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UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF LABOR FRANCES PERKINS, Secretary WOMEN’S BUREAU MARY ANDERSON, Director British Policies and Methods in Employing Women in Wartime By JANET M. HOOKS ■~ 'v&rca Bulletin of the Women’s Bureau, No. 200 33 C * 7 I . , ‘/■Jr- UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE WASHINGTON : 1944 For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U. S. Government Printing Office 25, Washington, D. C* Price 10 cents CONTENTS Page Letter of transmittal----------------------------------------- --------------------------------I. Great Britain and America—Mutual Problems and Lessons.. ----II. Meeting Manpower Needs Through Better Utilization of Womanpower— Inside the Factory,------------------------------------------------------------------Hours of work----------------------------- —------------------------------Part-time work:---------------------------------------------------------------Attention to safety and health----------- ------------------------------Feeding the worker------------------------------ -.-------------------------Training women workers-------------------------------------------------Outside the Factory-------------------------------------------- ---------------— Shopping arrangements------------------------------------------- ------Transferring women workers away from home-------------------Lodging transferred women----------------------------------------------Child care---------------------------------------------------------------------Holidays, rest breaks, and recreation--------------- - -•----------Laundry services III. How the Program to Mobilize British Womanpower Was Carried Out.. The Change from Persuasion to Compulsion-------------- -----------------Taking up the slack in employment----------------------------------Effecting industrial concentration-------------------------------------Adopting a legal basis for compulsion-------------------------- -------The Framework of Compulsion-------------------------------------------------Registrations .of women----------------------------- - -----------------Conscription of young women for national service----------------Government control of hiring and firing-------------- -------------Operation of the Womanpower Program-------- —------------------------Planning and conducting women’s mobilization----------- -----Experience of the woman recruit-------------------------------------International labor force-------------------------- ----------------------IV. War Work Done by British Women----------------------------------------------Industrial jobs---------------------------------------------- ----------------Essential services-------------------------------------- j--------------------Occupations in the armed forces--------------------------------------V. Women’s Wages and Earnings-------- ...-------- ----------------------------------Basis for Payment of Women Recruits to Industry----------------------Principles established by union-employer agreements------------Practical application of payment principles-------------------------Trends in Women’s Pay During the War-------------------------------------Industrial earnings--------------------------------------------------------Pay in the forces------------------------------------------------------------Compensation for war injury-------------------------------------------VI. Postwar Planning and Program Relating to Women-------------------------The Beveridge Report and women-------------------------------------Women conscripted for national service----------------------------Women as workers------------------------------------------------ ---------Women in family and civic life------------------------------------------Appendix A. Significant Dates in the British Womanpower Program. Appendix B. Tables Showing Wartime Trends in Unemployment, Wages, and Union Membership of British Women-----------------------1. Unemployed persons, 1939 to 1943, by sex----------------------2. Women in trade unions, 1913 to 1941----------------- -----------3. Wage arrangements for women replacing men-------------... 4. Minimum-wage rates of women, Royal Ordnance Factories, 1942 5. Increases in earnings, October 1938 to January 1943, by sex. Chart 1. Unemployed persons, 1939 to 1943, by sex----------------------2. Women in certain war industries, 1943--------------------------3. Weekly earnings, various dates, 1938 to 1943, by sex---------Map. Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Ministry of Labor Regions----- n hi 1 3 3 3 4 6 7 8 9 10 11 13 14 14 15 16 16 16 16 18 18 18 19 21 21 21 22 23 24 24 27 27 28 28 28 29 31 31 32 33 34 34 35 37 38 39 42 42 42 43 44 44 iv 25 32 12 Letter of Transmittal United States Department of Labor, Women's Bureau, Washington, May 22, 19.44Madam : I have the honor to transmit a report describing the stepby-step development of the British Government’s program in the em ployment of women in the war emergency. Though Great Britain and the United States differ in such funda mental matters as size and political structure, subjection to bombing and imminence of invasion, there remains close similarity between the two countries in the seriousness of labor shortage, the necessity to resort to inexperienced woman labor, and the difficulties of migra tion, training, absorption, and maintenance of morale. For this reason the experience of the older country has been, and must continue to be, of the greatest usefulness to the United States. The report is the work of Janet M. Hooks, of the Research Division. The office of Mr. A. McD. Gordon, Labor Attache to the British Embassy, has approved this document. * Respectfully submitted. Marx Anderson, Director. Hon. Frances Perkins, Secretary of Labor. in CHART 1. NUMBER OF UNEMPLOYED PERSONS ON THE REGISTER OF EMPLOYMENT EXCHANGES, GREAT BRITAIN, BY QUARTERLY PERIOD JULY 1939 TO OCTOBER 19431 THOUSANDS 1.5 O O 1,4 0 0 1,3 00 1,200 ,1 00 1,000 9 00 6 00 EN AND BOYS 700 60 0 500 N AND 40 0 30 0 20 0 ajojajojajojajo 1939 1940 1 Ministry of Labor Gazette. IV 1941 1942 1943 British Policies and Methods in Employing Women in Wartime I. GREAT BRITAIN AND AMERICA—MUTUAL PROBLEMS AND LESSONS Tlie British program for the mobilization of women into industry and other war services has been planned and carried out on a magnifi cent scale. The experiences encountered, the difficulties met, the schemes devised, the knowledge developed in the course of this pro gram can be of great assistance in the meeting of various needs and avoiding of many pitfalls in the United States. Along numerous lines much can be learned as to what action has been effective and what methods have proved unsound. _ Many of the problems with which authorities wrestle in the United States can be recognized as identical with those of British experi ence, and since Great Britain has been longer at war, its oppor tunity to perfect plans to resolve these difficulties has been greater. Such experience and plans include the following, to all of which much attention has been given in Great Britain: Constructive plans for reducing industrial absenteeism and accidents among women; striking rediscovery of the established fact that indefinite lengthening of work hours does not in the end increase production; effective pro vision of suitably nourishing food in factory confines and in the community, with the no less important provision of adequate time lor its consumption; training within the plants; efforts to forestall the undermining of women’s health through excessive fatigue from long work hours, family burdens, and war pressures; schemes devised to give adequate community aid to women in their job of home making and family care added to factory work and war services; the thorny problems of an equal-pay standard for women on war jobs new to them; devices put into effect for extending the labor force by a utilization of part-time workers; and finally, the constructive plans tor the period after the war, which recognize women’s needs to a far greater extent than ever before. Particular emphasis should be given to the place that women them selves took quite early in the planning for -women. In recruitment, women from the staff of the Ministry of Labor and National Service were from the first interviewers of women. The Minister of Labor very promptly armed himself with a Women’s Advisory Committee, composed of labor women, women members of Parliament, and other women leaders. It was this committee that recommended the con scription of women. Though it was nominally an advisory committee, in practice the advice of this group was never disregarded. Responsi ble women s groups have been constantly active and in some measure successful m seeing that women are placed in responsible administra tive positions having to do with policies affecting women and that ave nues of training are created for women or opened to them. 1 2 BRITISH POLICIES AND METHODS It is true that British authorities do not consider that all the methods tried were sufficient, complete, or even successful. It also is true that because of different situations in the United States certain of the methods used in Great Britain are not suited to application in the United States. For example, Great Britain found necessary the uni versal compulsory national service of women, preceded by national registration. That country faced a general crisis that has not de veloped in the United States, and the program in the two countries functioned under quite different circumstances. In contrast to Great Britain, with about 46 million inhabitants occu pying less than 95,000 square miles, the United States has over 132 million people occupying over 3 million square miles, or less than onetenth the density of the older country. Because of relatively greater mechanization of American industry, productivity per worker is con siderably higher than in Great Britain. In Britain labor was the fac tor of primary importance, and a general labor shortage developed, while in the United States acute shortages were localized. Further, the trade-unions, responsible and accepted organizations in Great Britain, supported the program and helped to administer it. Finally, the air bombardments and the imminence of invasion created a very different psychological atmosphere in England, so that the need for extreme measures was readily accepted by all. In November 1943 the Management-Labor Policy Committee of the United States, composed of representatives of labor, agriculture, and industrial management, reported to the chairman of the War Man power Commission that the solution of the Nation’s manpower problem should be sought along lines other than compulsory war service legis lation. The committee declared that current acute shortages and dif ficulties were due not to inadequate over-all labor supply, but rather to dislocations, deficiencies in planning and administration, and in effective manpower utilization. Attention also should be called to the vast difference between Great Britain and the United States in administrative organization, and hence in the possibilities for a unified development of policies. The British Ministry of Labor and National Service is the central admin istrative and enforcing body having complete authority for the Crown over recruitment for industry and the armed forces, war production, and all policies having to do with labor. In the United States admin istration of provisions affecting labor is, for the most part, the specific function of the 48 separate States. Federal authorities in this field have a capacity that is chiefly policy-making and advisory, and the functions dealing with the problems of recruitment, war production, and labor conditions in general at the Federal level are lodged in sep arate agencies. This report is based chiefly on various British official and unofficial sources, including publications of the Ministry of Labor and National Service, reports of the House of Commons and of special Parliamen tary committees, material furnished by the British Information Serv ices, as well as leading British newspapers, periodicals, and other pub lications. The Women’s Bureau also has received information directly from persons and agencies in England concerned with the mobilization of womanpower or with other aspects of the problems of British women in wartime. II. MEETING MANPOWER NEEDS THROUGH BETTER UTILIZATION OF WOMANPOWER Registration of women and their direction into industry, calling up of women by age groups for service with the armed forces, and re striction of the hiring of women to the employment exchanges or certain other agencies—these principles were already well established in Great Britain early in 1942. The period following was charac terized by the application and extension of the program. As limits to further recruitment of women were approached, greater attention was focused on better utilization of the labor available by introducing methods to increase productivity, to improve utilization of labor, and to reduce absenteeism and other forms of manpower waste. These included efforts toward better planning for plant health and safety, suitable food, adjustment of work hours, further provision of com munity services, and other methods. INSIDE THE FACTORY Hours of work. At the outbreak of the war the standard workweek in Great Britain was about 48 hours. Legal limitations affected only women and young persons and special groups of men. For the most part, limi tations on hours of work for men were controlled not in the law but by provisions in the collective-bargaining agreements, which estab lished overtime pay at higher rates after 47 or 48 hours. Numerous investigations made in Great Britain and elsewhere for many years had demonstrated over and over again that while marked extension of hours on occasion increases output for a limited period, continued long hours cause the rate of output to drop. Nevertheless, many of these lessons were disregarded in Great Britain under war time pressures, with the inevitable result of lessened output through excessively increased worker fatigue. This further striking demon stration of the disastrous effects of overlong work hours is another link in the chain of warnings against any repetition in the United States of similar mistakes. When the war began, hours restrictions in munitions plants were relaxed, and after the collapse of France they were ignored. The immediate effect of lengthened hours after Dunkirk was an increase in output. But it soon became apparent that production could not be maintained indefinitely at the level then reached. The Minister of Labor reported in March 1941 that hours still were unproductively long in many cases and recommended that maximum hours for women should not exceed 48 to 56, depending on the type of work. At a meeting of production engineers in early 1942 it was agreed that hours in industry were too long and that output per man-hour was not only lower than it could be but deteriorating. In the summer following, hours still exceeded 55 a week for women in two-thirds of the 42 Royal Ordnance factories engaged in engineering. It was not until late in 3 4 BRITISH POLICIES AND METHODS 1942 that practically all these factories (39) had weekly hours of 55 or less for women. General British policy as to hours in wartime was that exceptions to the Factories Act of 1937, where necessary, should be made only in a regularized fashion and on an individual-firm basis, principles still largely adhered to at the beginning of 1944. An emergency order covering workers in engineering, metal, motor vehicle, aircraft, tool making, electrical cable, wire rope, and shipbuilding firms allowed the District Inspector of Factories after investigation to authorize special schedules for women up to a maximum of 60 hours. Another emergency order applying to industry in general allowed increased hours for women if special permission were obtained, up to a maximum of 55. In addition, individual orders allowing slight variations were obtainable directly from the Ministry of Labor headquarters. Emergency permissions applying to both women and young persons increased as the war continued. At the end of 1940 they were in effect in 6,500 establishments, at the end of 1941 in 11,000, and at the end of 1942 in 19,000. The Minister of Labor stated, however, that the hours authorized often were shorter than could be worked under exceptions to the ordinary law permissible for