Hours of Work
Since the working hours of women in English industry have long been
regulated by law, the discussion of the effects of the war on working
time centers in the modifications in the legislation made because of
war conditions. The main facts are comparatively well known in America.
The early war time extension of hours, the discovery that the previous
limitations had operated in the interests of industrial efficiency as
well as humanitarian considerations and the final restoration of almost
the prewar limit of working hours, with a better appreciation of their
real utility and value, are fairly familiar. Certain modifications in
the daily hour standards were allowed throughout the war, however, and
night work by women continued common.
At the outbreak of the war legal hours were ten daily and fifty-five
weekly in textile factories, and ten and a half daily and sixty
weekly, with a limited amount of overtime, in nontextile factories
and workshops. But the Secretary of State had the power to modify
these restrictions “in case of any public emergency.” The factory acts
allowed him at such periods to exempt work on government contracts and
in government factories from hour limitations “to the extent and during
the period named by him.”[159]
[159] Factory and Workshop Act, 1901, 1 Edw. 7, Ch. 22, Sec. 150.
_The Demand for Overtime_
A demand for the exercise of this power to extend women’s hours and to
allow them to do night and Sunday work was made by manufacturers of
army supplies in the early days of the war. While the greatest rush of
government orders came to firms making munitions, clothing and camp
equipment, the number of trades affected was “unexpectedly great,
extending from big guns to boot nails, from blankets to tapes, from
motor wagons to cigarettes.”[160]
[160] Great Britain Home Office, _Report of the Chief Inspector of
Factories and Workshops for 1914_, p. 55.
The factory inspectors felt that they were facing a difficult problem.
Obviously it was necessary to secure the greatest possible output,
but it was equally apparent that labor would soon break down if
unrestricted overtime were permitted. Moreover, “was it right that one
set of operatives should be working excessive hours, while others were
without work at all?” It is well to keep in mind also that at this
time the Germans were fighting their way through Belgium and advancing
on Paris, and that the expeditionary force must at all costs be kept
supplied. In the emergency, overtime orders, good for one month each,
were granted individual firms who requested them on account of war
demands. These orders usually permitted women to work either in eight
hour or twelve hour shifts during any part of the twenty-four hours,
or, as an alternative to the shift system, two hours of overtime
daily on each of five days were allowed, making a seventy hour week.
Permission to work Saturday overtime or Sundays was rarely granted.
Additional meal periods were required if overtime was worked.
As the unemployment crisis passed, “the sole problem” came to be “what
scale of hours was likely to give the largest amount of production.”
Steps were then taken to replace the first individual permits for
exemptions by uniform orders for an entire trade. The latter were
still issued, however, not for the industry as a whole, but only to
individual firms applying for them. The permits were largely based
on joint conferences with employers and employes, and allowed women
to work at night or some eight or nine hours of overtime weekly. The
latter meant a working week of about sixty-five hours in textile
factories, and between sixty-five and seventy in other forms of factory
work. The demands of employers had often been for a far greater amount
of overtime.
The most extensive modifications of the law were made for munitions
plants where, on account of the “urgent demand” the inspectors
“recognized that latitude on a very wide scale must be permitted.”
Night work under either the two or the three shift system was allowed,
or as an alternative five hours of overtime weekly or seven and a half
in cases of special urgency. But women were not to be employed on
Sundays except for night work.
From August 4, 1914, to February 19, 1915, a total of 3,141 overtime
permits of all kinds were issued.[161] Only fifty-four permits allowing
night work remained in force at the end of 1914, though the number was
considerably increased in the first quarter of 1915.
[161] _Vide_ Appendix H, p. 240.
But overtime by women workers was unfortunately not even confined to
that sanctioned by special orders. There is considerable evidence
that long hours were also worked illegally, sometimes entirely
without permission, in other cases above the permitted modifications.
