Full text of Series of Studies on Employment of Women in Various Defense Industries : Women's Bureau Bulletin, No. 192 : Women's Employment in the Making of Steel, 1943 : Women's Bureau Bulletin, No. 192-5

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UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF LABOR
FRANCES PERKINS, Secretary

WOMEN’S BUREAU
MARY ANDERSON, Director

Women’s Employment in the Making of Steel, 1943

By
ETHEL ERICKSON

Bulletin op the Women’s Bureau, No. 192-5

UNITED STATES
government printing office

WASHINGTON : 1944

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Letter of Transmittal
United States Department of Labor,
Women’s Bureau,

Washington, January 10, 1944.
The shortage of man labor has led to the employment
of women in plant jobs in the basic iron and steel industry, a
heavy industry hitherto employing practically no women except
in the administrative offices. The Women’s Bureau study of
women’s occupations and of the conditions under which they are
at work was made in order that the industry may employ women
increasingly in such capacities as the labor shortage requires and
experience shows to be suitable for women.
.
The survey was made by Ethel Erickson, industrial supervisor,
assisted by Frances E. P. Harnish, May Bagwell and Mane M.
Wright. The report has been written by Miss Erickson.
Respectfully submitted.
_. ,
Mary Anderson, Director.
Madam :

Hon. Frances Perkins,

Secretary of Labor.

Contents

Page

Introduction and scope------------------------------------------------------------Work of women------------------------------------------------------ ---------------Handling of raw materials------------------------------------------------Coke plants --------------------------------------------------------------------Blast furnaces----------------------------------------------------------------Steel furnaces----------------------------------------------------------- ------Rolling mills; Fabrication------------------------------------------- -----Other ------------------------- ----------------------------------------------------Conclusion-----------------------------------------------------------------------Hours, rates, working conditions, and personnel relations--- -------Working hours; Lunch and rest periods-----------------------------. Rates of pay------- ------------------- ---------------------------------------Labor supply; Employment policies----------------------------------Work clothing ----------------------------------------------------------------Job training-------------------------------------------------------------------Women in personnel work------------------------------------------------Welfare facilities; Medical facilities----------- ----------------------Accidents and strains------------------------------------------------------Turn-over and absenteeism of women------------- ------------------Employee organization and women’s membership---------------Appendix:

Occupations of women, by department--------------------Women in 17 plants, one corporation, by department
Typical hourly rates of women-------------------------------

570420—44




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Women’s Employment in the Making of Steel, 1943
INTRODUCTION AND SCOPE OF SURVEY

Steelmaking traditionally has been men’s business. Steelmaking
is a heavy and dirty business and women workers have been taboo.
Iron ore, coal, and limestone, the basic raw materials for steel, are
earthy, bulky, and heavy. Steel mills spread over wide areas and
intense heat and massive equipment are necessary in processing.
These marked characteristics of the industry and inherent hazards
have tended naturally to shut out women, with their lesser strength
and endurance.
In peacetime about the only job within the mills on which women
were found was sorting and inspecting tinplate. As assorters,
women were considered more efficient than men in flipping the
mirrored tin sheets, inspecting for surface flaws, grading and
judging the thickness and weight with their touch sensitivity.
As assorters, however, women have constituted only a fraction
of 1 percent of the employees in the steel industry. Women cleri­
cal workers, of course, have been employed in the administrative
offices of the companies _ for many years, but plant-office and
pencil jobs of a semiclerical nature within the mills were held
almost exclusively by men.
Not until months after Pearl Harbor did the steel industry feel
the shortage of manpower sufficiently to consider women as a
source of labor for augmenting their force and replacing men.
Steelmen—both managers and workers—generally did not wel­
come the advent of women into their mills and feared that women
would not be able to do a full job and would be a disrupting element
and liability. The heaviness of the raw materials, the weight of
steel products, the massive equipment, the spatial spread, the
heat, fumes, and hazards do not offer employment possibilities that
normally would be considered desirable or attractive to women.
Also, there was a deeply rooted prejudice and tradition against
women workers in the steel mills similar to that which prevails
in the mining industry.
During 1942 a small number of women began to appear in the
laboratories and plant offices of some of the mills, and by the end
of the year, in a few mills, there were women on the lighter cranes
and on labor gangs around the yards. Most mills, however, did
not take on womsn until 1943, and though by the closing months
of 1943 women are working in most of the country’s steel mills,
their numbers and proportions are small and their utilization is
restricted generally to the lighter and least skilled jobs. In some
of the mills, however, they are found in almost every department.
There are women working at the ore docks, in the storage yards
for raw materials, on the coal and ore trestles, in the coke plants,
the blast furnaces, the steel furnaces, the rolling mills, and the
finishing mills that are doing fabricating on shells, guns, and
regular products such as nails, spikes, and bolts. On the whole,
management, realizing that much of the work requires strength




