both if they could find some common basis of union and action. With the help of the men, with capable organizers, and with an enlightened public opinion more might be done to organize even the unskilled women workers, and the results already attained among the skilled and better class women workers give promise of a great advance in the future. It is doubtful whether organized labor yet fully realizes that one of the weakest links in its chain of organization is the condition of women's labor, and I think it will be admitted that one of its main tasks should be to undertake to raise the standard of life of wage-earners as a whole. It is most probable that the low standard of women's work does ultimately react upon the standard of life of all classes of labor, for it must be remembered that labor as a whole stands or falls together. This optimistic exposition of the value of women's organizations would seem to hold true even in the experience of Mr. Cadburyonly in industries where the employment of women is extensive enough to force the attention of the male operatives to the advantage of organizing their coworkers. In Birmingham, where 23 per cent of all the married women and widows are wage-earners and where, instead of the equal log as maintained for man and woman in Lancashire, the level of women's wages is 10s. or 12s. ($2.43 or $2.92) per week-about one-third or one-half that of the men's wages-women's trade unionism has failed. And Mr. Cadbury's analysis of the adverse conditions there discloses accurately and succinctly the present limitations to the organization of women employed in small numbers either by themselves or with men, but not doing the same work, and is as follows: In the original investigation we made in Birmingham with regard to women's work and wages, we endeavored to ascertain to what extent the physical, mental, and moral conditions of the workers were being helped or kept back by the present industrial and social conditions. We had personal interviews with upward of 6,000 working women and 400 trade union secretaries, managers, and foremen of works employing women, and also interviews with employers and correspondence with various agencies, and among the various other questions we made inquiries as to the extent and scope of the organization of women. We found that the want of independence and foresight and the narrow outlook of women makes organization an almost impossible remedy for the conditions of their work, except in the case of the most skilled workers. Girls look forward to marriage and do not expect to be life workers and therefore they do not consider they would gain any ultimate personal advantage by joining a union, and the want of mobility among them makes unionism to a great extent ineffective. The work of women, generally speaking, is practically unskilled, and in case of dispute the places of organized women could always be filled by large numbers of unemployed. Attempts have been made in Birmingham to organize the women in many trades, including bedstead, bookbinding, pinafore, tailoring, leather, and pen trades, but these attempts have failed in some cases partly from want of experience of the organizers, but in all cases more because of the apathy of the workers and the opposition of the masters. Some attempts are being made at the present time to organize the women workers in Birmingham, and an organizer from the Women's Trade Union League is working in the district. She has been successful in forming a small union of chain makers, who work almost entirely in domestic workshops. There is also in Birmingham a union under the name of the Birmingham and District Lady Clerks' Society, which is well organized and offers to its members the usual advantages, but the membership is not large. There is also a local branch of the National Amalgamated Union of Shop Assistants, but the number of organized women shop assistants is exceedingly small. Attempts are being made at Cradley Heath to organize the women in the chain-making trade. A union in this industry was formed in 1886, but the women became apathetic, and only about 200 out of at least 1,000 women were in the union until recently. The men workers in this trade are more or less indifferent to the organization of women, though they themselves belong to an association and their wives and daughters work with them. Employers generally take the conditions and wages of women's work for granted and are usually antagonistic to the formation of trade unions among their workers. Many foremen and forewomen seem to think that unions for women are unnecessary and not worth the trouble. Men workers generally are indifferent or opposed to women's unions, and the work of the latter in most trades is so well marked off from that of