In September, 1914, the belief spread about that the factory acts
were wholly in abeyance until the end of the war, and the factory
inspectors admit that undoubtedly many cases of “long hours without
legal sanction” occurred. Yet “these have been steadily brought
under better control, the more steadily because of the knowledge of
intelligent manufacturers that unlimited hours can not be worked
without detriment to output, or in the long run without encroaching
on workers’ reserves.”[162] According to the factory inspectors, this
section of the manufacturers made more resistance to excessive overtime
at this period than the workers themselves. In the critical days
when the Germans were advancing toward Paris, many women were ready
to work all day and all night on army supplies. Except in surgical
dressing factories, where the girls were very young and the work very
monotonous, the operatives were said to show “a spirit of sustained,
untiring effort never seen before and most admirable.” One girl is
quoted as saying, “My sweetheart, he’s out there, and my two brothers,
so I may as well be working,” and a woman remarked that she wanted
to be able to write her husband in the trenches that she was “doing
her share.”[163] An appeal to the workers was made by Lord Kitchener
early in the war to the effect that “in carrying out the great work of
providing the army with its equipment employers and employes alike are
doing their duty for their King and country equally with those who have
joined the army for service in the field.” This was often posted in
factories, and helped to stimulate the women to work long hours without
complaint.
[162] Great Britain Home Office, _Report of the Chief Inspector of
Factories and Workshops for 1914_, p. 39.
[163] Great Britain Home Office, _Report of the Chief Inspector of
Factories and Workshops for 1914_, p. 40.
_Women’s Working Hours in 1915_
Authorities differ about women’s working hours in 1915 in a way that
makes it difficult to determine the exact situation. The factory
inspectors showed a considerable degree of optimism. From their point
of view the total numbers of hour law modifications in force remained
large, but the amount of overtime and week end work declined, and the
problem of violations was not serious.
In certain important industries, particularly clothing, boots,
shirts, leather equipment and surgical dressings, the need for
overtime had “for the present at all events ceased.” Yet the total
number of requests for exemptions was no less, though there was “a
marked reduction in the amount of latitude sought and allowed; for
instance, fresh demands for permission to work on Sundays are now
rarely received, and are confined to cases where sudden and unexpected
emergency arises or the processes are continuous. Requests for Saturday
afternoon work have also become less common, and there seems to be
a more general recognition of the advantages of a week end rest....
Sunday labor has been found to be more and more unsatisfactory; apart
from the ill effects which must follow from a long continued spell of
working seven days a week, it too often results in loss of time on
other days of the week and in consequent disorganization.”[164]
[164] _Ibid._, 1915, p. 6.
Only fifty orders allowing Sunday work by women and girls were
outstanding in December, 1915. These orders were strictly conditioned.
Sunday work was to be allowed only in cases of emergency and for part
of the day, and was not to be carried on in any two consecutive weeks.
Moderate hours through the week and time off on Saturdays were required.
Besides orders covering some twenty-seven different trades affected by
war demands, a general order was issued in September, 1915, modifying
the statute law in all other nontextile factories in which exemptions
were legal. Seven and a half hours of overtime, making a working week
of sixty-seven and a half hours, were permitted, and daily hours night
run up to a maximum of fourteen. The 1914 general overtime order was
continued in the munitions industry, and in special cases a week of
from seventy to eighty hours was allowed. The factory inspectors noted
on one hand that “many of the schemes put forward were considerably
within the maximum allowed, and even where the maximum was sought
it has been found in practice that the full number of hours were
frequently not worked,” and on the other hand that many special orders
had been required, especially for the large munition firms, in some of
which the hours remained longer than those permitted by the general
order for the trade. But on the whole there was “observable a distinct
tendency towards a reduction of hours in these works as elsewhere.”[165]
[165] _Vide_ Appendix I, p. 241.
Moreover, the tendency grew during the year “to substitute a system of
shifts for the long day followed by overtime.” The factory inspectors
urged the introduction of the three shift system, but, owing to the
scarcity of skilled male tool setters and other mechanics and sometimes
of women, two twelve hour shifts (generally ten and a half hours of
actual work) were much more prevalent. The inspectors maintained,
however, the superiority of three shifts, giving one example where the
change had been made in which output increased by a third while the
need for supervision diminished. But it should be noted that although
the shift system brought a reduction of overtime to women workers, it
involved an increasing amount of night work.