limited periods. Much evidence developed during the war to show that excessive hours had detrimental effects on health, accident rates, absenteeism, and turn over. From the point of view of optimum war production, moreover, British experience repeatedly demonstrated that hours should not be too long. For example, in a group of 115 women employed chiefly in mechanized' work, though production increased by 26 percent in the first week in June 1940 when the hours were increased from 56 to 6'9i/2 a week, it showed an almost immediate drop below that peak. The increase was only 15 percent in the next week and 11 percent in the following 2 weeks. About 5 months later, when a steady relation between output and hours appeared to have been reached, output was practically the same as in the pre-Dunkirk period, despite the fact that hours were longer by almost one-fourth. In another instance, women’s hourly production rate on lathe work, cable work, and coil winding was 106 when they worked a 2-shift system averaging 4114 hours a week, in contrast to an hourly output of only 94 when they worked a straight 481/2-hour week. The increased use of women in war production intensified the prob lems of hours of work, since this question is of especially great im portance where women are concerned. During an investigation by Mass-Observation, an independent research agency, workers were asked what improvements they would like in their own jobs. Changes or reductions in hours were mentioned spontaneously by 14 percent of the women but only 3 percent of the men. The double job in home and factory carried by many women made the problem a critical one for them. One of the most noted British authorities concluded that close fol lowing of the Factories Act, which provides for a normal working week of 48 hours, with 54 hours for a maximum of 25 weeks a year, would not reduce output and would lessen absenteeism. Part-time work. About 700,000 women were doing part-time war work in Great Britain by the fall of 1943. Efforts to promote the use of part-time EMPLOYING WOMEN IN WARTIME 5 workers, which became a feature in manpower planning during 1942, increased as the reserves of full-time labor became depleted. In this way many women were able to participate in war production whose domestic responsibilities would not permit them to engage in full time work. An indication of the possible effect on output of part-time work was reported by an aircraft factory with a carefully planned and highly successful scheme. On one operation the output of part-time women was nearly one-third above that of full-time men in the same length of time. On another operation the average output for part-time work ers was 3.3 units an hour compared to 1.75 for full-time women. Absenteeism in 1 month was 5.5 percent of planned hours for part-time women compared to 17.5 percent for full-time women. Jobs best suited to part-time work proved to be those that could be completed in one part-time shift (most commonly a half day), those not affecting the general rate of production, and those that were clean and light. However, operations not completed in a half day worked out satisfactorily when containers were provided to store uncompleted work or when workers were assigned in pairs. Further, in some cases it was found that monotonous or heavy operations were better suited to part-time than to full-time women workers. For example, the con ditions in which women produced air screws, which were processed under heat, led to a big drop in output after 5 or 6 hours, while the substitution of part-time workers on 4-hour shifts resulted in an in crease in the output over 8 hours. Among the plants that employed part-time women were producers of electrical products, air frames, chemicals, ammunition and explo sives, rubber goods, optical instruments, iron and steel, food products, clothing, textiles, leather, glass, paper, medical supplies, and many other commodities. Jobs done in engineering and aircraft on a part time basis included machine operations, fitting and assembly, inspec tion, light laboring, crane driving, timekeeping, and a variety of others. Women were employed successfully on a part-time basis not only in manufacturing but in clerical work, retail trade, essential do mestic work in institutions, transportation, and agriculture. The greatest hindrance to the expansion of part-time work was the reluctance of employers to undertake such schemes. A number of fac tors had to be considered. It was found desirable to have hours sched ules suited to the home responsibilities of the part-timers and to em ploy those living near the plant. For the most part, pay rates were at the standard scale for full-time workers. However, one employer found that it was better to pay somewhat above the full-time rate' to compensate for the time and effort involved, particularly since the part-time workers were not eligible for bonus and overtime scales. While it was difficult to get employers to install part-time work, those who did so and who took the trouble to observe certain basic principles in setting up a scheme usually found a readily available and enthu siastic labor supply. A Birmingham firm, for example, that adver tised part-time factory work with an appeal to patriotism obtained an immediate response from 1.600 applicants. Special arrangements were made by the Government to forestall some of the difficulties facing part-time workers. Part-time workers 590414°—44-----2 6 BRITISH POLICIES AND METHODS employed for not more than 30 hours a week on jobs not normally part-time work were excused from unemployment insurance contribu tions, though health and pension premiums were still payable. Cer tain exemptions of married women’s earnings from income tax served to encourage married women to take part-time work. Kegulations of May 1943 gave the Minister of Labor the power to direct women into part-time work and brought such workers under the control of the employment exchanges. Women with children of their own under 14 living with them were not to be directed into part-time work, and no women were to be assigned to part-time work beyond a reasonable traveling distance from home. Where, in spite of the development of part-time work, firms still were unable to meet their labor requirements, they were encouraged to try “outworking” schemes. Outwork was carried on preferably as a group activity, on a part-time basis. Kegional offices of the Ministry of Production coordinated outwork schemes and suggested suitable operations. The Ministry pointed out in a pamphlet on the subject that outworking wpuld not be encouraged in areas where the labor market was especially tight and that the general use of such schemes was not to be substituted as preferable to part-time work in nearby factories. Types of work included the assembly in a village outwork center of four-cylinder air-cooled engines. Outwork was developed mainly in rural areas, but of the same general character was the plan under which several aircraft firms set up branch establishments in London suburbs to bring the work to the workers. It was hoped that 2,000 to 3,000 part-time women who did not live within reasonable distance of factories would volunteer to do simple assembly work at these branches. Attention to safety and health. In general, British factory inspectors concluded that women were safer workers than men, though they were reported to be more liable than men to certain types of accidents, such as those due to hair or cloth ing catching. The Minister of Labor repeatedly stressed the impor tance of guarding machinery, pointing out that some of the most serious accidents to women were due to lack of proper guarding. The great increases in numbers of women workers, as well as their inexperience in the war industries in which they were employed under especially difficult conditions, led to a notable rise in accidents. Further, women’s jobs were increasingly in the heavy and more danger ous processes, a development that contributed in considerable degree to the rising accident rate. Over three-fourths of the total increase in accidents to women from 1938 to 1942 occurred in five major war in dustries : Heavy metals, engineering, machinery, light metals, and air craft. Women’s accidents in these five fields numbered nearly 47,000 in 1942, in contrast to fewer than 3,000 in 1938. Women in British factor ies experienced over 71,000 accidents in 1942, one and two-thirds times the number in 1941 and nearly five times those in the prewar year of 1938. Sickness absence, on the other hand, generally was higher among women than among men. The importance of the health of women workers to sustained national production was recognized in 1942 by the Select Committee on National Expenditure (originally appointed in EMPLOYING WOMEN IN WARTIME 7 1939-40 to examine expenditures for war purposes) in a report on their health and welfare in war plants. Pointing out that little attention seemed to be paid either to constructive suggestions in technical reports or to results of experience, the committee stated that— * * * There is still a heavy and often quite unnecessary loss of working time through the neglect, not only of the special needs of women but of elemen tary rules of health and welfare. Many of the problems arising in Royal Ordnance Filling Factories today were exhaustively dealt with in a report on a Scottish filling factory issued toward the end of the last war, and yet there are no obvious signs that, when the factories required in this war were being brought into production, those responsible had assimilated and profited by the results of earlier experience. Factory medical and welfare arrangements were fostered by an order issued in July 1940. In 1942 personnel available for medical supervi sion in industry included several thousand State registered nurses in industry, 150 whole-time and 582 part-time doctors employed by fac tories, and nearly 2,000 factory surgeons appointed by the Government to examine on a fee basis juveniles and workers in hazardous processes. A point of special interest was brought out by British experience in legat'd to the use of women on heavy work. From a survey of heavy in dustries such as iron and steel, chemicals, and shipbuilding, the Minis try of Labor concluded that no different standards of health need be set up for women, though adequate facilities were essential, stating: It is considered that a normally healthy woman can undertake any of the jobs which have been designated as suitable for women, subject to special selection having to be made in cases where a woman is to be employed on particularly heavy work. Feeding the worker. By mid-1943, works canteens were serving over 51 million meals a week, compared to about 161/2 million in 1941. According to an order issued in November 1940, any factory with more than 250 employees could be required to install a canteen if engaged on munitions or Government work, and after April 1943 the order applied to all plants o± this size. Canteens were reported operating or being built in 98 percent of the plants subject' to the order. Compulsion was used in comparatively few cases, though the number of canteens grew from relatively few before 1940, and confined to very large plants, to a total of over 10,000 three years later. Many of these plants volun tarily set up canteens, recognizing their value to efficient production. Ihe effect on absenteeism was indicated by the experience of a smali plant in which the highest number of absentees was 5 after the canteen was installed, compared to an average of 20 before that. Factory canteen advisers were appointed in the Ministry of Labor to advise employers on canteen management, lay-out, and nutrition. The official investigation into the conditions affecting women in war factories indicated that in some instances not enough time was allowed for the meal period, with the result that girls either bolted their food or continued to eat at their machines. The report pointed out that despite the great progress in the development of canteens, further action should be taken to eliminate short meal periods, to prepare fresh meals instead of warming over food for the night shift, and to have 8 BRITISH POLICIES AND METHODS the canteen open so that workers might have a hot drink on arriving, especially if coming any distance. One of the difficulties in establishing canteens in war plants was the shortage of staff. An important factor was the discontent and turn-over that arose as kitchen hands and cooks, paid in some cases 8d. to lid. an hour, learned that the women they served earned con siderably more. More than nine-tenths of the individual factories in Great Britain had not more than 250 workers and so were not subject to the Canteens Order. These plants together employed over half of all the workers. Some of these smaller plants established canteens voluntarily, but in general their workers were without eating facilities except as they depended on the “British Restaurants.” These public restaurants, sponsored by the local authorities but run on a self-supporting basis and patronized by whole families, in 1943 numbered over 2,100 and served some 615,000 meals a day. Restaurant eating had not been general in Great Britain before the war, but wartime conditions, the employment of the housewife, long hours, transportation problems, rationing, and split families created a need that the commercial establishments could not fill. Thus, where a British Restaurant existed, the woman worker in a small plant not only obtained the extra ration provided the worker with a canteen available, but in many cases was saved the double job of a long day in the plant followed by preparing meals and otherwise caring for the family. Meals in these restaurants, served cafeteria fashion, usually cost from lOd. to Is. A survey of diners in London restaurants demon strated the great popularity of the system and the real need it filled. A considerable proportion had previously depended on a sandwich lunch. Of those who formerly ate at home, a large proportion were women going out to work for the first time. Many of the patrons had become regular customers, in some cases as high as 80 or 90 percent. In some of the smaller villages “Cash and Carry” British Restaurants were set up, where food was cooked and sold, perhaps twice a week, for reheating at home. The more extensive development of such schemes should prove extremely valuable in the United States. Training women workers. It was recognized early in the war that much the greatest part of the training of women workers would have to be done within the factory through plant schemes or through training on the job. Where the best methods were used, careful selection was followed by training based on principles of time and motion study and of educational psychology. However, some employers considered women suited only to the least skilled, most routine jobs, and planned little training for them. The Ministry of Labor emphasized the importance of a wellorganized training scheme in a manual issued in July 1943, focused toward in-plant instruction on production processes. The booklet recommended the appointment of a general supervisor of training, who should be given sufficient authority and standing, and suggested that a woman might well be desirable for this work where large num bers of women workers were to be trained. Further, according to the manual, women instructors might be particularly suitable, especially if women constituted most of the trainees. Other matters requiring attention included the equipment necessary, the content of the training EMPLOYING WOMEN IN WARTIME 9 course, the selection and follow-up of trainees, and the general arrange ments necessary to insure the well-being of the workers. At the Government training centers over a quarter of a million men and women had completed training courses for the engineering industries alone by July 1943. Trainees were paid during the course, women receiving 50s. a week with a maximum of 54s. if they passed various tests, men receiving from 71s. 6d. to 77s. 6d. While progress was made in adapting training to the needs of particular plants, in some cases women completing courses were reported to be placed in jobs requiring quite different training or no training at all. In other cases, however, women with training were placed in skilled work. Jobs of women trained at Government centers included: Charge-hand fitter at a firm engaged on experimental work of