the men that the men do not concern themselves as to the conditions and wages of the women's work. The women themselves when asked for their views as to unionism almost invariably said that they did not know anything about it or had not thought of it. Occasionally, when a conflict with the employers is brought about, the workers may be induced to organize while the excitement lasts, but when ordinary conditions again prevail the members fall off in payments to the union, partly because their wages are so low that the few pence per week can not be spared and partly because of their ignorance and lack of forethought, and also because their places can be so readily filled by those outside the unions. (a) On the other hand, Mr. Cadbury has consistently encouraged trade unionism among the women workers in his factory, and has said that trade unionism for women workers and the ensuing improved conditions were neither magnanimity nor philanthropy on the part of the employer, because "there is 5 per cent in it.” • See Women's Work and Wages, by Cadbury, Matheson, and Shann, p. 253 et seq. But this indorsement does not find echo in the verdict of several employers whose opinions were obtained. One of these spoke impatiently of Mr. Cadbury's theory, and added: "It does not pay to train women, either in trades or organization; they would leave us before we got the same return for our trouble as we get from men.' Another, in whose factory there are unions among both the male and the female operatives, was inclined to decry the efforts being made to organize women. "They are like a lot of sheep," he said. "Women much above them in class organize them and then hand them over to pay their subscriptions into the treasury of the men's unions, and I doubt very much whether they know what they are doing or get very much out of it." If there is anything in this accusation that unions effected by official organizers outside the trade bring no enlightenment to the average worker, it was answered for the future by a woman trade union leader, who said: One of the most hopeful signs of the women's trade union movement at the present time is the development of many women leaders from the ranks of the workers themselves-women who, imbued with the justice of the "cause," and realizing the great issues involved, have become enthusiastic missionaries, preaching the gospel of combination to their fellow-workers in the factory, mill, and workshop. The London Times, in commenting upon a labor demonstration of 1907, says: But quite as impressive to our thinking is the case which the spokeswomen of the Lancashire textile operatives presented in Trafalgar Square. Some of them could boast that they had served fifteen or twenty years in a cotton mill, and, despite that drudgery, they spoke with a fluency, a firmness of logic, and a skill in the choice of words that showed exactly the same ability to rise above the handicap of conditions which one may note in the speaking men like Mr. Burt or Mr. Hardie. It would seem, then, as in the cotton textile districts where the woman trade-unionist is an accepted economic factor, the development industrially and mentally of these workers as a class must be largely the test of the women's trade union movement throughout Great Britain. Considering the primary evils of the casual and unsettled nature of all women's work before any effort to steady it and make it more effective was attempted, men trade union leaders admit that the advance of the female trade-unionist gives evidence that the woman worker herself, through persistent combination for the sake of collective bargaining with employer and urgent petitioning to obtain special protective laws, may greatly improve her industrial condition in the near future. While the women trade union leaders concede that the progress of organizing women workers has been slow, it has been restrained by the necessary preliminary of attempting to adjust a mere living standard of pay over a large area of female labor. A successful organizer among women said: The differences between the whole standard of men's work and women's work and men's and women's wages could not possibly be swept away except by generations of legislation and women tradeunionists. In Lancashire this is so near accomplishment that it has been possible to get much nearer the ideal of women's work, but everywhere else it is customary for a woman to have less pay, and it is the custom because she has acquiesced in it. She has allowed the employer to believe she has no one but herself to support, and that she can live on bread and butter and tea, while a man must eat beefsteak and is presupposed to have a family to support. Those workers of her sex who have auxiliary support and only need to work for a