The factory inspectors had but slight criticisms to make of illegal
overtime and violations of orders. “There is little cause for complaint
as to the proper observance of the conditions of the orders,” except in
the Midlands. A few cases of serious irregularity were found elsewhere,
but were “striking exceptions to the general rule.... The most general
cause of complaint is that occupiers have taken upon themselves to work
overtime without authority, and have continued it without applying for
a renewal of their orders. There has been neglect, too, in affixing
notices specifying the hours of work.”[166]
But it is probable that during at least part of 1915 the optimism
of the factory inspectors regarding the shortening of hours and
elimination of illegal overtime was not completely justified. Under
powers granted by the Defence of the Realm Act an order of June 6,
1915,[167] extended the right of the Secretary of State to modify the
labor laws in a way which investigators state “proved very difficult
to handle properly.”[168] The modifications could be made, not only in
government factories and on government contracts, but in “any factory
... in which the Secretary of State is satisfied that by reason of
the loss of men or transference to government service, or of other
circumstances arising out of the present war exemption is necessary to
secure the carrying on of work ... required in the national interest.”
[166] Great Britain Home Office, _Report of the Chief Inspector of
Factories and Workshops for 1915_, p. 9.
[167] Order No. 551.
[168] John and Katherine Barrett, _British Industrial Conditions during
the War_, Sen. Doc. 114, 65th Cong., 1st Sess.
Complaints of excessive hours and violation of overtime orders
multiplied. Officials of the Ministry of Munitions admitted, during a
visit to the United States in the autumn of 1917, that for four to six
months after the shortage of munitions was discovered in the spring
of 1915, many women worked nearly a hundred hours a week. A case was
cited in the House of Commons of a factory where girls were working
regularly ten and a half hours a day seven days a week, and had worked
ninety-five hours a week “many times” since the beginning of the war.
Another much quoted case was that of a firm holding an exemption
allowing moderate overtime which worked one girl thirty hours at a
stretch and another twenty-five and a half hours. The second girl,
who was under eighteen, then met with an accident which brought the
situation to the attention of the factory inspectors. A prosecution
was started, but at the first trial the case was dismissed on the
grounds of a national necessity. At a second trial the counsel for
the defense called the prosecution “a piece of fatuous folly, only
justified by supreme ignorance,” and said that the Home Office, instead
of prosecuting “ought to have struck a special medal” for the girls.
“Now is not the time to talk about factory acts.”[169] The employer was
finally put on probation.
[169] G. D. H. Cole, _Labour in War Time_, 1915, p. 273.
However, in the latter part of 1915, and principally as a result of
the unsatisfactory conditions there took place the first of a new
series of developments which were to bring back women’s hours almost to
prewar standards and to improve greatly the scientific basis for the
restriction of working hours.
To the Ministry of Munitions is mainly due the new committees which
were largely responsible for the change. A special agent for the
Federal Trade Commission states that—
Toward the end of 1915 it became certain that some action
would have to be taken by the ministry to deal with the
question of excessive hours, more particularly those worked
by women and boys. The department’s attention was drawn to
the fact that the maximum number of weekly hours allowed
under the provisions of the general order made under the
factory acts was continually being exceeded and that without
the support of the ministry the home office found it
increasingly difficult to insure that no persons should work
excessive hours.[170]
[170] John Bass, _Report to the United States Federal Trade
Commission_, April 17, 1917. (In manuscript.)
The action took the form of the appointment of an interdepartmental
committee on hours of labor which included representatives of the Home
Office, the Admiralty, various supply departments and the Welfare
Section of the Ministry of Munitions. The committee considered
“claims from employers either for permission to work on Sunday, or
for exceptionally long hours during the week, and its inquiries
have resulted not only in a reduction of Sunday work, but in a more
favorable redistribution of hours generally.”[171] In October, 1915, it
secured the discontinuance of practically all Sunday work in munition
factories on the northeast coast.
[171] Great Britain Home Office, _Report of the Chief Inspector of
Factories and Workshops for 1915_, p. 6.
