2. To reduce hours of labour;
3. To regulate the relations between employers and employed.
[28] It is interesting to note that whilst the cheapness of women's work as compositors in Edinburgh seems to have attracted a certain class of work from London, the men's success in keeping up wages in the London bookbinding trade does not seem to have driven bookbinding into the provinces. There are one or two bookbinding firms in the provinces and in Scotland which employ girls, but mainly upon diary and account book work, the book trade being practically untouched. Cf. f.n., 28-29.
It had no sick benefits, but paid £5 at death, and offered strike pay on condition that the strike was sanctioned by the committee. The reserve fund in 1902 was under £100.
In 1903 the Society approached the Printers' and Stationers' Warehousemen praying to be recognised as a branch of that Union. A ballot of the men was taken, when 700 voted that the request be granted and 334 that it be not. The Women's Society has therefore ceased to exist as a separate organisation.
The Manchester Society.
A Manchester Society,[29] "The Manchester and Salford Society of Women Employed in the Bookbinding and Printing Trades" has gained some definite success in increasing wages during its six years of existence. In its third Annual Report, 1899, it is stated that in May, 1898, the Society began an attempt to increase wages to a 10s. minimum after a three or four years' apprenticeship, that as a consequence the wages of forty girls were raised in September from 9s. to 10s., and that subsequently thirty others received the shilling advance. In its next Report, 1899-1900, it states, without giving the number of girls affected, that "they now all receive 11s. and 12s. per week, where, prior to joining the Union, they earned 9s. and 10s. per week." Next year the membership was 165, and the last issued Report, 1902, whilst stating that "a slight increase of membership" had taken place during the year, gives no figures. "Losses through marriage and other circumstances," the 1901 Report says, "have been great," and the Society is kept going mainly by the devotion of one or two persons.[30]
[29] The existing Society is the second attempt to organise the women in these trades in Manchester.
[30] The last balance sheet gives at a glance the position of this Society, and indicates its activities:—
BALANCE SHEET FOR THE YEAR ENDING APRIL 30TH, 1902.