Women’s Employment

4

in

Steel, 1943

or exposure to special hazards, has been cautious in the selection
of jobs for women and has provided better service and welfare
facilities for women than for men. In old mills, where working
conditions are poorer than the prevailing standards, and service
facilities are most meager for men, there has been less employ­
ment of women than in the more modern mills.
During the late summer and fall of 1943, agents of the Women’s
Bureau visited steel mills in the principal steel-producing areas.
One mill in Colorado had been visited as early as May. The occu­
pations of the women, the hours worked, rates of pay, working
conditions, and other factors affecting their employment were
included in the inquiry. Data on jobs filled by women were col­
lected for 41 steel mills. The proportion of women in the total
force in the 41 mills was 10.6 percent, in the production areas 8.1
percent, and in the administrative offices and on salaried pay rolls
35.2 percent. The proportion of women in production work varied
by plant from 3.2 percent to 16.1 percent. The scope of the survey
is set forth in the following tabulation:
Employees
In all employment
Area

Num­
ber
of
mills

Num­
ber

Women

Women

Women
Total

In office and other
work

On production

Per­
cent
of
total

Total

Num­
ber

Per­
cent
of
total

Total

Num­
ber

Per­
cent
of
total

All areas visited _

41 278,986

29,498

10.6 253,024 20,369

8.1

25,962 9,129

35.2

PittsburghY oungsto wn
area.. _ ---------Buffalo area..----Chicago-Gary area.
West Virginia------Other 1-----------------

19 119,509
15,450
3
68,285
9
7 21,498
3 54,244

12,073
1,318
8,914
3,312
3,881

10.1 107,459 7,952
13,830 1,014
8.5
13.1 60,644 6,125
15.4 20,346 2,676
7.2 50,745 2,602

7.4
7.3
10.1
13.2
5.1

12,050 4,121
1,620
304
7,641 2,789
1,152
636
3,499 1,279

34.2
18.8
36.5
55.2
36.1

i One mill in Colorado, one in Sparrows Point, Md., and one in Bethlehem, Pa.

While all the major divisions of steelmaking have women em­
ployees, it seems true that the more closely a job is associated with
the handling of basic raw materials, the less suitable the job is
deemed to be for women. The ore docks, the receiving and storage
yards, the coke and by-products plants, the blast furnaces and the
steel furnaces—the open-hearth, Bessemer-converter, and electric
furnaces—offer an extremely limited field for the employment of
women and actually the proportion of the women in these divisions
is small. In the rolling mills there are more possibilities of em­
ploying women, and there are still more in the fabricating and
finishing divisions. The laboratories, the maintenance, service,
and clerical divisions, with a large number of jobs that might be
considered incidental rather than related directly to steelmaking,
probably offer the most in possibilities for the effective utilization
of women. The laboratories and plant offices seem to afford op­
portunities for their continued post-war employment.



Women’s Employment

in

Steel, 1943

5

The steel industry is highly technical and specialized and the
visitor going into the plants to observe the work of the women is
unable to comprehend many of the intricacies and technologies of
the industry. The job terminology used in the plants varies, as
does the scope of the duties ascribed to a job. Conditions vary
with the size, the modernity, and the product of mills. The ob­
jective of the Women’s Bureau in the present study of the steel
industry is not an exhaustive treatise of the possibilities of em­
ploying women in the industry, but a report on the conditions under
which women are employed and the suitability of the work for
women, since this industry has always been in the category of a
heavy non-woman-employing type.
WORK OF WOMEN IN THE STEEL PLANTS

Only basic steel mills were included in this survey. The extent
or degree of integration of types of furnaces and mills varied.
Some of the plants were fully integrated, with coke ovens and by­
products plants; blast furnaces; sintering plants; steel furnaces—
open hearth, Bessemer converter, and electric; rolling mills— '
blooming, billet, slab, bar, rod, wire, plate, skelp, strip, sheet, and
tin-plate units; and finishing and final-fabrication departments.
Quite a number of the plants visited did not have coke plants, and
some did not have blast furnaces or steel furnaces, but all had
rolling mills.
*
Handling of raw materials.
Receiving departments for handling ore, coal or coke, limestone,
and other raw materials usually are in or adjacent to the blast­
furnace area. Plants on the Great Lakes receive most of their
ore supply by boat. Only one plant had women working at the
ore docks. The boats are unloaded by electric ore bridge cranes
which scoop up 15 to 20 tons in each bucket load and empty a
boat in a few hours. The grab-buckets cannot clean up around
the sides and edges, so labor gangs go down into the bottoms of
the boats and sweep and shovel up the leavings of ore into little
piles for removal by special hoists. A crew of women—chiefly
Negro—with a woman gang leader has been employed for several
months, going from boat to boat as needed. When there are no
boats ready for cleaning, they are employed around the docks and
stock yards as a part of the general clean-up labor gang. Only
the strong and husky woman who does not mind close association
with dirt can be placed on such work. Ore, coal, and limestone are
heavy to handle even when using a small shovel.
Women were seen in rail receiving yards as car dumpers and car
washers working on railroad platforms and trestles. Car dumpers
with lever controls release mechanisms which tip cars or drop
bottom gates so that the contents can be dumped into hoppers, cars,
or chutes for storage or transfer to the stock houses. After the
cars are dumped, women climb inside and with shovels push re­
maining materials through the bottom. In some cases this last
job requires an awkward stance on a slanting footing and neces­
sitates the wearing of safety belts. Car washers—women—work­
ing from trestle-high platforms wash the cars out with a heavy