high precision; electrician at an aerodrome; welder of marine-engine bed plates; electrical inspector on final assembly and testing of predictors; marking out castings in a foundry; center lathe turner and supervisor for women; toolroom fitter; instructor in firm school for the training of women. Women demonstrators from the Government training centers were sent out to plants to demonstrate the degree of skill that women could reach or to encourage women workers to undertake cer tain types of work. One such demonstrator, during 9 weeks with a firm, trained 14 women setters in operations on 6-pounder shells and mine fuses. Training courses to prepare women for technical and supervisory work were set up in May 1939 by the Women’s Engineering Society and later integrated with the Government schemes in technical col leges and in training centers. The foremanship lectures organized by the Government in December 1941 were opened to women as well as men. Subsequently courses were set up especially for women super visors. These lasted 30 hours and were held outside of working hours for women already employed in war industries. Though women supervisors had been used extensively in the war of 1914—18 and in peacetime in woman-employing industries, the Association of Super visory Staffs and Technical Engineers admitted women for the first time only as late as June 1942. Specialized training was organized for institution cooks, industrial nurses, nursery-school workers, fac tory-personnel managers, arid welfare supervisors. OUTSIDE THE FACTORY Optimum war production with the fewest problems would be most readily attainable by mobilizing what has been described as “a popula tion consisting solely of childless, single, sexless persons between the ages of 18 and 50 * * in short, robots. Actually, however, those to be mobilized are human beings with individual problems and responsibilities. This fact led to the appointment of welfare officers in the Ministry of Labor with the important function of developing means to meet the special needs that arose out of the recruitment and transfer of women. Thus the British Government recognized that the community would have to provide some of the domestic services usually performed by women outside the labor market. Through appropriate community agencies the local welfare officers (numbering 100 in August 1942) arranged to secure satisfactory lodgings, meals, trans port, recreation, child care, shopping facilities, and other necessities. 10 BRITISH POLICIES AND METHODS Even at best many women carried a heavy load. With but one job the hours and conditions of work in war factories, though burden some, were not considered generally injurious to health. But for many women the hours in the factory did not end the day’s work. The Parliamentary investigation into the health and welfare of women in war factories showed that the long hours and the difficulties in deal ing with domestic problems were together causing a great deal of absenteeism, turn-over, and general deterioration in health among women. The relation of absenteeism to hours of work appeared in the experi ence of Government filling factories. When hours were limited in the latter part of 1942, the absence rate dropped from 12 to 6.6 per cent for men and from 23.5 to 14.6 percent for women. A study of the amount and distribution of absenteeism among women in two war plants in 1943 showed that few women habitually lost time. Younger women lost more time than older women, those travel ing over an hour to work more than those within an hour’s trip, and married women more than single women. In a 6-week period, 88 percent of the married women in one plant and 76 percent of those in the other plant were absent at some time, compared to 82 and 63 percent, respectively, of the single women. Absenteeism among mar ried women was especially heavy on Saturday mornings, 46 percent of the married women in contrast to 30 percent of the single women miss ing that shift. However, investigators of the Ministry of Labor pointed out the great efforts and sacrifices made by many such war workers, emphasizing the fact that— * * * A married woman with a house, a husband, and children already has a full-time job which is difficult to carry out in these days. Yet thousands of them are working long hours in factories. They are trying to do two full-time jobs. If they can carry on with a mere half day per week off the ordinary factory hours they are achieving something marvelous. It is time somebody said more about women's efforts on these lines, and more about the arrangements which ought to be made to enable them to carry on * * *. Turn-over among women workers as a whole was reported to average 0.8 per 100 employees a week, or 42 a year. Nearly two-thirds of the turn-over was ascribed to changed circumstances in home responsi bilities plus medical reasons (exclusive of pregnancy). One solution, as already discussed, was sought in arrangements for more workers on a part-time basis. Another line of action consisted of increased attention to the reorganization of domestic responsibil ities, to replace the system prevailing early in the war effort “by which each private individual behaves according to opportunity and temperament, and persons with easy jobs and short hours enjoy appre ciable advantages over those working in heavier jobs, who are also more likely to need good diet and rest when not working.” Some of the methods by which it was sought to assist women war workers are described in the pages following. Shopping arrangements. Shopping remained a difficult problem for the woman with a war job; in fact, it was considered by both management and workers to be the most serious day-by-day difficulty facing the working woman. In a number of localities conferences were held to plan various meas ures for meeting the problem. EMPLOYING WOMEN IN WARTIME 11 The most satisfactory solution was considered to be granting time off for shopping. In some plants one afternoon a week was permitted, or shorter periods two or more times a week. Relief workers were supplied to take over as the regular employees went off for their shopping time. An increasing number of individual firms took steps to meet the situation. Measures adopted included the following: 1. A camouflage firm allowed all women time off at 11 o’clock on Saturday with permission. 2. In one factory any workers asking permission could have a half hour in a week, on the firm’s time, immediately before the lunch period, thus giving a consecutive hour and a half. 3. A Scottish factory brought about a drop in absenteeism by introducing “official shoppers,” who collected ration books and orders from the workers and then did the shopping. 4. A large air-frame works provided special shopping facilities and a hairdressing establishment on the premises. In some areas stores remained open later than normal to allow workers to shop in the evening. This did not always prove success ful. Among the factors that were found to determine the value of such schemes were the type of area (whether industrial or residen tial), the degree of approval by store employees (based on readjust ment of tlieir hours to allow equivalent time off), and the length of the extra period in specific circumstances (one night for several hours as compared with several nights for a shorter period). In one case the Ministry of Labor 1 refused to support the proposal for late closing, stating that women in the area were already working excessive hours and that arrangements should be made by employers to give them (factory women) time off during the day. In certain sections special certificate schemes were adopted. Some of these, issued by the factory by agreement with the retailer, enabled the holder to leave an order on the way to work, to be picked up at the end of day or after store hours. The retailers agreed to apportion a share of the unrationed goods to these workers. Other certificate schemes allowed a friend of the working woman to do her shopping and obtain for her a share of the unrationed goods. Least successful of all were the schemes that gave the certificate holder the right to be served before those waiting in line. Transferring women workers away from home. The construction of new war plants, concentration of civilian indus tries, and similar factors made it necessary to move persons from localities where labor was not required to others where shortages arose. Areas of war industry to which mobile women workers were trans ferred in 1942 included the Northwest Region, site of new large air craft plants as well as of diversified manufactures centering in Man chester; the Midlands, around Birmingham and Coventry; and the Southwest Region, with headquarters at Bristol. Each of these areas was fed from other designated areas. (See map on p. 12.) Revisions in production schedules in the fall of 1943 intensified the problems connected with transferring women workers, some of whom Mt shouW be noted that the problem of a singly controlling Ministry of Labor is con siderably less complex than a situation made up of 48 separate States having jurisdiction m matters of this sort, with the central Government agency functioning ohieflv in an advisory capacity. * ^ 12 BRITISH POLICIES AND METHODS GREAT BRITAIN AND NORTHERN IRELAND MINISTRY OF LABOR REGIONS ABERDEEN, Dundee » EOIN0URG.H (K-ASCjOW J - DA UfiO LjVEflPOC^ JL Y / *>• <o \L NOTTINGHAM^ • -ST ' Q> 3L*/?<g:f.s EASTERN ^ l'O cMW \A I\ -*. >^s. CAMBRIDGE _ Vi.ovooW) / <^y^: lon DON v/S.EASTERN FRANCE were leaving home for the first time and doing so under particularly difficult conditions. During the period from May 1942 to August 1943, the employment exchanges of three regions alone had trans ferred 11,096 women to other areas as follows: Region Northern Region Scotland_______ Wales__ _____ . Humber of women transferred to other areas ______________ -------------------------------------------------------- 5,494 3,652 1, 950 EMPLOYING WOMEN IN WARTIME 13 Since the women moved to a new job at the request of the employ ment exchange, the expense of transferring was borne by the Govern ment. This included a free travel warrant to the new locality, pay ment for traveling time (if the employer did not pay wages for period of the journey), and a settling-in allowance. If responsible for the support of dependent parents or other relatives, an unmarried trans ferred woman was allowed a lodging grant in cases where a separate home was maintained, or moving expenses if a place was found in the new locality for these dependents. During the first week work ers were permitted to borrow up to £1 from the exchange, to be repaid out of the first week’s wages. Arrangements were made for trans ferred workers who became ill to be cared for by the district nurses or in emergency hospitals established by the Ministry of Health. In addition, the Government recognized the value to the transferred industrial worker, as to the soldier, of an occasional visit home. In 1942 and 1943 travel warrants were made available to war workers transferred since June 1940. These warrants entitled the worker to a railway ticket at 7s. 6d. in all cases where the fare home would exceed this amount. Lodging transferred women. The transfer by the Government of these thousands of women to take jobs away from home placed a particular responsibility on the Government to see that suitable facilities were available for their lodging and care. The problem of lodging women assigned to work in munitions plants that were built in open country was met in many cases through hostels or dormitories. Most women not working near home, however, were provided for through billets or lodgings. The trend into billets began in the first year of the war with the evacua tion program. As war plants increased production, the returning evacuees together with additional war workers sought living quarters. The population in some towns jumped by 25 percent, in some by as much as 50 percent. Crowded conditions in war centers were' ac centuated by the destruction through bombing of housing facilities. It has been estimated that one house in every five was damaged in the air raids. In addition, normal building, which would have added some 1% million houses, was stopped by the war conditions. In 1943 approximately a million persons were living in lodgings. Problems that became acute in crowded areas included: (1) Excessive charges, (2) difficulties on the part of the individual in finding billets, (3) bad conditions in many billets, and (4) personal friction between landlady and lodgers. Efforts by the welfare officers, voluntary or ganizations, and industrial firms gradually helped to lessen some of the difficulties. Many individual employers found it to their advan tage to locate billets for newly arriving workers and to provide rec reation for transferees. One firm provided a club for transferred workers, with lounge, laundry, sewing room, and kitchen, as well as bedrooms. In another case a country house was turned into quarters for 20 to 30 girls and a social center was developed in the nearest town. In some 16,590 cases where billets were not available on a voluntary basis, the local councils, delegated by the Ministry of Health, com pelled the taking of lodgers by householders who could give no ade quate reason for failure to rent their extra rooms. In such rooms the 590414°—44----- 3 14 BRITISH POLICIES AND METHODS Government provided minimum facilities of bed and two blankets, and access to water was requested from the householder. The latter received 5 shillings a week from the Government, which was deducted from the worker’s wages. About 60,000 men and women workers were housed in hostel accom modations in 1943. These included dormitories connected with the Royal Ordnance Factories and with other industrial plants, as well as those for agricultural workers. Hostels connected with industrial plants ordinarily accommodated 500 to 1,000 persons, the facilities in cluding lounges, baths, laundries, dining halls, game and reading rooms, infirmary, and central assembly hall. Typical hostels might have about 10 or 20 sleeping units, with some 50 or 100 beds in each unit and bathrooms in the center of each building. Royal Ordnance Factory hostels usually were managed by such nonprofit organizations as the Y. M. C. A. or the Y. W. C. A., while the other 58 industrialplant hostels were operated by the National Service Hostels Corpo ration, a private nonprofit venture sponsored by the Government. The distance from town and the lack of privacy in some of the hostels con tributed to delay in filling the available places. The excellent archi tecture and the recreational opportunities in the better hostels, however, served to overcome much of the original prejudice against them. Child care. Though married women responsible for children under 14 were exempted from direction into industry, many of them took jobs for economic and patriotic reasons. Over half a million mothers of chil dren under 14 were employed full time by November 1942, and another 150,000 held part-time jobs. Most women arranged to have a relative or neighbor look after the children, but by early 1943 there were some 235,000 children cared for by various Government schemes. These included 101,600 children accommodated in 1,436 (operating or planned) whole-time and 1,132 part-time nurseries, 113,000 children under 5 in ordinary public ele mentary school classes, 7,000 cared for by the Registered Daily Guard ian scheme, and 13,000 in 415 residential nurseries evacuated from tar get areas. _ As a rule, arrangements for the care of 40 children were expected to free about 30 mothers and to require a staff of 8 to 10. Thus a net gain in womanpower resulted. Ordinarily working mothers paid a nom inal charge of about 1 shilling a day for all-day care, including meals, in a wartime nursery. Difficulties expressed by women with children included the facts that distance from home or work of existing and planned nurseries was too great, that waiting lists were long, that nursery hours did not coincide with factory schedules, that sanitary conditions were poor, and that provision for older children outside of school hours was lacking. Holidays, rest breaks, and recreation. Before the war the British had progressed a long way toward the ideal of an annual holiday with pay for every worker. The Holi days With Pay Act of July 1938 permitted minimum-wage orders to include arrangements for paid holidays. By 1942 some 12 to 13y2 