In September, 1915, the better known Health of Munition Workers
Committee was appointed by the Minister of Munitions with the
concurrence of the Home Secretary “to consider and advise on questions
of industrial fatigue, hours of labor and other matters affecting
the personal health and physical efficiency of workers in munition
factories and workshops.” By November the Ministry had referred to this
committee the question of Sunday work and of the substitution of the
three shift for the two shift system.
Even before its recommendations were received the Ministry took steps
to discourage Sunday work and the employment of women at night. A
circular was sent to all controlled establishments urging that all
workers should be granted a weekly rest period—preferably Sunday—both
for their own good and in the interests of production. The circular
said, in part:
The aim should be to work not more than twelve shifts per
fortnight or twenty-four where double shifts are worked....
Where three eight hour shifts are worked, not less than two
should be omitted on Sunday. It is, in the opinion of the
Minister, preferable to work a moderate amount of overtime
during the week, allowing a break on Sunday, rather than
work continuously from day to day. It is still more strongly
his view that where overtime is worked in the week, Sunday
labor is not desirable.
Another circular of instructions in November, 1915, recommended that
under the two shift system, women should be employed “as far as is
reasonably practicable” by day rather than by night.
_Later Developments_
Scientific studies in fatigue, and improvements in the regulation
of working hours, continued to be the chief features of the women’s
hour situation during the latter part of the war. Two reports made
for the Home Office by Dr. A. F. Stanley Kent on _An Investigation of
Industrial Fatigue by Physiological Methods_, showed, as the result
of actual experiments with working days of different length, that
overtime may “defeat its own object” and actually cause a diminution
in “total daily output.” The first report which had been published in
August, 1915, was of less direct practical importance, giving merely
a description of a number of tests adapted to showing fatigue in
factory workers. The second report, issued in September, 1916, was a
study of output and the effects of fatigue in certain plants making
war equipment under working days of different length. Among its most
significant conclusions from the point of view of hour restriction were
the following:
A worker employed for 10 hours per day may produce a greater
output than when employed for 12 hours, the extra rest being
more than sufficient to compensate for the loss of time.
A worker employed for 8 hours per day may produce a greater
output than another of equal capacity working 12 hours per
day.
A group of workers showed an absolute increase of over 5 per
cent of output as a result of diminution of 16½ per cent in
the length of the working day.
Another group increased their average rate of output from
262 to 276 as a result of shortening the day from 12 hours
to 10 and to 316 on a further shortening of 2 hours.
Under the conditions studied neither rate of working nor
total output attains a maximum when a 12 hour day is
adopted.[172]
[172] A. F. Stanley Kent, _Second Interim Report on an Investigation of
Industrial Fatigue by Physiological Methods_, Home Office, 1916, p. 44.
Two other scientific reports on the subject dealt with _The Question
of Fatigue from the Economic Standpoint_, and were put out by a
committee of the British Association for the Advancement of Science
in September, 1915, and September, 1916, respectively. The monographs
emphasized the importance of an observation of fatigue in the workers
and adaptation of the hours of labor thereto. The memoranda and reports
of the Health of Munition Workers Committee are the best known of this
group of studies, no doubt because besides being the work of scientific
investigators, they were carried on to form a basis for official
action, and contained definite recommendations for the shortening of
hours in order to improve output. While they dealt with munitions work
alone, the principles brought out are equally applicable to any form of
industrial occupation.
The first memorandum published in November, 1915, covered the subject
of Sunday labor, and recommended without qualifications a weekly rest
day for all classes of workers.
... If the maximum output is to be secured and maintained
for any length of time, a weekly period of rest must be
allowed. Except for quite short periods, continuous work, in
their view, is a profound mistake and does not pay—output
is not increased.... Some action must be taken in regard
to continuous labor and excessive hours of work if it is
desired to secure and maintain, over a long period, the
maximum output....
Should the early stoppage of all Sunday work be considered
for any reason difficult if not impossible to bring about,
the committee trust that it will at least be practicable to
lay down the principle that Sunday labor is a serious evil
which should be steadily and systematically discouraged and
restricted.