6

Women’s Employment

in

Steel, 1943

force hose. Mixed labor crews of men and women carry on all
sorts of general clean-up work around the tracks and yards and
women are reported as helping with the repair of road beds, laying
tracks, and tamping the earth up around the rails. As transfercar and dinkey operators, a few women in several mills are moving
materials around the yards from stock piles to bins and furnaces.
Comparatively few women are found in these sections because in
many cases management does not consider the work or conditions
fit for women. Generally the jobs in the yards have a slow tempo
and in good weather are not too bad, but in cold weather the ex­
posure to all degrees of wind, rain, snow, and low temperatures
changes the conditions of the job and also increases the effort
required in clean-up work as materials freeze fast to the insides
of cars, around the tracks, and on the roadways.
Coke plants.
At most mills there is a marked hesitancy to employ women or
even to consider them for employment on jobs around the coke
plant. Only 7 of the 41 plants have women workers in the cokeoven section. The deterrents to the employment of women are
the same as in the steel processes—that much of the work for
which recruits are needed is of a heavy nature, all-round labor,
and is accompanied by exposure to heat, dirt, and fumes, and the
worst kinds of weather. Laborer is the only job designation on
which any sizable number of women ^.re reported, and their work
is the usual clean-up. Steel is a dirty business and yard and plant
clean-up is never ending. Types of coke ovens vary; some have
self-sealing doors on the pusher side and others must be calked
around the opening with a special fire-clay mud known as “lute.”
Where the doors must be luted, a mud car travels from oven to
oven and has an elevator mechanism for lifting the worker up and
down along the doors. A few women as lutermen and luterman
helpers are breaking the jam around the doors, chipping off carbon
and old lute between charging operations. They also mix the lute
in a basement section below the coke ovens. Lute was reported
as made of fire clay, coke dust, ashes, and water. Mixing it and
spreading it out to dry is a wet and dirty job.
No women were found as chargers of coke furnaces, as “pushers”,
on the ramming mechanism that pushes the coke into the quench-'
ing cars, nor on the quenching cars. Such jobs are considered too
heavy or too hard for women. One plant was contemplating the
employment of women on the top of the coke ovens to close the
doors after charging, a job accompanied by some exposure to
carbon monoxide fumes. Two plants reported having tried women
as “wharfman” in the coke plant. The wharfman opens iron gates
to release coke that has been dumped from the quenching car
through a screening process bnto conveyors below that carry it
to the blast-furnace stock house. Wharfmen are reported as open­
ing the gate controls hundreds of times in a turn of 8 hours. The
women who were tried on the job found it too hard and after a
short time either quit or were transferred to lighter work. Another
job on which women were reported in the coke plant was that of
“apron-conveyor operator,” an inspection job of watching pulver­
ized coke as it moves by and sorting out pieces of iron or wood