mil EMPLOYING WOMEN IN WARTIME 15 lion workers were entitled to paid holidays. About half of these were covered by collective agreements, another third received grants of holidays from individual firms, and the rest were covered by Trade Board and Agricultural Wages Board Orders. Under the tremendous pressure for “getting on with the war” dur ing 1940, holidays were largely omitted. After careful study, the Committee on Workers’ Holidays recommended that the annual holi day be resumed. In 1941 the Government announced that the annual summer week’s holiday should be observed as a means to efficiency in war production, though, in general, vacations should be staggered over the year and should not involve travel. Observance of the annual vacation and the usual legal holidays was recommended by the Gov ernment in the 2 years following, in i943 on the basis that “the war is in its fourth year and that consequently the need for reasonable holiday breaks will be even greater than in previous years, if maximum health and efficiency are to lie maintained * * Another type of project was the “rest break” for women workers, designed to prevent illness or break-down due to fatigue. Individual women recommended by the factory medical department were sent to “Rest Break” hostels in pleasant surroundings for a week or two. So valuable was the program felt to be that the Government gave assistance, if needed, to schemes promoted by the Rest Breaks National Advisory Committee. Recreation programs were instituted, some centering in the factory, others in the industrial hostels or in clubs organized for transferred women workers living in lodgings. Recreation might be sponsored by the plant, by voluntary organizations, or by Government-aided or ganizations such as TINS A (Entertainments National Service Association), CEMA (Council for the Encouragement of Music and the Arts), and the Central Council of Recreative Physical Training. Laundry services. The entry of great numbers of women into war work accentuated the need for commercial laundry service for work commonly per formed at home. Requirements of the armed forces and workers trans ferred to war-production centers pressed heavily on the facilities available. Before the war there were about 155,000 insured workers in laundries, about 80 percent of them women. Wartime figures in dicated that the industry, which was rated as essential civilian service, had about 190,000 workers. Application of the Essential Work Order of March 1941 to laundry establishments involved freezing workers in their jobs, guaranty of a minimum wage, and improvement of working conditions. In addi tion, prices to consumers were regulated and services were limited. The Government supplemented the commercial laundries by providing public wash houses and “mobile laundries” for use in emergencies. III. HOW THE PROGRAM TO MOBILIZE BRITISH WOMANPOWER WAS CARRIED OUT THE CHANGE FROM PERSUASION TO COMPULSION It was not until acute labor shortages became general that compul sory measures to mobilize women were accepted as necessary. At first only voluntary appeals were made to women, and employment matters were left chiefly to their own course. In the first stages of conversion to war production there was large-scale unemployment of women. However, new war factories entered actual production at the same time that the available reserve of unemployed persons was reduced to a low level. With a total population of only about 46 million, the British were attempting to muster and equip an army of 4 million at the end of 1940. The way to meet the pressing labor needs was pre pared by reducing to a minimum all production not essential to the war or to vital civilian needs and by enacting a legal basis for the wider emergency powers of the Government. Only after these steps had been taken was compulsory mobilization of women introduced. Taking up the slack in employment. Before the war, women’s employment was to a large extent in con sumption industries; hence women workers in Great Britain were affected greatly by the shift from nonessential to war production, and large numbers of them lost their jobs in the earlier period of conver sion. Evacuation from the cities also swelled the numbers of unem ployed women, since they were not always able to obtain work at the new residence. Unemployment data show that the adverse effects of readjustment to war production fell particularly heavily on women. In September 1939 there were in Great Britain nearly 175,000 more women unem ployed, but 75,750 fewer men unemployed, than in the preceding month. Further, though total unemployment dropped below the August 1939 figure by March 1940, women’s unemployment did not fall below that of August 1939 until February 1941, just before the month when the Government began to register the supply of woman labor. During most of 1941 women’s unemployment was about the same as men’s, though many more men than women were in the labor force. In October 1943 only 73,936 persons were registered as unemployed (of whom 24,127 were women), contrasted with the wartime peak of just over iy2 million in early 1940. (See table 1, appendix B, and frontispiece.) Effecting industrial concentration. To a considerable extent, production of war materiel placed demands on the heavy industries, in which men customarily formed most of the work force. Products were less in demand in a number of industries in which women constituted large proportions of the workers. Ac cordingly, during the last half of 1940 schemes for transfer of opera tives to munitions and other war industries on a voluntary basis were 16 EMPLOYING WOMEN IN WARTIME 17 set up in the cotton industry, the printing-machinery trades, coal mining, boots and shoes, and Hosiery. Early in 1941 the Board of Trade began to establish the amount of reduction for each “nonessential” industry and to recommend a method to insure orderly and systematic release of plants and of labor to muni tions industries. Some firms were closed, and the production for the industry was concentrated in certain “nucleus” firms. The release of labor was to be adjusted to needs of the war industries, and workers released were to be of an adaptable type. “Nucleus” firms were to be generally in nonmunitions areas, so as not to tax the labor supply and facilities essential to the war industries, and were to take on older workers of closed firms so that the younger workers would be available for war industries. Formal schemes of concentration were adopted in many of the in dustries affected by the shift to war production. Contraction occurred in firms covered by the Limitations of Supplies Orders, which there fore could not obtain raw material sufficient for full operation. Among them were manufacturers of pottery, blown glass, hosiery, lace, gloves, perfumery, carpets, toys, cutlery, jewelry, silver and electroplate, light leather goods, corsets, suspenders, sports goods, fancy goods of plastic, photographic goods, mechanical lighters, combs, linoleum, lighting fittings, musical instruments, pens, and pencils. Curtailed operations resulted also in plants subject to raw material control, including cotton, woolen and worsted, paper, boots and shoes, linen, silk. The various concentration schemes particularly affected women. Of nearly a quarter of a million workers released from concentrated industries through April 1, 1942, about 84 percent were connected with five industries, all of them largely woman-employing. In these, the proportions of women before the war ranged from two in every five in boots and shoes to three in every four in hosiery, as appears in the following: Industry Numbers of workers released1 Total------------------------------------------------------ 225, 600 Cotton------------------------------------------------------------- 117, 000 Hosiery ---------------------------------------------------------- 37,000 Boots and shoes 14, 800 Carpets----------------------------------------------------------- 10,000 Wool-------------------------------------------------------------- 10, 000 Other industries 36, 800 Percent women were of total before the war2 ___ 65. 5 76.9 40.9 59^1 57. 5 ___ 1 British Information Services, “Concentration of Consumer Industries and Trade in Britain,” revised January 1943, p. 7. 3 Ministry of Labor Gazette, December 1939, p. 418. Based on estimated number of in sured persons of 16 to 64, July 1939. In actual practice the schemes supplied less new labor than was anticipated, since considerable loss occurred in making transfers. The release of a specified number of women did not add the same number to munitions manufacture. Some workers thrown out of employ ment were lost sight of altogether, some remained jobless or drifted into occupations other than munitions, and many eventually filtered back to their original employment. Such was particularly true in the cotton industry, where a large number of married women were employed. In the Northwest Region, the leading cotton-textile area of the country, 80 percent of the operatives were women and 50 to 60 18 BRITISH POLICIES AND METHODS percent of these were married and consequently immobile. The problem was brought out in a reference in Parliament in September 1941 to 1,182 women cotton weavers displaced by concentration and registered as unemployed. Most of these were women over 40 unable to leave home because of domestic responsibilities and unsuited to vital war work involving night duty. Adopting a legal basis for compulsion. The growing crisis that preceded the Dunkirk evacuation in June 1940 led the British Cabinet to resign. The new Government re quested powers still more vast than those embodied in the emergency legislation adopted at the outbreak of war. The new law extended the earlier act to include control over individual persons and property as well as continuing the act for another year. By Regulation 58A, which was among the regulations adopted simultaneously, the power to order any person to perform any service within his capacity was vested in the Minister of Labor and National Service. He might also require persons to register themselves and, by a later amendment, might freeze individuals in their jobs. As the Government assumed increasing powers of control over workers, it also assumed greater responsibility for guaranties and standards of employment for these workers. Thus, on the one hand the Minister of Labor had the power “to direct any person in the United Kingdom to perform such services” as he might direct, while on the other hand he was to order such service only on terms usual in the industry under trade-union agreements or prevailing among good employers. Likewise, though the Minister was given the power to keep workers in essential war plants and to penalize absenteeism, at the same time he was to require of such firms a guaranteed wage for every worker frozen in the job so that the worker would receive a minimum whenever he was available for work whether or not work was provided. Throughout the remainder of 1940 registrations and restrictions applied chiefly to special occupations and to industries of particular importance to the war effort. To a considerable extent these orders affected men only, since the problems to be met arose in such fields as building, engineering, scientific work, and shipbuilding. THE FRAMEWORK OF COMPULSION Registrations of women. The fundamental basis of womanpower allocation by the Govern ment was necessarily the compulsory registration of those groups to be recruited and directed. This was likewise the first step from a chronological point of view, and for about a year it was used solely for allocation of women into civilian employment. On January 21,1941, nearly a year and a" half after British involve ment in war, Minister of Labor and National Service Ernest Bevin announced in the House of Commons that “we have now reached the stage where * * * we shall have to call into service many women who in normal circumstances would not take employment,.” (See timetable in appendix A.) Compulsory industrial registration began with women 20 and 21 in April and May 1941. Excluded from the registration were women EMPLOYING WOMEN IN WARTIME 19 serving in any of 11 listed voluntary or technical war services. Inter views of special groups of the women registrants to determine their capacities were undertaken shortly afterward. By August 1941, some iy2 million women under 26 years of age were registered. Interviews for 650,000 had been scheduled and were taking place at the rate of more than 40,000 a week. Not all women registered were to he interviewed. Those with chil dren of their own under 14 living with them or those clearly already engaged in vital war work were not called for interview, but rather examination was made first of women registrants without children who were unoccupied or in less important work. Women university students and women studying for certain vocations were considered engaged in essential work and were not to give up their studies for other work. The vocations in which full-time women students were excepted at this point comprised accounting, agriculture, architecture, chemistry (including dispensing), chiropody, dentistry, domestic science, engineering, law, library science, massage, medical midwifery, music and dramatic art, nursery nursing (including day nurseries), nursing, personnel management, physical culture, radiography, sani tary inspection, social service (including housing estate management, hospital almoners, club leaders, health visitors, welfare workers, childguidance workers, home teachers for the blind), teaching, and veter inary surgery. As time went on, peacetime educational opportunities open to young women needed for war service were increasingly restricted. (See pages 35 and 36.) Of the 267,000 women interviewed up to July 12, 1941, over 67,000 were placed on the National Work Register or transferred at once to other work. Usually from one-fourth to one-third «f those inter viewed were found available for work of national importance. By the end of 1942, all women 18 to 45 had registered, swelling the total to 8,670,000. In an effort to draw on the last remaining reserves of womanpower, the Government began to register the additional 1.3 million women 46 to 50 years of age iate in 1943, though it was recognized that these groups would furnish only limited additions to the labor force. These older women were considered immobile workers, and household re sponsibilities requiring full-time attention exempted them from direc tions. In determining whether they were available, voluntary work received equal weight with paid work; and if available at all, women in this group were assigned to part-time work. Preceding and supplementing the general registrations were special registrations of workers in certain fields in which acute labor shortages developed. During 1943 all women up to 60 who at any time had been engaged in nursing were required to register. Likewise women up to 55 who had worked at any time as textile operatives registered. Many of them had been transferred into munitions. Owing to changed war production needs, they were to be returned to the textile plants. This involved the difficult problem of adjusting wages, since they were being recalled from higher-paid munitions manufacture to lower-paid textile work. Conscription of young women for national service. Conscription of women for service with the armed forces in the third year of the war marked the start of an unprecedented phase of 20 BRITISH POLICIES AND METHODS British womanpower policy. The National Service (No. 2) Act of 1941 extended liability to military service to women, and under its provisions a Royal Proclamation signed on December 18, 1941, made liable single women who had reached the age of 20 but had not yet reached 31. Previously the women’s services had been tilled by vol untary enlistment, compulsory measures for women being limited to work in industry. From then on the registrations of women became an instrument not only of industrial mobilization but of actual con scription for national service. Throughout the development of the compulsory program, the policy had been to allow women as much choice of occupation as was possible, consistent with national needs. Some degree of preference still was permitted women called up under the new procedure. They might choose among (1) the auxiliary forces, (2) civil defense, or (3) cer tain specified vacancies in industry. The services connected