For women and for “young persons,” the need of abolishing Sunday work
and granting week end and other holidays was even more urgent than for
adult males. “The committee are strongly of opinion that for women and
girls a portion of Saturday and the whole of Sunday should be available
for rest, and that the periodic factory holidays should not, on any
account, be omitted.”[173]
[173] The latter quotation comes from _Memorandum No. 4_, “Employment
of Women and Girls,” which appeared in January, 1916, and discussed
daily hours, night work and rest periods, as well as Sunday labor.
The committee went on record at this time in favor of a return to the
prewar legal standard of weekly hours. “Continuous work in excess of
the normal legal limit of sixty hours per week ought to be discontinued
as soon as practicable,” though the hours permitted in any one day
might vary somewhat more than the factory acts allowed. There was, for
instance, “little objection to such moderate overtime during the week
as can be compensated for by an earlier stop on Saturdays.” But in
general, “the need for overtime amongst women and girls is much less
pressing than it is for men, they are rarely employed on highly skilled
work, and where there is still a good reserve of labor there should be
little difficulty in gradually introducing shifts.... [The committee]
strongly urge that wherever practicable overtime should be abandoned in
favor of shifts.”
Three systems of hours were found in operation in munition plants.
There was the single shift of thirteen-fourteen hours including meal
times, which was known as the “overtime system,” two twelve hour and
three eight hour shifts. The committee considered that in the long run
the latter yielded the best results with women workers.
The committee recommend the adoption of the three shifts
system without overtime, wherever a sufficient supply
of labor is available. Where the supply is governed by
difficulties of housing and transit, the committee are of
opinion that every effort should be made to overcome these
difficulties before a less serviceable system be continued
or adopted....
They [eight hour shifts] involve little or no strain on the
workers; the periods during which machinery stand idle for
meals are very much reduced, while significant statements
have been put before the committee claiming beneficial
effects upon output.
Observations were later made for the committee of a group of nearly a
hundred women over a period of about thirteen months, during which time
their actual weekly working hours were reduced from sixty-six on seven
days to forty-five on six days. Yet output arose nine per cent. The
committee concluded:
For women engaged in moderately heavy lathe work a 50 hour
week yields as good an output as a 66 hour week, and a
considerably better one than a 77 hour week.[174]
[174] Great Britain Ministry of Munitions, Health of Munition Workers
Committee, _Memorandum No. 18_, “Further Statistical Information
Concerning Output in Relation to Hours of Work,” 1917, p. 4.
In regard to night work, however, the committee felt that the
exigencies of war time prevented a return to a really desirable
standard. “The employment of women at night is, without question,
undesirable, yet now it is for a time inevitable.” It demanded special
care and supervision and the use of such safeguards as would reduce
its risks to the minimum. “In no case should the hours worked at night
exceed sixty per week.” Whether continuous night shifts or alternate
day and night shifts should be worked was a matter to be settled by
local considerations.
Another interesting point in the Health of Munition Workers Committee
memoranda was the recognition of the value of brief rest periods within
working hours. “Pauses, well distributed and adapted in length to the
needs of women workers, are,” it was said, “of the greatest value in
averting breakdown and giving an impetus to production.” Particularly
with night work “adequate pauses for rest and meals are indispensable.”
On twelve hour shifts, two breaks of three quarters of an hour each for
meals should be taken out, while on an eight hour shift a half hour
for one meal was sufficient. Though the statutes allowed five hours of
continuous work in nontextile and four and a half in textile factories,
many managers believed that four hours is the longest period during
which a woman can maintain continuous work at full vigor. Within this
period a pause of ten minutes has been found to give excellent results.
The reports, showing as they did that “the hours which conduced most
to a satisfactory home life and to health conduce most to output,”
have had a notable influence both in this country and in England in
strengthening the scientific basis for labor legislation. For instance,
on October 3, 1916, a significant clause was added to the order
permitting overtime work, allowing it when necessary on account of the
war, only if “such exemption can be granted without detriment to the
national interest.”[175]
[175] Great Britain, Defence of the Realm Act, _Order No. 702_.