Women’s Employment

in

Steel, 1943

7

that may cause difficulty in later processes. These are outside
jobs in the coke-oven section and most of them are heavy labor.
Again, in the by-products plants connected with coke ovens the
representation of women workers is decidedly limited. The proc­
essing and tending of large retorts and stills require training and
experience over long periods. Also, the number of jobs and work­
ers needed is relatively small. Occasionally women are found serv­
ing as pump attendants and stillman’s helpers, watching the gages,
taking readings, starting and stopping pumps as directed. Women
on platforms level with the tops of tank cars on railroad sidings
fill the tanks with by-products. This job is merely one of opening
and closing valves and inserting and removing the hose. Another
job typical of Work assigned to women in the coke and by-products
plants is the bagging of sulphates, which is the customary process
of filling bags, sewing the tops, and shoving them along on roller
conveyors to a railroad car pulled up to the loading dock. A few
girls in one mill listed as “efficiency girls” are working on charts
and collecting coal and coke samples and serving as test girls.
Women are not employed on the primary processes in the by­
products section, and the jobs they are doing seem not beyond
their strength and endurance.
Blast-furnace division.
No women were seen by Women’s Bureau agents on jobs directly
concerned with the charging, tending, or tapping of the blast fur­
naces. Of the women in the industry in the late months of 1943,
indications are that less than 5 percent are assigned to the blast­
furnace sections and few of these work in close proximity to the
actual furnaces. Most of the women are on the clean-up crews,
shoveling spilled ore into piles and carting it away in wheelbarrows,
and serving as helpers on labor gangs cleaning up around the
furnace yard and tracks. Some women as stove-repairman helpers
are handing tools and supplies to the workmen, running errands,
and assisting with the cleaning out of ashes and soot from the
honeycombed flues. The air blasts are cut off and the stoves are
cooling, but the work is extremely dirty, sometimes hot, and in­
volves the hazard of stumbling and falling on the rough footing.
Other jobs on which a small number of women are reported in
the blast-furnace area are larryman and larryman’s helper, pan­
man, filterman, topman, and castings and cinder crane operators.
The larryman operates a small electric car that carries raw
materials—ore, limestone, and coke—from the stock house to the
skip car. The latter hoists them to the top of the blast furnace.
The larry shuttles back and forth in a tunnel-like passageway below
the ground level, of the furnaces. The operation and dumping of
the car are by simple electric controls and not strenuous, but the
car vibrates, and in collecting the load of raw materials the opera­
tor must handle bin doors in the stock house which, though pro­
vided usually with special mechanisms for opening and closing,
sometimes stick and require considerable effort to manage them.
The larryman’s helper closes the bin doors that do not function
properly and cleans up around the tracks. In one plant where
several women had been tried out as larrymen, the foreman re­
ported that only one of the women had been able to carry on the



8

Women’s Employment

in

Steel, 1943

work to the full job standards. Drafts, fumes, and dust are defi­
nitely present and strenuous struggles with balky doors possible
if not probable. The job of larryman does not seem suitable for
women.
Women as topman, cleaning off the tops of blast-furnace stoves
50 or more feet above ground, have been reported in only one plant.
Twice a day a crew of 6 or 7 women climb to the top of the blast­
furnace stoves and for about an hour shovel up the soot and ac­
cumulated ore dust. Special one-hour breathing apparatus, a
respirator, is provided for protection against toxic gases and
fumes. The “topwomen” are equipped with goggles and with hard
hats for protection against flying particles and falling objects.
Most plants do not consider top cleaning a suitable job for women.
The topman is exposed to all types of weather, and working at
dizzy heights in wind, sleet, and snow is not a job to be relished
by any woman, least of all by those new and inexperienced.
No women are employed on cranes that carry molten metal.
In one plant a woman cinder-crane operator tends the controls that
scoop cinders from a pile near the blast furnace and dump them
into a nearby railroad car, and in another a woman controls the
crane that moves and stacks “pigs” in the storage shed.
The job of a filterman reported for women in the blast-furnace
area is one of tending water valves and 'watching gages in a small
enclosed room.
In a couple of plants a woman “panman” mixes the fire clay—
shoveling the materials into a mixing mill—for sealing the casting
hole that seals the blast furnace. The work is carried on in a
blast-furnace shed. Mud mixing is not a full-time job and is in­
cidental to other labor.
One husky woman is a most effective blacksmith’s helper in a
maintenance shop, and in the larger mills where there are separate
maintenance shops for the blast furnaces women are bench work­
ers, oilers, and helpers on the machines.
Jobs around a sintering plant are all dirty and chiefly of a labor
grade. The sintering plant salvages ore dust and blast-furnace
flue dust by mixing it with water and spreading it on moving
conveyors that carry it under gas flames for baking into clinkery
masses known as sinters, which are charged back to the furnace.
Quite a number of women in sintering plants work on dumping the
cars of ore and dust, inspecting along the sides of the coveyor to
remove lumps of slag and foreign matter, shoveling up spills along
the conveyor lines, screening coal and dust, carrying tests to the
laboratory, and so forth. All the work is classed as labor. Most of
the women are Negro and they are reported as moving as much
dirt and materials as men. Everything around a sintering plant
is covered with iron dust. Siderosis from exposure to such dust
may cause pulmonary difficulties, but the workers seen were not
wearing respirators; nor did they wear goggles.
As a whole, the blast furnaces and their immediate surround­
ings offer little opportunity for the satisfactory utilization of
women. Though heavy materials are lifted and moved by
mechanical equipment, the controls may be heavy to handle.
Unskilled-labor jobs, where the need for manpower is a problem,
usually require an employee who can do heavy as well as light



