women were sometimes taken on in the emergency without all legal standards being met. When the inspectors came they issued orders and, in a few instances, employers have preferred to let their women go rather than to comply with them. The figures of replacement as they bear on the permanence of women in new work show in every correlation the significance of women's failure to make good where the process has involved heavy lifting. TABLE IX SHOWING THE RELATIVE AMOUNT OF REPLACE- Vomen eplacing [en Retained As the foregoing table indicates, the relative proporroportion of tion of replacement in the three sections of New York State increased after the Armistice in the case of Central New York and in the vicinity of New York City by 10%, while in Western New York where heavy work tended to be most necessary during the war, replacement decreased by 20%. In a sense it seems hardly just to insist that the inabilhe Failure ity of women workers to stand up under the strain of [Women n Heavy York. heavy lifting is a shortcoming for which they are to be held responsible. Personnel departments seem rather to have erred in judgment in fitting physique to job. Some men would have been unable to perform indefinitely the type of work on which women ultimately broke down. It is true, however, that taking women's new work, process by process, the only failure incident to inadaptability to the work itself occurred when women were called upon to lift heavy material more or less continuously. In 10 of 51 plants discontinuing some of their women replacing men 440 women (6.5%) were unable to compete on equal terms with men because the work required was shoveling coal and coke, handling lumber, trucking bags of food stuffs or other material from dock to storehouse or from storehouse to cars. In most cases women were summoned to this type of work only after every male or mechanical expedient had been exhausted. However, in the chemical plants of Niagara Falls replacement occurred early in the war because of the peculiarly hazardous conditions of work and bad housing which affected the labor supply. In other localities the emergency was delayed. Several plants which have tried out women on heavy work were ready with comparative figures to prove that they were less productive than men. In one company where the work called for the trucking of freight from dock to storehouse and the tiering of sacks of coffee to the height of nine feet, women were considered only 25% as efficient as the best men. The average delivery of sacks by the men obtainable before the draft was 800 per day, while the average delivery by the third or fourth grade men exempt from the draft and accessible for employment during the war was 200 per day. The women were the competitors of the residual men. Another industry requiring similar work rated five women as equal to two men. It was estimated that even when women were paid at the rate of 15¢ less per hour than men economy dictated the employment of men. 5 women @ 27¢ an hour amounted to $1.35. In yard work, shoveling of sand, coal, metal scrap into. wheel barrows, sorting of brick, cleaning of electrodes, Core oms. 42 stoking furnaces, and such work, one plant reckoned 6 women as equal to 4 men. In a plant where large truck loads of leather were handled women delivered 60% as much goods as men. Women in the core rooms of foundries have proved eavy Work themselves efficient on small cores. A few foundry men, however, have been discouraged by their work on large cores, but in several instances porters have been used to wheel sand and carry cores to the ovens. The result has been a saving in time for women at the bench and an increase in production which more than paid for the additional labor. In one core room in the central part of the state this subdivision of labor has been extended to the small core room where 30 women coremakers are assisted by 2 men wheeling sand, 2 wheeling plaster and 6 carrying cores. Increased production has paid for the 10 additional workers and more. ious The dissatisfaction expressed by employers who have replaced men by women on such work is not localized to New York State. It is true wherever women have led either a sedentary industrial life or only a comparatively active domestic one. Quite apart from their inferior physical strength they are therefore more liable than men to strain from muscular effort. The adjustment of weight to worker has always been a difficult matter. Scientific management places a definite limit of 10 lbs. including shovel when maximum producLifted by tion is desired from men. The New York State Labor rts to hit ghts to men. Code forbids the employment of women in core rooms where the cores to be carried weigh more than 25 lbs. In Germany, before the war, an effort was made to eliminate possible strain by prohibiting the employment of women in such work as removal of rubbish, getting, loading and conveying raw material, conveying of bricks or coal to furnaces in wheel barrows and stoking of furnaces. The French have set limits upon the number of pounds to be drawn or pushed by women on barrows or trucks. When 43 on rails 1,320 lbs. (including truck) may be pushed; on barrows 100 lbs. With these pre-war safeguards in mind, no wonder can be felt that women have failed to make good in New York State when called upon to push truck loads weighing from 200 to 2,000 pounds over rough flooring; to act as assistant bricklayers by wheeling barrow loads of brick; to stoke furnaces with shovel loads of coal weighing 25-30 lbs. thrown to the back of the furnace seven to ten feet distant; to load box cars by shoveling from the ground to above shoulder level. From the woman worker's point of view and barring permanent injury, temporary work of a heavy character can cause only temporary fatigue. From the point of view of industrial management efficient production can be secured only through a stable labor force physically fit. In placing women at work beyond their strength both of these rules are violated. As a result of heavy work the less robust women leave voluntarily or are dismissed for bad time-keeping; the more robust remain at work but show the effect of fatigue in decreased production. TRADES UNIONS AND WOMEN REPLACING MEN. The great majority of women who replaced men during the war are unorganized. This is largely due to the fact that the Trade Union men were convinced that the women who entered new occupations as an emergency would not remain when the emergency was past. The general attitude of labor men is that if women receive the same wages as men for the same work they will not oppose them, but they will unalterably oppose their entrance into new occupations as underbidders. Another general view among machinists is that women have replaced boys and in very rare instances only have replaced skilled machinists. Therefore, there have been differences of opinion as to whether or not they are eligible to the. Machinists Union. One of the locals of this union that accepted women members was still of the opinion that no women should be employed in the |