with the Navy and the Air Force (the Women’s Royal Naval Service and the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force) were small and had waiting lists, so this option was limited in actual practice to the Auxiliary Territorial Service. Women choosing industry were allocated to essential work in shell-filling, small-arms manufacture, or aero-engine work; agri culture, including the Women’s Land Army; domestic work in hos pitals and certain similar institutions; or to Government Training Centers. If they did not indicate a preference among the three op tions, they were assigned. Women were assured statutory safeguards relating to claims of conscientious objection or of exceptional hardship. Those recruited for the auxiliary forces were not required to use lethal weapons unless volunteering to do so, and as far as possible they were stationed neai^their homes. Married women and any woman having a child of her own under 14 years of age living with her were exempt. By the summer of 1943 all women aged 19 to 24 had been called up. A list of vital war occupations was established, from which women workers essential to production would not be called up. At the out set vital work included munitions industries, transport services, agri culture, full-time Civil Defense Service, hospital and nursing serv ices, school teaching, or work in the Navy, Army, and Air Force In stitute Canteens. Any woman individually doing work of national importance in these occupations might be deferred by one of the 45 district boards. Little restriction was placed on voluntary enlist ment by women in the armed forces, though an employer could request that a woman employee on work of national importance should not be accepted on a voluntary basis. Previously women had been in cluded in the Schedule of Reserved Occupations. If employed on jobs in which men were reserved or in a special list of occupations apply ing to women only, they had not been permitted to volunteer for the services. The revised schedule of December 1941, which extended the system of individual deferment for men, no longer applied to women. The women’s services were reported as nearly at full strength by mid-1943. Pressing needs of aircraft manufacture led to plans to discontinue conscription of women into the auxiliary services, the Women’s Land Army, and other services, and to request any women volunteering for these services, except for a few special posts, to enter an essential industry instead. The expanding aircraft, industry was rated as highly essential, as was the transport service. Special atten tion was to be given to meeting requirements in the cotton industry, EMPLOYING WOMEN IN WARTIME 21 in nursing, and in domestic services connected with hospitals and other institutions. Government control of hiring and firing. All hiring of women aged 20 to 30 was placed under the control of the employment exchanges by a regulation effective February 16,1942. Previously such restrictions had applied to workers in engineering, building, and civil engineering, and to male workers in agriculture and coal mining. This was the first time that a regulation covering all forms of employment had been applied to an entire age group; by the following year it was applied to all women 18 to 40 inclusive. In this way women released from curtailed industries were not, as before, to be absorbed in other nonessential industries when they al ready were registered for essential work. The order permitted women in agriculture, professional nursing, and teaching to continue to ob tain work through the customary agencies. Such agencies had to meet required standards and be approved by the Ministry of Labor. Begin ning September 10,1943, all nurses and midwives 18 to 40 were brought under the order. A special provision was that employment exchanges might issue permits allowing the individual woman to seek her own job under certain circumstances. Individual employers likewise might obtain a certificate exempting them from the order for a specified vacancy requiring particular qualifications. Women, like men, in firms scheduled under the Essential Work Order might not leave the job nor be dismissed without the consent of the National Service Officer. Women in scheduled firms were guar anteed a minimum wage if available for work during normal work ing hours. The firm was required to maintain employment condi tions “not less favorable than the recognized terms and conditions” under the Conditions of Employment and National Arbitration Or der of 1940; welfare arrangements had to be satisfactory, and train ing provisions adequate. Absenteeism and tardiness were to be dealt with under special procedures. An order of April 1943 provided safeguards under which the Min ister of Labor would direct women into any work, including part-time work, even if it were not scheduled under the Essential Work Order. Directions were from this point on to apply to a stated period. The purpose of this order was to supply substitutes for workers needed for more important work elsewhere and to insure that the part-time work done by married women without children was of a type of most value to the war effort. A last small loophole was plugged by the requirement that employers must notify the employment exchanges of any women 18 to 60 or any man up to 65 leaving the job, to prevent loss of manpower leaving work not subject to control as essential war work. OPERATION OF THE WOMANPOWER PROGRAM Planning and conducting women’s mobilization. Questions of women’s mobilization, training, and welfare were placed under the Ministry of Labor and National Service, which dealt with labor supply and training, administered the National Service Acts, carried out unemployment insurance provisions, and concerned itself 22 BRITISH POLICIES AND METHODS with the welfare of workers both inside and outside the factory. (See part II of present report.) Shortly before the adoption of the order requiring women to register for industrial work, the Minister of Labor appointed a Women’s Advisory Committee, composed of labor women, women members of Parliament, and other women leaders, to consult with him on ques tions relating to womanpower. This committee, consisting of eight (later nine) women members, was to meet periodically under the chairmanship of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labor. Though nominally an advisory body, actually it became responsible for policies relating to women’s work in war industries, and its advice was not disregarded. Mr. Bevin stated: ‘‘I am very grateful for the help I have had from the women’s committee * * *. Advice and help have been given to me; and, to do me credit, I do not believe that I have turned down any of the advice; I have acted upon it.” From the first, women from the staff of the Ministry of Labor in terviewed women registrants. Special women’s panels made recom mendations to the interviewers. Women also were included on the appeals boards appointed to hear appeals from the recommendations of the interviewers. Appointment of women throughout the admin istrative bodies dealing with the mobilization of women was due largely to the pressure of responsible women’s groups. Under the conscription program it was proposed to have one woman sit on every hardship tribunal and a woman to sit as assessor when the umpire heard appeals; at least one woman was to sit on con scientious objectors’ tribunals and appellate tribunals, and a woman doctor was to be present at the medical examination of women. The machinery for individual deferment consisted of 45 district man power boards, each composed of a chairman, the deferment officer, the labor supply officer, the military recruiting officer, and also a womanpower officer. As the Minister of Labor pointed out, “there has not been a committee, right down through the whole administration, into which I have not brought women in a representative capacity—on man power boards and everything else.” Experience of the woman recruit. Just what was the experience of the individual woman under these comprehensive wartime measures ? The announcement giving the reg istration date for her age group appeared in the newspapers. On the day set, each woman in the age group was obliged to go to a labor exchange, where women members of the staff helped her to fill out a form giving various personal and occupational data. After a review of the data on her registration form, if she was a mobile worker not currently engaged in work of national importance she might be called in for an interview. In September 1941 changes in procedure placed the burden of proof that a woman worker was indispensable on her employer, and the burden of proof as to domestic responsibilities on the woman herself. In general, a woman employed full time by a firm at least three-fourths on Government or export work, or by a firm scheduled under the Essential Work Order, or a married woman responsible for the house hold was not called for interview. At the interview most women accepted the recommendation of the exchange and proceeded to the war work assigned, less than 2 percent EMPLOYING WOMEN IN WARTIME 23 disagreeing with the judgment of the interviewer. However, the woman might feel that her domestic responsibilities or other factors were not taken sufficiently into account. If so, the women’s panel of the employment committee reviewed the case. If the woman was un willing to accept the panel’s recommendation, she was issued a direc tive from which she could appeal to a local appeals board. After final decision by the Ministry of Labor she became liable to prosecution for failure to follow the directive, and on conviction she was liable to a fine up to £100 or imprisonment for 3 months or both. The first court case involving a woman occurred on November 4,1941, when a woman worker was fined £2 at Leicester for not complying with a direction of the Ministry of Labor and National Service. Though a married woman with children of her own under 14 living with her was not called for interview, numbers of them voluntarily took jobs. Of the 3,450,000 women with children registered up to the end of 1942, 510,000 were in full-time paid employment when they registered. The number married or widowed without children under 14 was 2i/4 million, of whom 970,000 were in full-time paid employ ment. In addition, numbers of married women were part-time workers. Of the group called up for the armed services or certain needed in dustrial work under the National Service Act, only a small fraction of 1 percent pleaded conscientious objection and" only five refused to ac cept the decision of the National Arbitration Tribunal as to wages and conditions of work. International labor force. To make the best use of nationals of Allied Powers in suppprt of the common war effort, arrangements were made between the Govern ments in Britain and those of Belgium, Holland, Norway, Czecho slovakia, and the Free French Government for regulating the em ployment of such persons in Great Britain, and for that purpose nationals of the powers concerned were required to register particulars about themselves. In pursuance of these agreements, Industrial Labor Force Orders were made under Defense Regulations, and in similar terms they required, subject to certain exceptions, the registration of all nationals of such powers. In the case of women, the ages con cerned were over 16 but under 50. Similar orders included British Protected Persons, further allied nationals, such as Greek, Yugoslav, and Danish, as well as persons of Bulgarian, Finnish, Austrian, Italian, German, Hungarian, Ru manian, Japanese, or Siamese nationality. It was generally assumed that all persons of nationalities other than Allied who were at liberty in Britain were favorably disposed to the cause of the United Nations and opposed to the form of government currently in power in their own lands. Where objection to munitions work was indicated, endeavors were made to place the individuals in agriculture, hospitals, canteens, British Restaurants, and so forth. Many thousands of men and women of the various nationalities were provided with civilian employment in science, medicine, nursing, building, agriculture, forestry, and other fields, including armament factories. Foreign workers were entitled to the same wages and conditions and to the same benefit from Social Service as British subjects. IV. WAR WORK DONE BY BRITISH WOMEN According to official figures of September 1943, about 7% million women of some 17 million aged 14 to 64 were in the service or in paid employment. Before the war, in contrast, of nearly 1G% million women of these ages about 10% million were classed as “unoccupied.” In other terms, 37 percent were gainfully occupied before the war, while some 45 percent were engaged in the war effort by the fall of 1943. Though considerable increases occurred in the numbers of women at work, still it could not be said that the main industries of the coun try were carried on chiefly by women. The Oxford Institute of Sta tistics estimated that the most probable proportion of women among the total employees in the principal industries of the country (exclud ing agriculture and railways) was not less than 28% percent and not more than 33% percent in July 1942, compared to about 27 percent in July 1938. However, these principal industries did not include many of the fields in which the substitution of women was greatest, such as the distributive trades, commercial fields, and various service indus tries. The importance of the contribution made by women led Prime Minister Churchill to pay them this tribute at a National Conference of Women sponsored by the Government: This war effort could not liave been achieved if the women had not marched forward in millions and undertaken all kinds of tasks and work for which any other generation but our own—unless you go back to the Stone Age— would have considered them unfitted: work in the fields, heavy work in the foundries and in the shops, very refined work on radio and precision in struments, work in the hospitals, responsible clerical work of all kinds, work throughout the munitions factories, work in the mixed batteries * * *. Industrial jobs. The war extended the work done by women in British industry to such a degree that it would be difficult even to list their occupations. Their contribution was especially great in the “engineering” indus tries. Officially, general engineering was defined to include the manu facture, assembly, or repair of goods or articles of iron, steel, or other metals involving the use of machine tools, foundry, or forging plant. Consequently it is important in the production of aircraft, guns, shells, tanks, machine tools, marine engines, and so forth, or most of the coun try’s direct war production. (Shipbuilding and the primary iron and steel industries usually are considered as separate and distinct industries.) While specific data on numbers of women in war industries were withheld for reasons of security, employment of women in engineer ing industries in November 1941 was placed at four times what it had been when the war began. According to 1943 estimates, about 35 percent of the workers in the engineering industry as a whole were women. 24 25 EMPLOYING WOMEN IN WARTIME Two official publications of the Ministry of Labor emphasized the important place filled by women in the engineering industry. Begin ning in June 1941 an Engineering Bulletin was issued each month “designed to help the engineering industry to solve current problems of labor utilization” by presenting information on the breaking down of skilled processes, upgrading, training, and the employment of women on skilled and semiskilled operations. Subsequently a hand book on Women in Engineering was prepared, primarily for the use of the staff of the Ministry of Labor, to assist them in convincing manufacturers that women could be employed on many operations not usually considered suitable. CHART 2.