Women’s Employment

in

Steel, 1943

9

work. Employees working, anywhere near the blast furnaces are
exposed to heat and to sudden changes in temperature in going
from one section to another in the yards and open shed-like
buildings; to carbon monoxide fumes; to burn hazards; and with
the many semi-dark passageways and smoky interiors, uncertain
footings of brick and tamped earth, the possibility of stumbling
and falling on tracks, materials, and equipment is always present.
Unless there is a critical shortage of male labor, the inexperienced,
unhardened woman who comes to the steel mills as a war worker
for a temporary perifid, with little probability of remaining long
enough to be eligible for the better jobs, should not be given
strenuous or hazardous work. From the practical standpoint, it
would seem that the services of women in most of the labor jobs
of the area can be of only marginal value because of the heavy
nature of the work.
Steel furnaces.
The numbers and proportions of women in the open-hearth,
Bessemer-converter, and electric-steelmaking furnaces are small.
In 17 mills showing numbers of women by department in the fall of
1943, only 5 percent of the women were employed in the steel-fur­
nace area. About 90 percent of steel is processed by the openhearth method, which takes the pig iron from the blast furnaces,
with scrap iron, alloys, and other ingredients, and cooks them into
commercial steel. Most of the open-hearth furnaces are sur­
rounded by a seeming jumble of tracks, broken floors, piles of
brick, cars of scrap iron, overhead cranes carrying hundreds of tons
of molten metal, charging machines, ingot trains, and smoking
locomotives. Whistles and bells are signaling operators to their
posts or warning workers to move from the path of approaching
objects. One of the chief hazards of working in the open-hearth
section is the environment—a worker must be watchful and agile
in avoiding moving objects. Women are not employed on jobs
hazardous in themselves, but the surroundings are hazardous.
In the open-hearth as in the blast-furnace division, mill officials
tend to be careful about the jobs on which women are introduced.
Women are not employed as charging operators, melters, tappers,
pourers, or helpers on jobs where molten steel is involved. Han­
dling controls that open and close the furnace doors from a position
25 to 30 feet back from the furnace heat is about the closest a
woman comes to being a steelmaker. Women like the job of door
operator or door puller. Usually women’s jobs are largely of a
related or an auxiliary service type. As laborers, they do general
yard and track clean-up work, unload and stack brick for the use
of the bricklayers, unload hot-top rings for ingot molds, hand
bricks and balls of clay to masons relining ladles and repairing fur­
naces. In one instance noted, women were allowed to place the
bricks in position on the last few rows of the ladle relining—were
actually serving as bricklayer learners and liked it.
Checker-chamber cleaning is one of the hard and disagreeable
jobs that women are assigned to. Every two or three weeks the
bottoms, the lower levels, of the open-hearth furnace must be
rebuilt. The furnace is down and the checker chamber usually
has been hosed out before the clean-up crew goes to work tearing



10

Women’s Employment

in

Steel, 1943

out the bottoms and cleaning the flues. The temperature has
dropped thousands of degrees but it may still be from 100 to 120
degrees when the laborers begin working. Men break up the
bottoms and women pick up the pieces either by tongs or by hand
and load them into wheelbarrows to be pushed out in the yards.
The place is dusty, windy, sooty, and may be hot. Some of the
bricks weigh 7 pounds or more and about 5,000 bricks may be
knocked out in the course of cleaning the checker chamber. The
women wear gloves to protect their hands and some of them wear
woolen work clothes. Women usually do n6t work continuously
at this job—in some cases three days a week of this and the other
three at general labor. Women share in the bonus or incentive rate
and like the earnings but not the conditions of work.
Another job of a labor status on which women may work in
the open hearth is knocking off the hot top. Special varieties of
steel are poured into ingots that have a superstructure of bricks
or hot-top rings on the molds. Before this type of mold is stripped
from the ingot, the ingot train is pulled past a high platform on
which men and women stand and knock off the “hot top,” using a
long iron bar that rests on the top of a metal-apron heat shield.
With one or two sharp blows the hot top is removed. It is a hot
job but not a continuous one; it may take less than an hour daily.
Women have done as well as men on this job and like it.
As scrapmen women assist with the loading of scrap into the
charging cars. Crane operators convey the scrap to the car by
magnets. At the proper spot the women signal the operator to
release the magnetic force and drop the load into the car. Some
of the scrap steel may project over the sides of the charging car
and the women climb or work from a platform, pushing the scrap
into a compact load. They serve also as hookers, adjusting the
hooks for the crane operator to pick up loads of scrap. Women
using an oxyacetylene burning torch are employed in the scrap
yard to cut scrap into manageable-sized pieces. In the stock yard
or ingot shed women act as hookers, placing the cables around the
ears of the ingot mold for stripping the ingots.
Many of the jobs for women in the open-hearth division are
semiclerical in nature, soft-collar jobs, which entail no physical
strain but some of which expose women to the work surroundings
of a furnace region. A woman noted by the Women’s Bureau
agent whose job designation was “ingot shipper” was responsible
for ordering the proper ingot molds for dispatch to the pouring
platform. She received the orders as to the weights of ingots to
be poured and transmitted the instructions to the pourers. It
was responsible clerical work that required considerable walking.
Test carriers convey small sample pourings to open-hearth labor­
atories and check carbon content on carbometers. Using spectrographic equipment and pyrometers, sighting instruments for de­
termining heat, women work in close proximity to the furnaces.
In some mills women using pyrometers go to the platform where
metal is. being poured from ladles into the ingot molds and observe
the reactions of metal.
Near the Bessemer converter, women observe the color of the
flame during the “blow” and signal to the melter when the moment
has arrived to stop the blow. The melter also is watching and has



