GENERAL PRINCIPLES--THE WORKER'S OASIS
'Money hardly counts; it is labour we have to consider nowadays', recently
remarked the managing director of a large munitions works. It is this new
conception that has given impetus to the development of the industrial
canteen, now a feature of the munitions factory. In the opinion of Mr.
John Hodge, M.P., Minister of Pensions, who since the war has acted for a
long period as Minister of Labour, canteens in the engineering shops were
'necessary from the start', and one of the earliest investigations of the
Health of Munition Workers' Committee was on the subject of the provision
of employees' meals. The results of the inquiry are embodied in three
valuable White Papers.[2]
I have since been into many canteens connected with munitions works, and
so far I have not met a factory manager who has regretted their
introduction. Yet, only three or four years ago, the average employer
would have told you that a dinner brought by a worker in a newspaper, or
tied up in a red handkerchief, stored in the works, heated anywhere, and
eaten near the machines, was 'quite all right': and, as for the boys in
the factory, it was considered shameful to 'coddle them'; if necessary, a
factory lad should 'eat his dinner on a clothes line'.
To-day, when the utmost ounce of energy is needed from man and woman, and
boy and girl, wherever munitions production is concerned, it is recognized
that the quality and quantity of the workers' food matters, and that even
the surroundings where the meal is partaken of counts in the conservation
of the essential reserve of human energy and power of will. Thus, the best
type of industrial canteen is designed not only 'to feed the brute', but
to rest his mind. This is especially the case in certain Filling
Factories, where immunity from ill-effects from the handling of T.N.T. has
been found to depend largely on the physical fitness of the workers. In
such factories, as well as in establishments where women are employed on
night shifts, the provision of canteens is obligatory on employers and,
indeed, recent legislation (the Police, Factories, &c. (Miscellaneous
Provisions) Act, 1916) has empowered the Home Secretary to require the
occupiers of workshops and factories to make arrangements, where
necessary, for the supply of meals for their employees. In the stress of
warfare, when the demand for a maximum output is necessarily the
pre-occupation of the factory manager, it was, however, recognized that
the canteen must be State-aided. A Canteen Committee was therefore
appointed under the Central Control Board (Liquor Traffic). The work of
this committee is twofold: it aids the factory management to open its own
canteen or canteens, and it supervises and helps approved dining-rooms
managed by voluntary bodies. In the first case, the expense for any
necessary canteen is entirely borne by the Government, if the factory is a
'National' one. In Controlled Establishments, the employer is allowed to
charge the cost of the canteen as 'a trade expense', a concession by which
the State practically bears the expense out of funds which would otherwise
reach the Exchequer. In the case of canteens provided by voluntary bodies,
such as the Young Men's Christian Association, the Young Women's Christian
Association, the Church Army, the Salvation Army, the National People's
Palace Association, Ltd., &c., the Board pays half the capital
expenditure, where approved.[3]
[Illustration: BALSMING LENSES]
[Illustration: MAKING INSTRUMENT SCALES]
The efforts of these voluntary bodies have been of the utmost service,
especially at the outset of munitions production on a vast scale, when the
factory proprietors, or directors, were unable to devote even a fraction
of their time to matters not obviously connected with output. The devotion
of the unpaid workers in the voluntary canteen has through the turmoil of
war hardly received due recognition, but it is no less than that of the
nurses in the military hospitals, or of the munitions workers themselves.
Women of aristocratic families, accustomed to personal service from a
large staff of domestic servants, and entirely unused to physical labour,
as well as women hard-worked in their own homes or in livelihood
occupations, have, since the need of the canteen was declared, come, by
day and by night, to undertake the arduous duties of cooking and scrubbing
for vast numbers of working-people. _Mr. Punch's_ delightful illustration,
'War, the Leveller', where the rough scullery-maid from the slums is
depicted issuing the emphatic order to the well-bred marchioness, 'Nah
then, Lady Montgummery Wilberforce, 'urry up with them plates',[4] is by
no means a fancy picture of the hither side of canteen-life.
In one factory, substantial meals have been provided daily by 17
voluntary assistants for some 1,200 workers; in another locality, the food
of 2,000 to 3,000 munitions employees has been arranged by 23 volunteers;
and in another establishment, 6,000 workers have been provided with
standing-up refreshments by 17 voluntary helpers. The rapid growth of the
canteen system during the past fifteen months, accompanied by the
increasing difficulties of catering for vast numbers under war-time
conditions, has, however, led to the transference of numbers of voluntary
canteens to the care of the factory management.
