Women and the Trade Unions
The war apparently proved a great stimulus to trade unionism among
women workers in England. Prior to the war, as in other industrial
countries, women workers were notoriously hard to organize, and
formed but a small minority of trade union membership. In 1913 nearly
4,000,000 men and only 356,000 women were said to be members of English
trade unions. Aside from the fact that before the war most women were
found in unskilled and low paid occupations in which union organization
had made but little progress even among men, the usual explanation of
the difficulty of organizing them was that most of them were young and
expected to marry within a few years and to withdraw from industry. The
one exception to this condition was the cotton textile trade, in which
a large proportion of the women belonged to labor unions. Out of the
whole number of organized women, 257,000 were in the textile trades. As
already indicated, many of the unions in the skilled trades would not
admit women members and were unfavorable to any extension of their work.
Two special organizations were devoted to the promotion of trade
unionism among women. The older, the Women’s Trade League, was made
up mainly of affiliated societies and was formed with the idea that a
place could be found for women in existing organizations. But in many
trades where there were large numbers of women unions did not exist,
or the men’s unions forbade the employment of women. The National
Federation of Women Workers gave its attention to these occupations.
Its membership was stated to be about 20,000 in 1913.
During the war the number of women trade unionists increased at an
unprecedented rate. At the end of 1914 their number was officially
reported as 472,000, at the corresponding period in 1915 as 521,000,
and at the end of 1916, 1917 and 1918, respectively, as approximately
650,000, 930,000 and 1,224,000—an increase of nearly 160 per cent
between 1914 and 1918. During the same period the number of male trade
unionists increased about 45 per cent.[98] Out of 1,220 craft and trade
unions, 837 had only male members, 347 included both men and women
and 36 were composed wholly of women. The latter included some 95,000
members, and the largest of them were the National Federation of Women
Workers and the National Federation of Women Teachers.
A report by the factory inspectors enumerated ten important trades,
including several of the textiles, boots and shoes, furniture, cutlery,
fancy leather goods and tobacco, in which the number of women unionists
was 365 per cent greater in 1914 than in 1917, rising from 41,778 in
1914 to 152,814 in 1917. A small but interesting union was that made up
of women oxy-acetylene welders, a skilled trade which women had entered
for the first time during the war. Its membership was mainly made up of
educated women who were active in securing “equal pay” for themselves.
Detailed figures for seven individual trades are as follows:
NUMBER OF WOMEN TRADE UNION MEMBERS[99]
Industry 1914 1917
-------------------------------------------------------------
Woolen 7,695 35,137
Hosiery 3,657 17,217
Textile bleaching, dyeing, finishing 7,260 22,527
Boot and Shoe 10,165 ...
Tobacco 1,992 2,225
Solid leather case and fancy leather negligible 1,372
Furniture 300 15,236
Another development of trade unionism among women during the war was
that for the first time in the so-called “mixed unions,” composed of
both men and women members, a large number of women were elected as
branch secretaries and local officials. This change was forced by the
withdrawal of men for military service, but the new officers were
reported to be “as a whole extremely satisfactory.”[100]
[98] Great Britain Ministry of Labour, _Labour Gazette_, February,
1920, p. 60.
[99] Great Britain, Home Office, _Substitution of Women in Nonmunition
Factories_, pp. 26-50.
[100] Quoted from G. D. H. Cole in United States _Monthly Labor
Review_, June, 1919, p. 1852.
It is generally believed that the chief reason for the growth of
trade unionism among women during the war was the increase in their
wages, together with the resentment aroused at the same time by
frequent failure to achieve “equal pay for equal work.” Other causes
sometimes mentioned cover many of the principal effects of the war on
women workers. Women’s customary docility was said to be reduced by
the absence of their men folk on military service, forcing them more
often to assume the initiative. The public recognition of the value
of women’s work likewise increased their self-confidence. Contact
with the stern realities of war was believed to have reduced the
irresponsibility of the younger workers and the petty caste feeling
frequent among women of all ages. The shortage in the supply of workers
strengthened labor’s general position, and government acknowledgment of
the importance of trade unionism also weakened opposition by employers.
But in spite of the growth in unionism some complaints were made that
it was even harder than usual to interest certain of the new workers
in organization because they were so consciously working only for the
duration of the war. Women have been found who believed in the value
of the unions sufficiently to keep up the dues of the men whose places
they were taking, but who refused to join themselves.
The principal agency concerned with unionizing women munition workers
during the war period was the National Federation of Women Workers,
which is reported to have more than tripled its membership during the
war.[101] Under its energetic secretary, Miss Mary Macarthur, it was
credited with securing legislation and official action in behalf of
the women war workers, in addition to its organizing work. Its breezy
little monthly paper, _The Woman Worker_, which sheds much light on the
point of view of the woman trade unionist toward events of the day, was
started in January, 1916.
[101] Paul U. Kellogg and Arthur Gleason, _British Labor and the War_,
1919, p. 141.
In its task of organizing munition girls, the Federation of Women
Workers had the advantage of an informal alliance with the Amalgamated
Society of Engineers. In May, 1915, this strong union rejected a plan
to admit women workers on the ground that it would prevent excluding
them from the trade after the war. But the following month the A. S.
E. arranged with the federation to set up joint committees to fix wage
scales for women and to support the Federation in enforcing the demands
jointly agreed upon. Somewhat contradictory reports were received on
the results of this action. The federation praised the society’s help
highly, saying that several new branches were “literally made by A. S.
E. men,”[102] though a writer in the _Women’s Industrial News_ stated
that the one or two cases of A. S. E. action in behalf of the women
“have had no pressure behind them,” and secured only “negligible”
results.[103]
[102] _The Woman Worker_, January, 1916, p. 13.
[103] _Women’s Industrial News_, April, 1916, p. 19.
The substitution question, it has been shown, emphasized the unfriendly
attitude of many unions in the skilled crafts toward the woman worker.
Some unions, for instance the two covering tramway employment, flatly
voted down the admission of women without making any such substitute
arrangements for them as did the A. S. E. In a number of cases, even
where they were forced to permit “dilution,” they seem to have retained
an attitude of hostility or suspicion. Numerous individual instances
of this kind may be found in the pages of the _Dilution Bulletins_.
In some cases tools were purposely set wrong or were not supplied at
all, and unfavorable reports of the women’s work were made without
substantial basis.
Other unions—apparently on the whole the newer and more radical
bodies—did let in the women workers. The waiters’ union even opened a
class to train them to replace the interned enemy aliens. The steam
railway organization admitted them, though not exactly on the same
terms as men. The women substitutes naturally appear to have had a
“smoother path” under these circumstances than where the policy of
exclusion was maintained.
Since the armistice there has been a decline in the number of women
trade unionists, and it is doubtful if the war level will again be
reached for some time to come. There is, however, a greatly increased
interest in trade unionism among English working women, which will
undoubtedly be maintained under the changed conditions of peace and
reconstruction. The movement is, of course, closely connected with the
way the “dilution” problem is settled. This will be discussed in the
chapter dealing with the situation during the first few months after
the armistice.