Women’s Employment

in

Steel, 1943

11

the final responsibility. Women are doing a number of miscel­
laneous jobs as observers and recorders, clerks keeping tallies of
delays, time checkers, tracers of orders and heat numbers, alloy
clerks keeping records of alloys dispensed, and weighers working
in enclosed cabs, close to the furnace, recording the weights of
unfilled and filled ladles. The job last mentioned is hot while the
metal is being poured. Except for work on the checker chambers,
what is being done by women is not heavy. The tempo of the work
is not fast, and compared with most woman-employing industries
the women have more leisure than on line-production jobs and there
is less monotony. The chief hazard to women in the steel-furnace
division is that of the environment.
Rolling mills.
Rolling mills employ more women than the earlier processes of
steelmaking. About 2 of every 5 women plant workers are in
rolling mills. More women are found in the wire, tin-plate, mer­
chant, bar, and strip mills than in the bloom, billet, rail, structural,
slab, and plate mills, the latter group having heavier products.
Women are working at hot jobs but most of them are on the later
cold processes and on the auxiliary jobs of inspection, checking,
observing, tool-room attending, crane operating and hooking, and
clean-up. The majority of the women in the rolling mills, as else­
where, are classed as laborers, with plant-housekeeping and
“helpers” duties.
The bloom, billet, and slab mills are the rough basic rolling
mills. Ingots, usually hot from the steel furnaces, are carried
by heavy cranes (men operators) to large pits where they are
soaked in heat to temperatures of over 2000° F. Women are
being employed as cover operators to open and close the doors of
the soaking pits. The levers that control the doors are handled
either on a shuttle-like carriage that travels the length of the
pits or from elevated platforms on the sides. The worker is
exposed to radiant heat but it is not a direct or especially intense
heat. No women are reported as heater helpers, bottom makers,
croppers, butt pullers, rollers, or manipulators. Rollers and
manipulators are craftsmen with years of experience in steelmak­
ing and women could not qualify for these jobs. Cropping off the
butt end of the ingot before it goes into the rolls and pulling off
the butts with heavy tongs into the scrap chutes are heavy and
very hot jobs, decidedly unsuitable for women. Marking hot
blooms, billets, and slabs with a blow from a hammer that has a
die sunk in its head is hot and strenuous, but a woman was reported
as working on this job. A few women scalers were throwing salt
on hot slabs, a noisy and dangerous job because of the hazard of
flying sparks and scale, and a few women were quenching the
heat of slabs and washing off the scale with an ordinary water
hose. In one plant a woman on each turn stands on a platform
near the slab-heating furnace and sweeps scale off before the slabs
are pushed into the furnace. Women observers, recorders, heat
chasers, while not doing any work of a strenuous nature, are
exposed to heat and the general hazards of the room. One woman
observer was indicating to the crane operator the pits from which
ingots were to be withdrawn for rolling after checking the heat
with an optical heat-checking device.



12

,

Women’s Employment

in

Steel, 1943

In the conditioning of billets, blooms, and slabs in the storage
yards or docks, a relatively small number of women compared to
men are scarfers, grinders, and billeteer operators on conditioning
jobs. Snags and surface imperfections on blooms, billets, and
slabs are removed by chipping, grinding, and scarfing. No women
were found on chipping at the time of the survey, though some
plants had tried women. Chipping with pneumatic tools on steel
is too heavy a job for women, who are not able to stand the vibra­
tion. Women are using portable hand grinders and fixed swing
grinders—the latter sometimes known as Mexican grinders. Most
of the work with grinders is heavy and requires arm pressure and
other muscular strains. Where the work assignment requires
continuous application of grinders, it has proved too heavy for
women.
In some mills women mark surface defects part of the time as
a change from grinding. In one plant where women had been
tried on swing grinders the management took them off after a
short try-out as the women could not stand the back and arm
strain. Scarfing, burning away defects with an oxyacetylene torch,
•is done occasionally by women. Scarfing is not such heavy work
as grinding but there is danger of burns and the fumes from the
burning metal are a gastric irritant. Sparks cascade from both
grinders and burning torches, but the burning hazard is consider­
ably less from the first. On scarfing women wear protective cloth­
ing similar to that worn by welders. Turning the billets, blooms,
and slabs even with mechanical aids is heavy work and women re­
quire extra labor assistance. If this is not available the work is too
strenuous. The women like the scarfers’ and grinders’ earnings,
but for most of them the job is too arduous and demanding physi­
cally. Billeteer machines that gouge the surface with revolving
chisel-like tools are tended by women in a few plants. The work is
placed by hoists and the tending does not seem strenuous.
The utilization of women, being still in the try-out stage, varies
markedly from plant to plant and within the mills in the same
plant. Women are shifted around from day to day over a wide
area, so in some instances it is difficult to get a clear idea of the
full extent to which women are employed, the hazards, and the
special job arrangements made for them. Crane operating, crane
following and hooking, checking, marking and painting identifica­
tions on all kinds of steel, inspecting, and weighing are jobs com­
mon to all types of rolling mills. Usually only the lighter cranes—
10- or 15-ton types—are handled by women and they are not over
hot furnaces. Some of the older cranes have controls that are
difficult to manipulate, but the new cranes are all suitable for
women, who have been found to be as good crane operators as the
men. As chainmen, hookers, and crane followers, women follow the
cranes, wrap chains around the ends of steel products or attach
the hooks and signal the operator for the lifting or release of the
load. Usually this job is suitable for women, but it is not desirable
if the hooker is required to lift, turn, or push the products to
attach the chains or hooks. Instances were reported where women
hookers have been unable to do the job because the heaviness of the
work required too much extra assistance for effective woman
utilization.