_General Principles_
Industrial canteens differ from one another in many respects, partly
because there was at first no fund of common experience in this country
from which to draw, and partly because hours of work, tastes and customs
in industrial areas vary considerably. Hence, methods of administration
and catering, found possible or popular in one canteen, are sometimes a
complete failure when tried in other districts. In one canteen, with a
seating capacity for 2,000 women, I found that three gallons of pickles
were sold in pennyworths daily; in another district, the popular taste ran
in the direction of jam tarts. Yet, even with the small store of
experience so far accumulated, certain general principles at least as
regards site, construction, equipment, and administration of the canteen
have been evolved. For instance, as regards site, a gloomy dining-room is
never popular. If possible, a garden outlook should be arranged, and at
the least, the canteen walls should be of a restful colour. It seems
obvious that if pictures are introduced, they should be varied and bright,
yet I have seen one canteen of which the walls were covered at intervals
with reproductions of the same uninteresting print.
Another obvious point, too often neglected, is the insurance of good
ventilation in canteen and kitchen. The dining-room should, if possible,
provide separate accommodation for men and women, and should have a
buffet-bar and serving-counter with separate hatchments for different
items of the menu. Again, it is a matter of common consent that the
'ticket system' of payment for the food handed over the counter is the
best. Ticket-offices, where the 'checks' are obtainable for cash, should
be carefully placed with regard to entrance doors, serving-counters and
dining-tables, so that the minimum time is expended in preliminaries by a
_clientele_ who has but a strict dinner-hour at its disposal. In a
well-organized canteen I have seen over a thousand workers seated and
served within ten minutes of the announcement of the dinner-hour within
the factory shops.
In the larger canteens, developments, as may be expected, run chiefly
along the lines of labour-saving appliances. Electric washing-up machines,
electric bacon-cutters, as well as electric bread-cutters, tea-measuring
machines, counter hot-closets for warming food brought by employees may
now be seen in many kitchens where the needs of thousands of diners must
be considered.
But it is perhaps in the smaller concerns that the development of the
industrial canteen is most assured. Experiments can there be more easily
tried, and if necessary, discarded, where the customers are counted by
hundreds, rather than by thousands. From a tour of canteens, I select a
couple of such instances. The other day I happened, during the
dinner-hour, to be in a new munitions factory concerned with the
production of magnetos, aero-engines, electric switches, and so on, work
undertaken by men and women, boys and girls. The manager of this works has
studied the labour question up and down the country, and has set down his
conclusions, not on minute sheets, but in the bricks and mortar of new
buildings, in green lawns and flower beds bright with colour, and in
allotments round his shops.
_The Worker's Oasis_
The canteen is a feature of the place. It stands apart from the factory, a
long low building, one side looking on to a tennis court and the other on
to homely but delightful vegetable plots. The workers' dining-room is
divided down the centre: one side for the men, the other for the women. A
serving-table, but no partition-wall, separates it from the kitchen,
which, in its turn, is divided by further serving-tables from mess-rooms
for the engineers and staff employees. The kitchen, in reality a series of
ovens, stoves, and steamers, is a revelation of labour-saving appliances,
heated by electricity. On the day of my visit there was not the slightest
odour of cooking from these various utensils, although hot meals for some
250 persons were in preparation.
The factory hooter 'buzzed'. The dinner hour, the workers' oasis, had
arrived, yet there was no clatter of dishes, or bustle of serving-maids,
in the canteens. An atmosphere of repose was as manifest as in a
well-appointed reception-room of some stately English home. The workers
evidently react to these conditions, and standing at the back of the
kitchen I was quite unaware of the diner's entry. 'When do the people come
in?' I asked from my shelter behind a huge steamer where puddings were
rising to the occasion. 'A hundred men are already seated and served', was
the amazing reply. They had entered through a side door leading out of the
garden, had there purchased a 'check' for the value of the dinner
required, and presenting the 'check' at the serving-counter, had received
their portion, piping hot from the hot shelves fitted beneath.
Picking up the necessary cutlery from an adjoining table, the customers
had seated themselves at any special small marble-topped table of their
fancy. Waitresses, some voluntary workers garbed in rose-coloured overalls
and mob-caps, and some staff employees in white or blue uniforms, moved
about amongst the tables, supplying small wants. Through the open windows
floated the scent of hay and flowers; it seemed almost ludicrous to
connect the scene with war and the manufacture of its engines of
destruction. The quality of the food was excellent and the variety great.
A dinner hour spent in such a canteen is a refreshment to both body and
soul of the employees.
In another instance, the firm have handed over the canteen and its
management to a workers' committee upon which the managing director also
sits. I noticed in this canteen various devices worthy of imitation, where
catering is undertaken for large numbers. The method adopted, for example,
of dividing the serving-counter into hatchments for the various items on
the menu, and separating by rails the floor-space in front of each
compartment, seems to economize both the time and patience of the
customers. The note of economy with efficiency is emphasized in this, as
in many canteens, and I was shown with pride some 'little brothers' on an
adjoining piece of land--pigs that were fattening on the canteen 'waste'.
These developments, started in munitions areas during the urgency of
warfare, will, without doubt, have permanent importance in the days of
peace, and it is probable that the munition workers' canteen, doubtingly
adopted by employers some two years ago, is symptomatic of a revolution in
the home life of the industrial worker, as well as of new methods of
economy in the national supply of fuel and food.