The Interdepartmental Hours of Labour Committee used the
recommendations briefly outlined above as the basis for its work,
formulating a new general order regulating overtime, which was finally
issued by the Home Office September 9, 1916, after prolonged criticism
by all the supply departments. The order applied to all controlled
establishments and national workshops and might be extended to any
other munitions work. In other cases there was to be a return to
factory act hours.
Hours not allowed by the factory act or the order in
question are not to be worked after the 1st October, 1916,
unless expressly sanctioned by special order from the Home
Office. Applications for such special orders will not in
future be entertained save in exceptional circumstances and
in respect of work of a specially urgent character.[176]
[176] Home Office, _General Order_, Sept. 9, 1916, p. 1.
Three schemes of working hours were provided for, a three shift system,
two shifts, and a rearrangement of statutory hours. Under the first
plan no shift might be longer than ten hours and a weekly rest day
was compulsory. Weekly hours under the two shift system were not to
exceed sixty, and a maximum of six shifts was to be worked in any one
week. The third scheme also limited weekly hours to sixty, and required
working hours to fall between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m., but as much as twelve
hours might be worked in a single day. Hours for meals were fixed
according to the Health of Munition Workers Committee recommendations.
In cases of special emergency in naval ship repairing women might work
a maximum of sixty-five hours weekly. They might only be employed
at night if supervised by a woman welfare worker or “responsible
forewoman.” Except for the night work, the order was practically a
return to prewar standards.[177]
[177] _Vide_ Appendix J, p. 243.
Meanwhile the Ministry of Munitions gained more direct control over the
regulation of hours in January, 1916, through the Munitions Amendment
Act, by which it was empowered to fix women’s hours on munitions work
in all establishments where “leaving certificates” were required. It
supplemented the efforts of the Health of Munition Workers Committee by
ordering the “investigating officers,” of the labor regulation section
of its labor department, who had charge of all labor matters except
dilution and the supply of labor, to report cases of excessive overtime
and unnecessary Sunday work in controlled establishments, with a view
to having an order issued prohibiting it. An official circular of March
17, 1916, urged that more use be made of “week end volunteers,” so that
all workers might have a Sunday rest, “both in the interest of the
work people and of production.” But the numbers of “week end munition
relief workers” remained small, due to the attitude both of the firms
and of the workers, who could not afford to lose their Sunday pay.[178]
Some complaints of unreasonably long hours still persisted. _The Woman
Worker_ reported during the winter of 1916 the case of a Scottish
factory making cores for grenade bombs which opened at 6 a.m. and
closed at 8 p.m. the first five days of the week and at 6 p.m. on
Saturdays and Sundays making a working week of eighty-two hours
exclusive of meal times.[179] Investigators likewise stated that the
labor shortage and the urgency of the demand have “frequently” caused
the recommendations to be exceeded.[180]
[178] _Women’s Industrial News_, April 1916, pp. 17, 18.
[179] _The Woman Worker_, Feb., 1916, p. 10.
[180] John and Katherine Barrett, _British Industrial Experience during
the War_, Sen. Doc. 114, 65th Cong., 1st Sess.
On the other hand, both in the Clyde district and around Birmingham the
British Association for the Advancement of Science stated, in April,
1916, that the working week varied from forty-four to fifty-six hours,
fifty-four hours being the most common period. In August, 1916, the
then Minister of Munitions, Dr. Christopher Addison, said in Parliament
in response to questions that the interdepartmental committee was
taking steps to bring the working week within the sixty-hour limit in
all controlled establishments. And an investigation by the factory
inspectors in 1916 found that out of 243 “controlled establishments”
123 were working within the regular sixty-hour limit and only fifteen
were working “irregular and excessive” hours, though in nineteen the
breaks for rest periods and meals in some way violated the conditions
of the order.