Women’s Employment

in

Steel, 1943

13

Women checkers and recorders keep tallies of the sizes, process
and heat numbers, and weights, check shipping orders, and do
floor clerical work. Women loaders are really checkers, check­
ing shipping invoices and counting pieces. Sometimes the loader
signals the crane operator, but the loader’s work does not involve
any physical strain.
Painting the end of billets, bars, marking blooms, slabs, plates
and other products with identifying marks is a paint-brush or
crayon job and is done as well by women as by men. In an armorplate mill women were stepping out on a hot plate as it came along
on the cooling bed, inspecting it, and marking defects and identifica­
tion. The women wore heavy wood-soled shoes, as the plate was
still hot.
Women hot-bed operators were not common. The hot-bed
operator sits in a raised pulpit above or at one side of the cooling
beds and operates levers to move bars and strips of steel to the
proper tracks on the conveyor. The job can be done by women
and occasionally is, but the tendency is to reserve such jobs for
older men who have long service records and are no longer able
to do strenuous work. A similar controlman’s job is tending the
“screws” in bar mills and is sometimes done by women. The screwman regulates the distance between rolls.
In the merchant and bar mills, some women are tending the
shears or saws that cut bars into prescribed lengths and more are
working as helpers, raking the hot bars down into cradles, banding
them with wire or narrow metal strip, attaching the chains and
signaling the crane operator to remove them.
Women were operating straightening machines for flat-surface
bars, but the straightening of rods or rounds where a rotary
straightener is used is too strenuous and hazardous for them, as
the round bars whip around at the feeding end and there is marked
vibration as well as a decided danger of being struck by the bar.
Some bars are finished by turning in a centerless grinding
machine, and these are tended by women satisfactorily. Visually
inspecting the bars by rolling them along on skids is another job
quite often assigned to women in merchant and bar mills.
Merchant mills make thousands of steel products to buyers’ speci­
fications and the work varies in type and heaviness.
In one of the strip mills visited, one-fourth of the workers in the
finishing department were women. Besides the usual auxiliary
jobs, small numbers of women operate the levers of the speed
regulator controlling the movement of the strip through some of
the rolling mechanism. It is a pulpit job, watching dials and pull­
ing levers. In one mill a woman looper operator was working along
in the same pulpit with the speed regulator handling the levers
that retard the speed of a length of strip by throwing the strips
in slight arcs when a momentary slow-down is needed to syn­
chronize movement of strip in the rolls. A few women serve as
shear and slitter operators, but as yet women are chiefly helpers
on these jobs. On leveling machines, women are operators’ helpers
and catchers of the small-size sheets. As scrapmen, women collect
scrap, cut it with burning torches and shears, and bale and tag it
for furnace charging. In the pickling, the branning, and the bonderizing sections, women are used as helpers and sometimes as