—PERCENT WOMEN WERE OF TOTAL IN INDUSTRIES SPECIFIED, 19431 20 30 40 90 100 ENGINEERING (metal TRADES. ETC.) AIRCRAFT INDUSTRY CHEMICALS AND EXPLOSIVES royal ordnance; FACTORIES 1 British Information Services, 30 Rockefeller Plaza, New York, “War Job,” Misc. pamphlet No. 13 (distributed December 1943). The use of women by the various branches of industry proceeded at different rates and to different degrees. Further, within each indus try differences occurred from one firm to another. In the aircraft industry as a whole some 40 percent of the workers in 1943 were women, but the proportion varied by factory according to nature of product, set-up of plant, and other factors. According to a statement made by the Ministry of Aircraft Production in 1942, women were doing 50 percent of the work in many engine plants, though one of the large engine firms had only about 20 percent women in the following April. In aircraft-component manufacture women constituted still higher proportions of the work force in individual plants. There remained scarcely any department of aircraft building where women were not working successfully, including the skilled repair and reconditioning 26 BRITISH POLICIES AND METHODS of engines. Here the proportion of women was about 40 percent in one plant, varying as follows in the different sections: Section Percent women Strip-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Fitting and repair ofsubassemblies andunits 45 Engine dispatch----------------------------------------------------------------------------------Strip inspection 75 Electric hraness andmagneto repair andtest 90 20 50 In certain munitions plants, especially those where much of the work involved handling small parts or units, the proportions of women ranged much higher even as early as 1941; in a factory producing 3-inch shells, for example, they were 90 percent; in a Royal Ordnance Factory in Wales, 80 percent; and at an earlier date, in a fuze factory in the Midlands, 90 percent of the employees were women. The large number of women in munitions at the beginning of the present war was due in part to the fact that radio or electrical shops where women were already working turned to producing munitions, and many of the munitions factories had employed women on some processes ever since the war of 1914—18. In 1943 the 42 Royal Ord nance Factories employed a total of 300,000 workers, 60 percent of them women. The methods used in British shipbuilding retarded the introduction of women into the main branch of this industry. However, following an investigation into possibilities for the use of women in shipyards the scope of their work expanded. Though still a relatively small proportion of the work force in 1943, women were engaged in a variety of operations, including repairing and repainting battleships and sub marines as well as numerous occupations in the yard shops. Their work included welding, electrical wiring, painting, cleaning, hammer driving, crane driving. They performed various operations in yard foundries, boiler shops, blacksmith shops, fitting shops, in the platers’ sheds, in the drawing office and the mold loft, and in many other departments. Innumerable other examples might be cited of the war work done by British women. Suffice it to say that there is scarcely any job at which they have not been employed. Various methods were adopted to overcome limitations due to lack of physical strength. Even occu pations that appeared to be beyond the average woman’s strength were undertaken, through careful selection of the women and through the adaption of the job to women’s capability, such as the provision of suitable tools and the use of mechanical devices for heavy lifting. In many cases the measures embodied benefits for men as well as women and contributed to increased efficiency in the plant. On the repair of heavy motor vehicles, for example, a mandrel press was modified so as to obtain maximum leverage, instead of depending on the extra force on the part of the operator. In another instance time and fatigue were reduced by use of a wheel attachment for heavy jacks; previously they were moved across the shop by tilting them on two feet and then swinging them onto the other two. In one shell factory hand-operated pedestal lifts and movable bench trays were introduced to enable women to do all machining operations on 180pound forgings. In using the bench tray the operator rolled the 27 EMPLOYING WOMEN IN WARTIME rough shell from the conveyor into the tray, swung the tray out to meet a similar tray swinging from her machine, and slid the shell across the gangway. Effort was decreased further by means of a roller at the tip of the machine tray. In other cases the shell was transferred from conveyor to machine and back to conveyor, or from one machine to the next, by a simple hand-operated lift. If job engineering extended the scope of work done by women to heavy and hard tasks, training and experience opened up fields requir ing skill and responsibility. In 1942 a special register was set up for women in technical work by the Ministry of Labor. Jobs to be filled from this register included drafting, training-school instructors, planning and production assistants, time-and-motion-study workers, laboratory assistants, and other types of work in munitions industries. Women workers through experience in the factory and supplementary training became forewomen, machine setters, instructors in plant training schools. Essential services. Many women worked in trade, in the civil service, in transportation, and other fields. The railroad staff of the country included thousands of women working as porters, ticket collectors, carriage cleaners, truck drivers, laborers, signal operators, and in other jobs. In motor trans portation women worked as drivers of all types of vehicles, as well as in repair and maintenance departments. Buses, subways, and street cars took on women in large numbers in a great variety of work. At the end of 1943 transport was designated as one of the fields to which women were to be directed. Nursing and domestic service were in such great need of women workers that special committees were set up to formulate standards for wages and working conditions. Occupations in the armed forces. In the work of the auxiliaries of the war forces, women proved in dispensable. The Women’s Auxiliary Air Force, which had begun by filling 5 types of work (cooks, clerks, drivers, orderlies, and em ployment assistants) expanded to 6 times its original size, the women in it filling over 51 trades. The Women’s Royal Naval Service took over many of the men’s occupations, and eventually it was planned that the Royal Navy on shore would be manned entirely by women except for jobs requiring physical strength beyond their power. Women’s work in the Auxiliary Territorial Service became of very great importance, including 80 different trades. At the end of 1943, some 12,000 of a total force of 212,000 were overseas. The rest were in the following types of work, with approximate numbers as given: Tradeswomen------------Clerical--------------------Technical____________ Teleprinter operators Switchboard operators Coots________________ Antiaircrafts -----Drivers____________ 66,000 30, 000 9.000 2.000 4,000 4, 000 70,000 15, 000 V. WOMEN’S WAGES AND EARNINGS THE BASIS FOR PAYMENT OF WOMEN RECRUITS TO INDUSTRY Principles established by union-employer agreements. The setting of women’s wage rates became the frequent subject of union negotiation as women went into war production. At the same time woman membership in unions increased from 925,000 in 1938 to 1,372,000 in 1941. (See table 2 in appendix B.) In some instances the question of determining such wages under wartime agreements reached the Industrial Court. In all these cases the court upheld the principle that a woman doing the full work of a man should receive the man’s remuneration for the job. On this question, therefore, the policy upheld by the court corresponded to that adhered to in princi ple by the National War Labor Board in the United States. As is shown below, there was the usual difficulty of determining when the work was the same as that done by men, and there were several grades of women’s work, so in practice many women were paid far less than men. In agreeing to changes in trade practices to give effect to the Gov ernment policy of using women wherever possible, the unions stipu lated that such innovation should continue only for the duration of the emergency and that the introduction of women on men’s jobs should not be used to break down wage rates. Arrangements permitting the use of women on men’s work and providing that after a suitable pro bationary period women should be paid men’s rates, or that they should receive specified proportions of men’s rates, were arrived at for engineering, bus transportation, railway workshops, shipbuilding, chemicals, and at least 60 other industries and occupations. (See list in appendix B.) Typical of these arrangements were the following: Engineering industries.—An agreement of May 22, 1940, between the Engineering and Allied Employers’ National Federation, the Amalgamated Engineering Union, the Transport and General Work ers Union, and the National Union of General and Municipal Work ers set up principles for most war industry. The agreement pro vided that women employed on men’s work in the manufacture of en gineering products were to be considered as temporarily employed, for the duration of the war only, and a record was to be kept of all such changes. Women so employed were to serve an 8-week proba tionary period at the women’s national minimum-wage rate, followed by 12 weeks at this rate plus one-third of the difference between the women’s and men’s rates and one third of the difference between the women’s and men’s bonus. For a further 12 weeks they would be paid at three-fourths of the men’s rate and of the men’s bonus. This was approximately through the eighth month of such employment. Then, if “able to carry out the work of the men they replace without addi28 EMPLOYING WOMEN IN WARTIME 29 tional supervision or assistance,” they would receive the full men’s rate and bonus; otherwise the rate would be subject to negotiation. The agreement did not restrict extensions in the employment of wom en on “women’s work” to additional plants, or replacement of boys under 21 by women. Road passenger transport industry.—An Industrial Court award of April 1940 established the wages of women employed to replace men as conductors on streetcars and buses. This award provided that the scales of pay for women conductors over 18 should be for the first 6 months of service not less than 90 percent of the adult male con ductor’s beginning rate and thereafter, if they had reached the age of 21, the usual scale of pay of adult male conductors. The con ditions of employment of women conductors were to be the same as those of men, except that the guaranteed week might be 40 hours in stead of 48, all time worked in excess of 40 hours being paid for at overtime rates. Boot and shoe industry.—An agreement between the National Federation of Boot Manufacturers and the National Union of Boot and Shoe Operatives specified a graduated scale for 1 month for women in the industry transferring to men’s departments, followed by full application of men’s piece rates; for women newly entering the in dustry the full minimum would be paid after 12 weeks, 6 at 15 percent below the minimum and 6 at 10 percent below. Building-trade craftsmen in Government plants.—An agreement of May 8, 1943, between the Ministry of Supply and building-trade organizations provided that in any cases in which a woman carried out the entire job of a building-trade craftsman without special as sistance, guidance, or supervision she was to be paid the standard basic rafe and bonus of skilled building-trade craftsmen of that grade. Where women carried out such work with special assistance, guidance, or supervision, or where work which once formed part of buildingtrade craftsman’s duties was split away from the rest, women were to receive from 75 percent to 85 percent of the men’s basic rates and bonus according to the degree to which they could do the men’s job without special assistance, guidance, or supervision. Practical application of payment principles. Of 26 delegates to the National Conference of Amalgamated En gineering Union Women Shop Stewards meeting in May 1943, only 2 were receiving the full skilled man’s rate, though most of them had been in engineering from 2 to 2y2 years and only one had been in the industry as little as 8 months. This illustrates the considerable difficulty of establishing that, a. woman was doing exactly the identical job formerly done by a man. In fact, in a number of instances the British Industrial Court found that women workers were doing a slightly different job from that formerly performed by a man. Even potentially the rate for the job was applicable to only a part of the women in war indutries. Much of the work undertaken by women since the war was formerly classified as women’s work in certain plants or certain sections of an industry, and lower rates were the rule for women on women’s work. Payments to trainees under the Government training schemes, which were revised so as to be roughly equivalent to what the 30 BRITISH POLICIES AND METHODS individuals could earn by directly entering industry, started during 1943 at 50s. for adult women and 71s. 6d. for men. Though in general war workers tended to have higher earnings than workers in other industries, about 12 percent of the employees in both these groups covered in a survey in 1942, most of them women, received £2 a week or less. The practice still was prevalent of paying women on lower scales than men, and the highest earnings of women in a plant usually were well below the average for men. In a large war factory brought into a country village at the start of the war, the average of the 10 most highly paid men at the beginning of 1942 was £6 16s. Id. and the average of the 10 mostly highly paid women £3 6s. 7d., the women averaging less than half as much as the men. In another plant the highest net wages for women, who manned the entire shell shop, were about the same as the average net wages of men laborers (£3 5d.) and less than half of the maximum of men in other departments. Women Highest net wages Shell shop:---------------------------------------------------------------------------- f »• <*• 3 5 10 7 15 5 14 Men Main shop—. Plating shop Fitting shop. 8 7 8 6 5 An important reason for the different earnings of women was the recognition of various grades of women’s wTork. An agreement be tween the unions and the Ministry of Supply, for example, recognized four grades for women in Government plants: (1) Women’s work (fuzes, small arms, small-arms ammunition, and cartridge cases up to and including 3.7 inches); (2) work determined on the basis of youths’ rates (on shell cases less than 4 inches); (3) work done en tirely by men before the war, and in the wartime Royal Ordnance Factories “broken down”; and (4) men’s work (crane driving, truck driving, commercial-vehicle driving, and acid-tank employment). Consequently, in 1942, nearly three-fourths of the women in Royal Ordnance Factories were paid on the women’s weekly minimum-rate schedule of 43 or 46 shillings for a 47-hour week. (See table 4 in appendix B.) The unions that customarily represented women workers in metal trades pointed out the importance to the whole problem of the issue of wage rates on “women’s work.” At the end of 1942 efforts of many years culminated in an agreement setting up in the engineering in dustry for women in occupations requiring skill a wTage rate equal to, and in some cases higher than, that for male labor. Thus progress was made toward achieving rates related to the work done. It was in a field outside industry that a sensational division in the House of Commons in March 1944 hinged on the question of equal pay for women. Government Opposition forces proposing to amend the Education Bill by inserting a clause providing pay for women teachers equal to that of men succeeded in overriding the Government by a vote of 117 to 116. Faced with a choice of voting either against the Government or against equal pay, many members, both Conservatives and Laborites, left the House before the division. Reasonably sure that in the critical war period his leadership would be sustained if put to the test on such a domestic matter, the Prime EMPLOYING WOMEN IN WARTIME 31 Minister presented to the House within 48 hours the proposal to delete the whole section of the bill containing this provision and to stake his entire war government on the issue. He was sustained by a vote of 425 to 23. This was not the first time a British Government had defeated equal pay by weighting such a decision with a confidence vote. A similar situation occurred under the Prime Minister in 1936. TRENDS IN WOMEN’S PAY DURING THE WAR Industrial earnings. A study by the Ministry of