In 1916 at least eight hour shifts had failed to “make much progress”
and twelve hour shifts were still “predominant.”[181] The latter, it
should be noted, meant not twelve but ten and a half hours of actual
work over a twelve hour period. Certain large munition establishments,
including at least one government factory, even changed from the
eight to the twelve hour shift in 1916.[182] Besides the shortage of
labor it was said that the workers disliked the necessary changes in
meal times and living arrangements under the shorter system, and that
transportation schedules were not conveniently adjusted to it. It was
alleged that young girls preferred the longer hours because they then
escaped helping with the housework!
[181] Great Britain Home Office, _Report of the Chief Inspector of
Factories and Workshops for 1916_, p. 8.
[182] _The Woman Worker_, May, 1916, p. 12.
Outside the munitions industry the factory inspectors reported
“numerous applications” for overtime orders in 1916, involving,
however, a rearrangement of daily hours rather than a weekly total
beyond the statutory limit.
Much that was abnormal and bound to be injurious to health
if long continued has been brought within manageable limits.
Excessive overtime and Sunday labor have been checked and as
nearly as possibly abolished.... In general the experience
of war emergency work, far from making employers in love
with extended hours, appears to be producing a contrary
effect and bringing about a sense of the importance of so
limiting the period of employment as not to produce any
feeling of exhaustion or even of marked fatigue.
Much attention was paid to the question of Sunday work by the
interdepartmental hours committee. In January, 1916, it obtained
a weekly rest period for all women in explosives factories under
continuous operation. It soon secured the entire discontinuance of
Sunday work by “protected persons” in national projectile and shell
factories except a short shift in the projectiles establishments for
“rectifying” shells and cleaning the shop. Night work for women, which
was never recommended for abolition during the emergency, of course
persisted and even tended to increase, as more and more plants went
into continuous operation. Especially in shell factories large numbers
of women worked at night. Fewer factories worked overtime without
permission, though some prosecutions were necessary in the woolen
industry. The idea that the factory acts were in abeyance till the
end of the war was disappearing. With an increased recognition of the
injury done to both quality and quantity of work by fatigue the powers
available under overtime orders were in some cases not fully used by
the employers. One employer remarked that overtime orders were “like
a drop of brandy, a useful thing to keep in the house, but you didn’t
want always to be taking it.”
The developments in the regulation of women’s hours noted in 1916 were
typical of the course of events through the latter part of the war.
“The tendency to reduce hours continues,” said the factory inspectors
in 1917. “Cases in excess of the factory acts are now rare.” In a
report published in 1917, the Health of Munition Workers Committee made
an important contribution to standards of working hours by stating that
the hours “provisionally” fixed were probably too long, except for very
short periods or for very light work carried on under exceptionally
good conditions. While the hours which produced the largest output
varied according to the nature of the work, age and sex of the workers,
and conditions inside and outside the factory, in general “the time was
ripe” for a further marked reduction in hours. For certain processes
weekly hours could “advantageously be reduced to a total of from
fifty to fifty-five” and even lower limits might give an equally good
output.[183] No action was taken during the war period by officials to
put these recommendations into effect.
[183] Great Britain Ministry of Munitions, Health of Munition Workers’
Committee, _Memo. No. 20_.
The factory inspection department of the Home Office had outstanding
in 1917 emergency orders permitting overtime only in various textile
industries, where hours were normally limited to fifty-five instead of
sixty, in munitions and shipbuilding where the emergency orders of 1916
were continued, in boot factories and in flour mills, oil and cake
mills and malting, where night work by women was permitted.[184] Sunday
work was strictly limited, being allowed only where women replacing
men were obliged to work a few hours on Sunday, as in dairy plants,
in temporary emergencies in munition factories and in continuous
processes, provided another weekly day of rest was given.
An indication of the actual hours worked in munition plants at this
time may be obtained from a survey made by the factory inspectors
in 1917 of 177 factories in the southeastern part of England which
employed 27,000 persons. The largest group, sixty-two, worked between
fifty-five and sixty hours weekly, while fifty-one worked from fifty
to fifty-five hours. In thirty-two cases, weekly hours were sixty, and
in only five cases were hours longer. On the other hand, twenty plants
worked from forty-five to fifty hours and seven less than that number.