pocket-money wage intensify the evil, and until we get, on the part of women workers, an insistent demand for a "living wage" and decent conditions of work we shall remain as far from the ideal as ever. Very few of the unions containing a female membership have failed, and while the total number of women unionists constitutes but a small detachment of the industrial army of British women workers there is no doubt that the women's trade union is an economic force that has come into Great Britain to stay. APPENDIX. Statistics of women trade-unionists in Great Britain are given in the following tables. The first table shows in summary form a comparison of the total number of women trade-unionists in 1904 and 1908. This table is followed by tables showing in detail the number of women members in the various unions in 1908, classified according to numerical strength and according to trades. The details were secured in response to circular letters sent to the secretaries of the various unions. STATISTICS OF WOMEN'S AND MIXED TRADE UNIONS IN GREAT BRITAIN, 1904 AND 1908. [Figures for 1904 are compiled from the Report of the Labor Department of the Board of Trade on Trade Unions in 1905-1907; those for 1908 are from returns secured in response to circular letters sent to the secretaries of the various trade unions.] a Including figures for 1907 for 15 unions; no later figures available. The above statistics show that the number of women's and of mixed trade unions increased 2 and 31, respectively, in 1908 as compared with 1904, while the female membership increased from 9,223 to 16,949, or 83.8 per cent, in women's trade unions and from 117,062 to 191,830, or 63.9 per cent, in mixed unions. The following table gives in detail the number of women members in women's and in mixed trade unions in 1908 according to the numerical strength of the unions: WOMEN MEMBERS IN WOMEN'S AND IN MIXED TRADE UNIONS IN GREAT BRITAIN, CLASSIFIED ACCORDING TO NUMERICAL STRENGTH, 1908. [Figures are from returns secured in response to circular letters sent to the various trade unions.] Trade union. Oldham Provincial Card and Blowing Room and Ring Frame Operatives. Burnley and District Weavers, Winders, and Beamers' Association.. Bolton Card, Blowing, Ring, and Throstle Room Operatives. Nelson and District Power Loom Weavers.... Darwen Weavers, Winders, and Warpers.. Bolton and District Power Loom Weavers' Association.. Ashton-under-Lyne and District Weavers and Winders.. Preston Power Loom Weavers' Association... Dundee and District Mill and Factory Operatives. Hyde, Hadfield, Compstall, and Broadbottom Weavers, Winders, and Warpers. Bury, Radcliffe, and District Weavers' Association. Padiham and District Weavers.. S. E. Lancs. Provincial Card and Blowing Room Operatives. Leek Women Workers' Union.. Accrington and District Power Loom Weavers' Association. Chorley and District Weavers.. National Amalgamated Union of Shop Assistants, Warehousemen, and Clerks. Rochdale Weavers, Winders, Reelers, and Beamers. Church and Oswaldtwistle Weavers, Winders, and Warpers. Heywood, Castleton, Norden, and District Weavers, Winders, and Reelers. Great Harwood Weavers, Winders, and Beamers.. National Federation of Women Workers.. Dundee and District Jute and Flax Workers.. Rochdale Card and Blowing Room Operatives and Ring Spinners. Rossendale Weavers, Winders, and Beamers. Postal Telegraph Clerks. Hyde and District Card, Blowing, and Ring Frame Room Operatives. National Union of Gasworkers and General Laborers.. Todmorden and District Weavers and Winders' Association. General Union of Weavers and Textile Workers. Haslingden Weavers' Association.. Stockport and District Weavers, Winders, Warpers, and Reelers.. National Boot and Shoe Operatives.. Clitheroe Weavers, Winders, and Warpers. Blackburn and District Card and Blowing Room Operatives and Ring Spinners. Stockport Association of Card and Blowing Room, Ring, and Throstle Spinners. Clayton-le-Moors Weavers. Wigan and District Card Room Operatives and Ring Spinners' Association.. Forfar Factory Workers' Union.. Ramsbottom Weavers, Winders, and Warpers. Female Cigar Makers.. Radcliffe and District Weavers and Winders. Rishton Weavers' Association. Salford and District Power Loom Weavers. Heywood Card Room Operatives, Spinners, and Ring Frame Operatives' Association. Bacup and District Weavers, Winders, and Beamers. Amalgamated Union of Cooperative Employees. National Association of Telephone Operators. Glossop and District Power Loom Weavers.. National Amalgamated Society of Male and Female Pottery Workers.. 4,500 a 4,022 a 4,000 3,800 • Figures for 1907; supplied from Report of the Labor Department of the Board of Trade on Trade Unions in 1905-1907, as there were no later figures available. 4764-No. 83-09-5 |