Labor of average earnings in January 1943 shows the usual situation—that in a period of rising wages the increase tends to be greater for those formerly very low paid. Thus, adult women’s earnings had risen by 80 percent above the prewar period compared to a 65-percent rise for adult men. It must be re membered, however, that this rise was from a far lower wage before the war for women than for men. Moreover, women’s average earnings still were greatly below men’s, their ratio, though having risen from 47 percent in October 1938, being only 51 percent in January l943. This is shown by the following figures taken from the Ministry of Labor Gazette, June 1943: ,, .. Month Percent increase in average weekly earnings „ Over October 19.18 ' Men's Women’s July 1940------------------------------------------- 29 July 1941---------------------------------44 January 1942-------------------------------------- 48 July 1942------------------------------------------- 62 January 1943----------------------------------65 20 35 ar 67 80 Ratio of tcomen’s to men’s average weekly earnings (percent) 44 44 47 49 51 These reports of January 1943 covered approximately 614 million workers in nearly 55,000 firms. Table 5 in appendix B gives further details by industry. Average earnings for all the industries combined rose from 32s. 6d. for women and 69s. for men in October 1938 to 58s. 6d. for women and 113s. 9d. for men in January 1943. The greater proportional increase in women’s earnings was due to the operation of several forces, including the growing numbers of women in jobs paid for at men’s rates, or at specified proportions of men’s rates, generally higher than wage scales for work usually done by women. Other factors included.the passing of the probationary periods, the receipt of more overtime pay, and the transfer to better-paid industries. As a matter of fact, much of the industrial work into which women were called had been considered formerly “women’s work” and hence was based on women’s rates, and in other cases women replaced youths with correspondingly low rates. Further, in many instances where expansion of women’s employment occurred new factories were built and the work was broken down, new jigs and machines being developed, so that the job was no longer of the same type that a skilled man had held. For example, the operation of a new aircraft-engine factory in which all but 50 workers were unskilled labor and nearly a third were women was said to be possible largely because of the engineers who planned and tooled the plant. In an analysis of the various factors affecting earnings it was pointed out that the increase for all workers for the period from October 1938 32 BRITISH POLICIES AND METHODS to January 1943 would have been 67.5 percent instead of 65 percent if there had been no change in the ratio of women to men, and that because of the sex differential in wage scales the greater employment of women made average earnings lower than otherwise they would have been. CHART 3.—AVERAGE WEEKLY EARNINGS OF WORKPEOPLE IN THE PRINCIPAL INDUSTRIES OF GREAT BRITAIN AND NORTHERN IRE LAND, OCTOBER 1938, JULY 1940, AND EVERY 6 MONTHS FROM JULY 1941 TO JANUARY 19431 OCT 1938 I MEN 11rYEARS AND OVER JULY 1940 □ JULY 1941 JAN. 1942 WOMEN 18 YEARS AND OVER JULY 1942 JAN. 1943 ALL WORKERS (INCLUDING V/A YOUTHS AND BOYS AND GIRLS) 1 Ministry of Labor Gazette, June 1943, p. 81. Adult women’s average weekly earnings in individual industries ranged from a low of 44s. lid. in public utility services to a maximum of 72s. 2d. in Government industrial establishments. The range for adult men was from 84s. Id. in public utility services to 131s. 6d. in metal, engineering, and shipbuilding. Thus the lowest for men ex ceeded greatly the average in the highest-paying industry for women. In the metal group women’s earnings averaged about 51 percent of men’s or about the same ratio as in all industries combined. Pay in the forces. Women doctors in the armed forces were commissioned and paid on the same basis as men. In fields other than medicine women’s rate still EMPLOYING WOMEN IN WARTIME 33 was two-thirds that of men, though it became increasingly clear as the war continued that women in the forces were replacing men on an equivalent basis. Compensation for war injury. In 1943 a remedy for the different treatment of civilian women in regard to war injuries finally was achieved through the efforts of many women’s organizations and other groups. The air raids and the in creased participation of women in war work emphasized the difference in compensation as compared with the similarity in risk. As a result of the recommendations of a special Parliamentary Committee, weekly allowances for women, beginning April 19, 1943, were to be 35s., and if the period of their disablement exceeded 6 months, they were to receive pensions ranging from 7s. 6d. to 37s. 6d. a week (for total disability), the same as men. The same rate was to be given whether or not the injured person was gainfully employed. VI. POSTWAR PLANNING AND PROGRAM RELATING TO WOMEN Official attention to problems of reconstruction and postwar dated from January 1941, when Arthur Greenwood was appointed Minister without Portfolio responsible for the study of post-war problems. A growing number of commissions and officials were designated to in vestigate questions as they arose, and various studies on special prob lems were made in the period following. Among the reports of particular concern to women were the Beveridge Report on social insur ance, the Rushclitfe Report on salaries of nurses and midwives, and the scheme for further education and training of men and women in national service. It was acknowledged generally by all groups that the great con tribution of women in carrying on the war was entitled to recognition. The Minister of Labor, Ernest Bevin, stated in July 1942 that “if they had not come forward there would have been a great gap, and there fore it will become the bounden duty of every one of us to arrive at proper conclusions as to the right use and place that women must find in the postwar world.” Various industrial leaders, workers’ organi zations, and women’s groups evidenced growing attention to the role of women in the community and the nation when peace should come. In British planning to assure social security after the war, recognition of women’s needs has advanced far beyond their former status, either in Great Britain or in almost any other country. The effect of war on British population makes such a standing for women of the utmost importance. The Beveridge Report and women. The plan proposed by Sir William Beveridge in 1942 was designed to put an end to want by combining and expanding the various socialinsurance systems previously in operation in Great Britain. In the course of outlining principles and methods of social security for the future, the report crystallized current ideas as to the social and economic status of women in Great Britain, and with regard for prac tical realities it aimed to provide security for women in terms of their role in the community. In the Beveridge Report the principles underlying social insurance reached a point where they demonstrated great progress as they af fected women. Of particular note was the recognition of married women’s contribution in the home as demanding an adequate security provision and benefits during pregnancy and after childbirth. Do mestic service workers, nurses, and independent workers were to be covered by the plan; previous deficiencies as to maternity benefits were to be remedied; equal benefits with men were proposed for unmarried women; and widows with small children were to be paid a guardian benefit and children’s allowances. 34 EMPLOYING WOMEN IN WARTIME 35 Unmarried women employees, like all employed men, were to be in sured under the plan for unemployment, disability, retirement pen sion, medical treatment, and funeral expenses. Payments for unem ployment and short periods of disability were not based on the wage, hut on the grounds that minimum requirements of men and women differed very little; identical subsistence benefits of 24s. a week were to be payable to either in the event of unemployment, disability up to 13 weeks, or retirement in old age. After 13 weeks, pensions amount ing to two-thirds of the earnings of the employee were to be paid for industrial accident and disease. The lower amounts generally earned by women would thus usually make compensation in their case less, though not lower than the short-term disability benefit. The rate of contribution was set tentatively at 6s. a week for all employed adult women (2s. 6d. of this contributed by the woman’s employer), while for employed men it was to be 7s. 6d. a week (3s. 3d. by the employer). By the higher rate for men, it was stated, it was planned to provide benefits for married women not working for pay but rendering unpaid services to their families. However, the higher rate was not to be confined to married men or men with de pendents. Though not so designed, the practical effect was to take account to some extent of the lower earnings of women. Because, according to estimates, only about one in seven married women was gainfully occupied, and because even when working the married woman’s earnings were considered to be of a supplementary na ture, the plan treated “man and wife as a team.” A joint rate of benefit was to be provided of 40s. a week in the case of unemployment, disability, or retirement of the husband if the wife were not gainfully occupied or if the working wife elected to be “exempt.” His con tributions also secured to the married woman maternity grant and provision for wudowhood. In addition to maternity grant, house wives taking paid work were to be entitled to maternity benefit for 13 weeks to enable them to give up working before and after child birth. The working wife paying her own unemployment and dis ability contribution was to be entitled to 16s. when she went on benefit and her husband to 24s. when he went on benefit. Women conscripted for national service. In one instance a scheme to meet certain postwar needs wTas put into operation for eligible groups before the end of the war. Owing to the mobilization of large numbers of young people, many of them were forced to interrupt plans for business and professional careers. 1 lie great value to the country of encouraging fresh sources of supply of well-trained men and women after the war was recognized. Plans were made by which the Government would provide financial assistance to women as well as men demobilized from the armed forces (includ ing nursing and civil defense services), or released from work of national importance, so that qualified candidates could obtain pro fessional and business training. During the war men and women discharged from the services because of disablement or on medical grounds could apply under the scheme. An interdepartmental com mittee of 17 members, including 2 women, was appointed to determine I-1? nllrnbers that should be encouraged to take training in the various fields. 36 BRITISH POLICIES AND METHODS Demands of industry and the armed forces in Britain forced policies of restricting women’s educational opportunities increasingly to those in line with wartime needs. Consequently, women students of fine arts, music, architecture, and acting could be given no deferment after their twentieth birthday. Under the mobilization program as carried out earlier in the war women taking university training in medicine, dentistry, veterinary surgery, pharmacy, and scientific and technical subjects were allowed to complete their education. Women entering universities in October 1943 or subsequently were to be permitted to take a 3 years’ course if not over 18 years of age; and if over 18 but under 19, a 2 years’ course. Only women who planned to undertake work of national importance on completing their training, including teaching and approved types of social service, would be accepted. They would be allowed to continue only so long as their progress remained satisfactory. Women of registration age taking such courses as massage, dis pensing, radiography, domestic science, or social science at technical colleges and similar schools likewise were permitted to become full time students, with the same limitations. An offical investigation into conditions in the women’s services pro posed that these well-trained women should be used in the work of relief and rehabilitation in Europe at the war’s end. The report pointed out the value to the women themselves and others in the forg ing of the peace: * * * To meet, the needs of the liberated populations and those of the armies of occupation, technical staffs will be required throughout Europe both for administration and relief. Detachments of the Women’s Services would, in our opinion, be admirably fitted to share in these duties. As service units they can be attached without difficulty of any kind to the appropriate occupying establishments. Much of the work to be done is work in which the cooperation of women is not only desirable but essential. That cooperation can be achieved in rapid and simple form through the organization of the auxiliaries for foreign service. Clerks, cooks, drivers, orderlies, will be wanted to carry on day-to-day duties much as they are carried on at present. Administrative tasks will exist in plenty for officers capable of handling the problems of want and suffering which the liberated countries will present. Employment for the time being on the Continent would ease the demobilization of the Women’s Services and the return of the auxiliaries to civil life. * * * To associate women with the task of reconstruction in Europe, to call upon them to share in a work of healing and mercy, would be not only to bring their war duties to a noble conclusion, but to open a new chapter in international relationships of high value for the future. We have no doubt that volunteers would be forthcoming from all the services should a scheme on some lines as above suggested prove feasible. And we have also no doubt that the auxiliaries would throw themselves with equal enthusiasm into the work and adventure of peace as they show today in the work and adventure of war. The women’s branch of the British Legion, in a draft of plans for demobilization of service women, proposed disability and pensions schemes that would benefit women equally with men and recommended the following order of release: 1. Wives, along with their husbands. 2. Older women, on the grounds they have more commitments to resume. 3. Trained women needed for specific jobs. EMPLOYING WOMEN IN WARTIME 37 4. Younger’women and others requiring training or refresher courses. Women as workers. Employers, members of Parliament, Government officials, and others meted out high praise to women for their contribution to war produc tion and the degree of skill attained. Through 1943, however, no clear statement of official policy appeared with regard to women’s status and opportunities in the postwar labor market. With many industries and trades formerly closed to women workers beginning to demand them, the unions made it a point to bring the women into their membership even though only for the duration. During 1941 women members of trade-unions increased by 26.8 percent compared to a 4.7 percent increase for men. At the end of that year there were 5,718,000 men and 1,372,000 women members. Women’s increases occurred mainly in distribution, transport, National Gov ernment service, and clothing; men’s in the engineering and metal industries. The total membership still was more than a million below the peak year of 1920, but women members reached an all-time high and accounted for nearly one-fifth of all trade-unionists. The number of women trade-unionists passed the 2-million mark during 1943. This included some 300,000 women in the Transport and General Workers Union and about 65,000 in the Amalgamated Engineering Union, the two largest in Great Britain. Another 265, 000 women belonged to the National Union of General and Municipal Workers, In these three unions women constituted respectively about 24, 8, and 36 percent of the total membership. The A. E. U. had admitted women to membership in January 1943 for the first time in its 90 years of existence. I he principle of the rate for the job was recognized by the unions as of special significance for the postwar period. Both the Trades Lnion Congress and the Labor Party supported it, as did unions and other organizations. The Women’s Advisory Committee on Postwar Keconstruction reiterated it before the 1943 annual meeting of unions with large woman memberships, submitting a memorandum on this and other postwar problems of women workers: 1. Women have established their claim to a share in the economic life of tiie nation. By having shared equally with men the tremendous task of producmg for the needs of the war. they have an equal right to employment after the war. The committee, therefore, considers that all classes of women wage earners who have contributed to the war effort either in in dustry or in the services irrespective of whether they have been transferred directed, conscripted, or have volunteered, have an equal right to employ ment. They reaffirm their view that the sex of the worker should not be a factor m determining payment, which should be based on the work pertormed. The Government have a responsibility to all classes of wage earners wlio have been conscripted, transferred, directed, or volunteered from one occupation to another, so to organize the industrial life of the nation that every one of those workers is assured of employment after the war. “■ Tllat in order to Insure this there must be gradual demobilization of women after the war. 3. That special consideration should be given to the position of young people whose opportunities have been restricted by the war, with regard to opportunities for training and resumption of occupation. 