The factory inspectors stated that the number of “temporary exemptions”
to the regular overtime order for munitions work had become very small.
In November, 1917, Mr. H. W. Garrod of the Ministry of Munitions gave
the average working hours for women munition makers as fifty-two to
fifty-four, with one to four hours of overtime. He claimed that the
Ministry wanted to do away with overtime altogether, but that the
women objected, because it would reduce their earnings. The longest
legal hours were apparently in shipbuilding and repairing, where the
inspectors felt its harmfulness was reduced because “overtime was
intermittent and the work done by time and at a leisurely pace.”
[184]
_Woolen and Worsted._ In force till June 20, when government
rationing of raw material began.
_Cotton._ Six hours weekly.
_Hosiery._ Six and a half hours weekly. In force till June 20,
when government rationing of raw material began.
_Print, bleach and dye works._ Up to 60 hours weekly.
“Little used.”
_Manchester warehouses._ Up to 60 hours weekly.
“Used only in emergencies.”
_Munitions._ Order of September, 1916, continued in force.
_Shipbuilding._ Maximum daily limit 15 hours. Maximum weekly
hours, 63 and 65 in “great emergencies.”
_Boots._ Maximum weekly limit 60 hours.
_Flour Mills._ Women allowed to work at night.
_Oil and Cake Mills._ Women allowed to work at night.
_Malting._ Women allowed to work at night.
Evidence as to the development of eight hour shifts is somewhat
conflicting. The factory inspectors reported that in 1917 the system
had “no general development.” By April, 1917, however, an investigator
for the British Government was said to report that women were working
eight hour shifts in all government plants, not through any general
order but through the action of various local committees to whom
the power of regulating hours had been entrusted,[185] and a year
later, in April, 1918, the final report of the Health of Munitions
Workers Committee speaks of the “increasing number of firms” which had
substituted three eight hour for two twelve hour shifts.
Authorities agree, however, that Sunday work had been “reduced to small
dimensions” before the end of 1917. In April, 1917, almost all Sunday
work by all classes of workers was abolished in every controlled and
national munition plant.[186] The Ministry ordered that the customary
factory holidays be observed by all controlled establishments in the
summer of 1917. Much night work continued up to the very end of the
war, being found on a large scale in munition factories and elsewhere,
principally where women were replacing men in occupations in which
night work had been customary before the war. The factory inspectors
sometimes sanctioned night shifts of as long as twelve and a half or
thirteen hours, including meal times.
In spite of the various improvements and a much more sympathetic
attitude toward restrictions on the part of employers and employes
alike, a woman labor leader asserted as late as July, 1917, that “the
factory act was in ruins,” and that dangerous privileges “had been
accorded to certain classes of employers.”[187] Yet it is probable that
for the later months of war this is an unduly pessimistic point of view.
[185] Henriette R. Walter, “Munition Workers in England,” _Munition
Makers_, p. 139.
[186] _Ibid._, p. 138.
[187] Susan Lawrence, as reported in the _Women’s Trade Union Review_,
July, 1917, p. 12.
For 1918, the last year of the war, the Chief Inspector of Factories
reports that “there are no women and young persons being employed
beyond the weekly limit of hours allowed by the ordinary provisions of
the Factory Act and the employment of women on Sundays has practically
ceased.”[188] The report states also that there had been a great
advance in the voluntary movement to reduce hours for all classes of
labor.
[188] _The Labour Gazette_, October, 1919, p. 418.
In summing up the war time experience on hours of work and having
regard both to the health of employed women and proper leisure for them
as human beings, the Committee on Women’s Employment of the Ministry of
Reconstruction make the following recommendations for future action:
The relaxation of the Factory Acts allowed during the war
should cease at its termination and excessive overtime, long
spells, night work and Sunday work should be forbidden.
There is a prima facie case for a reduction in legal maximum
hours, in overtime, and in the length of the spell, and for
the abolition of work before breakfast, and the government
should immediately institute inquiries with a view to
amending the Factory Acts. We recommend the possibility of a
44 hours working week and an annual fortnight’s holiday on
full pay for the consideration of the government.