black got her feet wet going to work in the morning. And she was at home in bed for two days away from the lathe. Fortunately the carpenters were still around. “There must be cloak-rooms,” came the hurried order in a White Paper. “They should afford facilities for changing clothing and boots and for drying wet outdoor clothes in bad weather. Each peg or locker should bear the worker’s name or work-number. The cloak-rooms should be kept very clean.”
And really now, a woman’s health is a serious matter! Every safeguard must be adopted for its protection. If Mrs. Black is indisposed, it is too bad for her to have to go all the way home to go to bed. Immediate attention might prevent a serious illness. Why was it never thought of before? Of course, there should be a doctor always around at the works. So the building plans were enlarged to include a hospital. The largest building plans I know of have been worked out by one English factory that recently put up a whole village of wooden houses for women employés, 700 of whom are provided with board and lodging at 14 shillings a week. There is a public hall, a club, a chapel, a restaurant and a hospital. Many factories now have the “hostel” for lodging women employés who come from a distance. The hospital you will find now at any factory of good economic standing, and the doctor and the trained nurse and the “welfare supervisor.” The Government directs: “At every workshop where 2,000 persons are employed, there shall be at least one whole-time medical officer and at least one additional medical officer, if the number exceeds 2,000. A woman welfare supervisor shall be appointed at all factories and workshops where women are employed.”
So now Mrs. Black is given a careful medical examination when she first presents herself for employment. After that, she is looked over at regular intervals. At any time, if she so much as appears pale, the doctor is right there to take her pulse. Any little thing that may be the matter with her is reported at once on the “sickness register.” A Health of Munition Workers Committee, appointed by Mr. Lloyd George with the concurrence of the Home Office has directed, “Week by week the management should scrutinise their chart of sickness returns and study their rise and fall.” Also any factory employing over 20 women is required at regular intervals to fill out a questionnaire concerning the environment and conditions of its employés, and this record is kept on file at the Home Office.
You see how scientifically the woman in industry is handled? Why, if the munitions output fell off this afternoon, the whole English Parliament might rise to demand Mrs. Black’s health record to-morrow morning.
Mrs. Black must not be allowed to be ill! She ought not even to be permitted to get tired! Gentlemen, pass her a cup of cocoa or hot milk in the morning at half-past ten. It is a government order which is obligatory for factories where she is employed on specially fatiguing processes. At about four in the afternoon, she should pause for rest and a cup of tea. If she is engaged on a rush order, the tea may be passed to her in the workroom. But it is most advisable that she go to the canteen for it and have a brief period of inactivity in an easy chair in the adjoining rest room. This isn’t fiction. This is industrial fact for women to-day. And there is more. The Health of Munition Workers Committee are now strongly of the opinion that for women and girls a portion of Saturday and the whole of Sunday should be available for rest. That Sabbath day commandment, it is discovered, isn’t only written in the Bible. It is indelibly recorded in the human constitution. Even if you keep at toil for seven days, you are able to produce only a six-days’ output. Except for extraordinary, sudden emergencies, “overtime” is a most wasteful expedient. “The effect of all overtime should be carefully watched and workers should be at once relieved from it when fatigue becomes apparent.” Recently in a “General Order” for the hosiery trade, a condition is included “that every fourth week must be kept entirely free from overtime.” A White Paper says: “The result of fatigue which advances beyond physiological limits (‘overstrain’) not only reduces capacity at the moment, but does damage of a more permanent kind which will affect capacity for periods far beyond the next normal period of rest. It will plainly be uneconomical to allow this damage to be done.”
Oh, Mrs. Lewis, you can see that something has happened, that there’s an entirely new sort of place in industry for woman on the other side, as there’s going to be here. In France the gallant government almost sees her home from work, at least they make sure of her safety in getting there. When the employés of a factory live at a distance involving a journey to and from work by trolley or train, it is permitted for the women to arrive fifteen minutes later in the morning and to stop work at night fifteen minutes earlier than the men. Thus they avoid the rush hour and the congestion on the trains.
It was in a factory on the banks of the Seine that I noticed another thoughtful attention. There were hundreds of women engaged in making munitions and on the work bench before each operator in a brass fuse filled with water to serve as a vase, was a flower, fresh and fragrant! Great beautiful La France roses, splendid roses de gloire, bride roses and spicy carnations made lanes of bloom up and down the workroom. I turned to the foreman: “Is it some fête day?” He shook his head: “The flowers are renewed each morning. We do it every day. Because the women like it.”