4. Detailed consideration of the held of employment which would be open to women. 38 BRITISH POLICIES AND METHODS In line with the fourth proposal was one section of an Interim Re port on Postwar Reconstruction prepared by the Electrical Associa tion for Women of Great Britain. The report listed careers open to women requiring a knowledge of electricity. These included jobs in the installation and maintenance of electricity, as meter readers, and as designers and operatives in electrical manufacture. Others in cluded were architects, communications engineers, electrical physio therapists, X-ray technicians, as well as clerical, administrative, publicity, and sales work in electrical supply, contracting, and manu facture, and certain jobs in domestic science and horticulture. These occupations were felt to offer good prospects for women in the post war world, particularly in jobs where women proved their ability. To this end the association recommended that efforts should be made to keep open to women new and interesting work successfully carried on during the War. Women in family and civic life. The destruction of buildings and homes due to bombing focused at tention on the question of new and reconstructed housing after the war. Elizabeth Denby, a leading British housing expert, pointed out that houses built before the war were not particularly suited to the needs and wishes of women, who spent most time in them. The im portance of incorporating scientific thought and development to make a more effective and convenient center of family life has been demon strated. Various women’s groups, including the Standing Joint Com mittee of Working Women’s Organizations, the Electrical Association for Women, and the Women’s Advisory Housing Council, made a study and obtained suggestions as to dwelling designs wanted by the women who run homes, for submission to the Government. APPENDIX A—SIGNIFICANT DATES IN THE BRITISH WOMANPOWER PROGRAM Sept. 3,1939— September 1939. Apr. 19,1940. May 22,1940. May 22, 1940. January 1941. Jan. 21,1941_ March 5,1941. March 1941_ Mar. 15, 1941. _ Great Britain declared war with Germany. . Schedule of Reserved Occupations revised. (First issued January 1939.) This edition provided that women (as well as men above specified ages) in occupations listed in part II, and women in occupations listed in part III, could be accepted for national de fense service other than nursing and first aid only in their “trade capacity.” . Industrial Court Award No. 1755 for the Road Passenger Transport Industry. Spec ified that women 21 and over replacing men should receive the adult male rate after 6 months. .. Engineering agreements formulated. Re laxed existing customs to permit, for the duration of the war, the extended employ ment of women and provided that women fully replacing men should receive the rate and bonus of the men they replaced. .. Emergency Powers (Defense) Act, 1940, and Regulations. Extended Act of 1939 to include power to require persons “to place themselves, their services, and their prop erty at the disposal of His Majesty.” Reg ulation 58A gave to the Minister of Labor and National Service the control and use of all labor. _ Government training centers opened to women. . Woman mobilization program announced in the House of Commons. .. The Essential Work (General Provisions) Order, 1941. This provided that workers might not leave or be dismissed from jobs in scheduled firms without consent of a Na tional Service Officer, the firm being re quired to provide recognized conditions of work, welfare arrangements, and training programs. . Women’s Consultative Committee ap pointed. . Registration for Employment Order, 1941, to ascertain the available labor force and its capacities as a basis for mobilization for the war effort. 39 40 BEITISH POLICIES AND METHODS Apr. 19, 1941 Compulsory registration of women under the Registration for Employment Order inaugurated with the registration of women horn in 1920. September 1941_______ More selective basis adopted for interview ing women registrants. December 1941 Schedule of Reserved Occupations for women withdrawn. Dec. 18,1941--------------- Single women 20 but under 31 made liable for military service under the National Service (No. 2) Act, 1941. Jan.23 (Feb. 16), 1942— Employment of Women (Control of En gagement) Order, 1942, issued, under which women 20-30 (later 18-30) could be hired only through employment exchanges or, in certain cases, other authorized channels. The order excepted women with children under 14 living with them and married women with household responsibilities. Aug. 15,1942-------------- Fire-guard duty made compulsory for women 20 to 45, unless employed 55 hours a week, whether or not on war work. Oct. 3,1942 _ -------- Registration of women born in 1897, thus completing registration of women 18 to 45. Nov. 20,1942-------------- The Beveridge Report—Social Insurance and Allied Services, by Sir William Beve ridge—submitted to the Government. Jan. 13, 1943---------------Royal Proclamation under National Service Acts reduced the lower age limit for com pulsory service by women in the uniformed forces to 19 years. Jan. 28, 1943--------------- Powers of direction applied to work not scheduled under the Essential Work Order, including part-time work. Jan. 28 (Feb. 22), 1943__ Employment of Women (Control of En gagement) Order, 1943, extended to cover all women 18 to 40. The order required all women covered to obtain employment through a local office of the Ministry of Labor and National Service or other ap proved agencies. March 1943---------------- Government postwar education and training scheme announced. Mar. 30,1943-------------- Special registration of nurses and mid wives ordered. Apr. 19, 1943-------------- Compensation for civilian war injury pay able to women equalized with men’s. EMPLOYING WOMEN IN WARTIME 41 Apr. 28 (May 8), 1943_Control of Employment (Directed Per sons) Order provided that persons directed into full-time work not covered by Essen tial Work Orders, including part-time work, might not be discharged or leave employ ment without approval of the National Service Officer and that directions were to apply to a specified period, usually 6 months. Aug. 10 (Aug. 20). 1943_ The Control of Employment (Notice of Termination) Order, 1943, requiring an employer to notify the nearest local office of the Ministry of Labor and National Serv ice when any man 18 to 64 or woman 18 to 60 is about to leave the job, if enjployed 20 hours or more per week. Sept. 20 to Oct. 2, 1943 Special registration of cotton operatives, (inclusive). Sept. 21,1943--------------Announcement in the House of Commons of the extension of mobilization to women 46-50. Sept. 28,1943-------------- National Conference of Women held in London sponsored by the Government. The purpose of the conference, which was na tional and nonpolitical, was “to bring women into contact with those of H. M. Ministers who are responsible for aspects of national policy which particularly affect women.” Nov. 6,1943--------------- Registration of women born in 1893, thus completing registration of women 18 to 50. Note.—Where two dates are shown for a single regulation, the first is the date issued, the second the date effective. Appendix B.—TABLES SHOWING WARTIME TRENDS IN UNEMPLOYMENT, WAGES, AND UNION MEMBERSHIP OF BRITISH WOMEN Table 1.—Unemployed persons 14 years of age and over on the register of employment exchanges, by quarterly period, 1939 to 19431 Total Date Men and boys Women and girls 2,039,026 1,644, 394 1,256,424 1,430,638 1,574,178 1, 266,020 981,010 947,047 464,848 378,374 275,414 483, 591 1,518,896 972,695 827, 266 834,851 1,079,048 656,669 470,197 456,590 439,848 316,026 357,069 378,261 695, 606 410, 511 277, 280 216,199 371,695 214, 549 145,529 113,074 323,911 195,962 131, 751 103,125 1942 January___________ ______ April_____________________ July______________ ______ October__________________ 194,848 127, 499 107,005 101,080 116,454 76, 549 70,024 64,872 78,394 50,950 36,981 36,208 1943 January__________________ April........ ................................. July_____________________ October__________________ 99,017 80,091 73,258 73,936 61,709 53,838 50,236 49,809 37,308 26, 253 23,022 24,127 January April__ July----October. 1940 January. April July--.. October. 1941 January. April__ July ... October. 1 Source: Ministry of Labor Gazette. Table 2.—Trade-union membership among women, 1913 to 19411 Year Number of Percent of women trade- total union union mem member bers (thou ship sands) 1941 1940--. 1939 1938______ 1937 1936 1935 1934 1933 1S32 ____ .. 1931 1930 1929 -1928.............................1927 Year 1,372 1,082 972 925 895 19.4 16.5 15.6 15.3 15.3 1926 1925.... 1924 1923 -1922......... 800 761 736 731 746 15.1 15.6 16.0 16.6 16.8 1921 1920 1919 1918 1917 765 793 802 795 794 16.5 16.4 16.5 16.5 16.1 1916 1915___ _________ 1914 1913 _________ i Source: Ministry of Labor Gazette, September 1939 and December 1942. 42 Number of Percent of women trade- total union union mem member bers (thou ship sands) 812 835 814 822 872 15.6 15.2 14.7 15.1 15.5 1,005 1,342 1,326 1,209 878 15.2 16. 1 16.7 18.5 16.0 626 491 437 433 13.5 11.3 10.5 10.5 EMPLOYING WOMEN IN WARTIME 43 Table 3.—Arrangements as to wage rates for women fully replac ing men, by industry or occupation 1 Men’s rate payable to women fully replacing men, after a probationary period Boot and shoe manufacture.2 Cement manufacture. Chemical manufacture. Corn milling. County Council roadmen. Drug and fine chemical manufacture. Electrical cable making.2 Electrical contracting. Electricity supply. Engineering. Felt-hat manufacture. Flour milling, machine women. Heavy leather tanning.2 Local authorities (nontrading services). Pig iron and iron and steel, other than laboring work. Printing and bookbinding. Printing-ink manufacture. Railway service (conciliation grades). Railway workshops. Retail cooperative societies, general dis tributive and transport workers. Road haulage (goods). Road passenger transport, tram and bus, drivers and conductors. Rubber manufacture. Sheet steel manufacture and galvaniz ing, semiskilled and skilled labor.2 Shipbuilding and ship repair. Tin-plate manufacture, other than la boring. Waterworks. Wholesale clothing manufacture, cut ting departments. Men’s rate payable to women fully replacing men, with no specified probationary period Admiralty establishments, except laborers. Baking. Beet-sugar manufacture. Building brick, roofing, tile and refrac tories manufacture.2 Cast stone and cast concrete manu facture.2 Cinema theaters, cinema projection ists. Fertilizer industry. Glue and gelatin manufacture. Home-grown timber. Ocher mining and grinding. Potato drying. Royal Ordnance Factories, building trade craftsmen.3 Royal Ordnance Factories, skilled me chanics. Soap and candle manufacture. Tobacco manufacture. Lower rates payable to women replacing men Admiralty establishments, ordinary laborers. Asbestos manufacture.4 Building. Fellmongering.2 Flour milling, truckers and mill clean ers ; packers. Furniture manufacture, porters, labor ers, others.2 Hosiery bleaching. Leather-belt manufacture.2 Leather currying and dressing.2 Light castings manufacture.1 Packing-case manufacture. Paint manufacture.5 Pig iron and iron and steel manufac ture, laboring work. Plywood manufacture. Royal Ordnance Factories, manufacture of propellants, explosives, and acids previously carried out by male labor. Sheet steel manufacture and galvaniz ing, unskilled labor. Tinplate manufacture, laboring work (6s. 10% d. a shift plus man’s bonus). Vehicle building (full man’s basic rate but women’s war bonus). Wholesale grocery trade. 1 Source : Memorandum from Ministry of Labor and National Service, ‘‘Rates of Wages °f Employed on Work Previously Performed by Men,” Appendix C, Proceedings of Select Committee on Equal Compensation, London, Feb. 16, 1943, unless otherwise indi cated. This should be consulted for further details. 2 Same piece-work rates to be paid to women, though time rate paid women is lower during probationary period, or in cases where woman does not fully replace a man or where man’s full-time rate is unattainable. 3 Amalgamated Society of Woodworkers’ Monthly Journal, June 1943, p. 216. 4 Piece-work rate lower for women, or may be negotiated. _’■ yational Union of General and Municipal Workers' Journal, November 1942 pp 395 396, and December 1043, p. 378, 44 BRITISH POLICIES AND METHODS Table 4.—Distribution by minimum-wage rates of women em ployed in Royal Ordnance Factories, 19421 Type of factory or product Type of work Basis of wages Fuzes, small-arms am munition, small arms. Light engineering work commonly performed by women. Filling propellants and high explosives into containers. Manufacture of shells and certain cartridge cases. Manufacture of propellants, explosives, and acids— previously carried out by male labor. Manufacture of guns, gun barrels, gun mountings, etc. Women’s rate.. __ ... Filling. Shells______ __________ Explosives._... Guns... ________... Minimum Percent of rate for women in 47-hour total (ap week (in proximate) shillings) Youths’ rate at 20 years. 80 percent of men’s rate. Men's basic rate plus 75 percent of men’s industrial bonus. 43 18 46 56 51 4 57 12 2 69 10 1 Source: Great Britain, Parliamentary Debates, House of Commons Official Report, Vol. 383, No. 103» cols. 525-526, September 11, 1942. 2 Minimum rate for areas other than London, where it was 62 shillings for a 47-hour week. Table 5.—Increases in average weekly earnings of men and women in 16 industry groups, October 1938 to January 1943 1 Percent increase in average earnings October 1938 to January 1943 Ratio of women’s to men’s earnings (percent) Industry group Men (21 years and over) Women (18 years and over) 65.1 64.9 80.0 51.4 47.1 48.7 51.3 52.6 56.1 55.8 72.6 62.3 53.5 50.0 46.6 43.6 32.3 43. 6 68.8 58.6 57.9 59.9 75.3 63.2 55.4 47.9 48.3 45.4 27.6 43. 4 66.7 96.3 69.2 87.8 99.3 58.3 39.6 47.6 45.6 59.7 37.4 44.7 44.1 47.2 44.4 55.5 54. 5 51.0 50.4 50.8 40.5 71.4 55.3 47.2 55.4 50.5 53.8 49.0 50.9 49.5 55.8 43.6 55.4 47.3 46.0 38.3 28.8 38.4 42.5 33.3 62.0 92.4 62.3 61.3 67.3 53.4 59.2 49.9 43.9 59.5 All workers 2 All industries_____________ . Iron, stone, etc., mining and quarrying__ Treatment of nonmetalliferous mine and quarry products. . _________ Brick, pottery, and glass________ _____ Chemical, paint, oil, etc___ Metal, engineering, and shipbuilding Textiles_______ ____ ____________ ___ Leather, fur, etc _____________________ Clothing______ . _______ _____ Food, drink, and tobacco____ Woodworking________________________ Paper, printing, stationery, etc__ .... .. Building, contracting, etc__________ ___ Miscellaneous manufacturing industries... Transport, storage, etc. (excluding railways) Public utility services. __________ ... Government industrial establishments__ 1 Source: Ministry of Labor Gazette, June 1943. 2 Includes earnings of youths, boys and girls, hi addition to adult men and women. O January 1943 October 1938