14

Women’s Employment

in

Steel, 1943

operators at machines such as those feeding sheets into the
scrubbers, wiping and piling them as they come out of baths and
off machines. Hot coils of strip and hoop steel are banded, marked,
and tagged by women directly as they are dispatched from the
coiling machine and still very hot. The work is not heavy but there
is danger of burns and the heat is intense when exposed to several
coils. Frequent spells are a necessity, and in one mill where
the workers (men and women) had worked 15 minutes and spelled
15 minutes, the periods had been changed to 40 minutes of work
and 20 minutes of spell time, which the men felt was insufficient
for themselves and especially so for the women. The largest
number of women on any job in the light plate, strip, and sheet
mills are still the assorters in the tin-plate mill.
In the rolling of heavy plate, considerably more than half the
women were laborers. Other women were grinding, scarfing, shot
blasting, and cutting plate with oxyacetylene torches, and piling
plate. Weighers read scales and record weights. The weigher’s
job sometimes requires ability to use a slide rule and when many
grades of steel are coming through is complicated.
In mills specializing on manufacturing tubular products, tubes,
pipes, and cylinders of many kinds, some of the direct production
jobs that women are filling are cutting or sawing lengths of pipe,
blowing the scale from the inside, distributing pipes or tubes to
designated furnaces by platform controls, straightening, thread­
ing, marking, and testing the pipes.
In the wire mills where coiled rods are drawn through a succes­
sion of dies, annealed, spun, twisted, braided, and woven into a
great variety of products, women are employed on some of the
direct production processes of drawing, cutting, spooling, welding,
and fabrication on the finer and lighter wires.
Possibilities of effective utilization of women workers in the
rolling mills seem more auspicious than in the earlier steelmaking
processes. Exposure to extreme heat is a deterrent to the use of
women on some of the jobs near reheating and annealing furnaces,
and special efforts to safeguard inexperienced women workers must
be observed, as must sufficient rest periods. Heavy lifting does
not seem to be an acute problem as the products are handled by
mechanical devices.
In all the rolling mills there are many opportunities for the em­
ployment of women in clerical work, weighing, shipping, inspect­
ing, tool-crib and storeroom tending, plant maintenance and protec­
tion, and laboratory testing, which are much the same in steel as in
other industries.
Fabrication.
In addition to such basic rolled products as billets, plates, rails,
structural steel, rods, bars, tubes, and wire, many of the rolling
mills are carrying on further fabrication in their foundries, forges,
press, machining, and finishing departments on normal products.
Examples of these are wheels, structural parts, nails, spikes, bolts,
nuts, and woven-wire products. During the present war period
these plants have been working also on disks for ammunition,
heavy projectiles, gun forgings, propeller shafts, landing mats,
torpedo nets, and other items for the combat services. The war



Women’s Employment

in

Steel, 1943

15

products generally were new, the possibilities of employing and
placing women were explored earlier than in the basic steel proc­
esses, and the proportion of women employed is greater than in
the older departments; in some, one-fourth to one-third of the
employees are women.
Jobs that in many cases had been filled by boys in the nail and
spike mills, such as operating tumblers polishing and cleaning
nails, packing them in kegs, threading bolts and screws, tapping
nuts, forming the heads of nails and spikes on upsetting machines,
operating tractors and lift trucks, inspecting, making kegs and
boxes for shipping, weighing, and loading cars, are employing
women, though in normal times these jobs were not considered
desirable for women because many of them involve the handling
of heavy materials and the operating of machines not customarily
assigned to women. Additional labor service is provided on some
jobs and in many cases conveyors and hoists have been installed.
Foremen and management representatives are almost unanimous
in reporting that the ability and output of women in replacing men
have been satisfactory.
On the munitions products of many kinds that are being manu­
factured by the steel mills, women are found in the forge, heattreatment, foundry, machining, and final assembly and finishing
departments. In the machine shops and assembly departments
women’s work is similar to that in shops not connected with steel
mills doing heavy metal fabrication. Women are operating all
types of machine tools, drills, and boring machines, lathes, milling
machines, grinding machines, punch presses, saws, and specialduty machines. The work is heavier and usually slower in its
timing, since in much of the work heavy hoists and hand cranes
are used by both men and women in setting up the work. In some
places set-up men serve both men and women; in others, women
often set up the machines. Women are working with the men on
lay-out work, following blueprints, and on templates, using scrib­
ing tools and center punches. In an armor-plate mill where
parts are fabricated for combat vehicles, women are doing the
major part of the lay-out, are doing most of the cutting of contour
parts with single-torched oxyacetylene burners, and are cutting
long straight parts with gang or multiple fixed-position burners.
The work is not heavy but requires skill in directing the burners
along contour lines. There is an ever present hazard of burns and
glare from the torches. The women wear goggles, have leggings
or spats, a work garment with a high buttoned shirt, and sleeve
protectors; their hair is covered with both a cap and a scarf to
restrain any locks that may be a fire hazard. Beveling and condi­
tioning the edges of cut surfaces also is done with torches.
In the heat-treat departments visited, women are working as
preheater-furnace attendants, charging and tending special rotary
furnaces for shells, dipping shells in molten-lead pots, and starting
and controlling heats and timing the large furnaces and annealing
ovens in which propellers, gun barrels, and armor-plate parts are
being conditioned. Heater helpers keep records of cold materials
going into furnace, heat time, and temperatures. Tending furnaces
is hot work, but the periods during which the worker is exposed to
high degrees of heat are short and fully as much or more time is



16

Women’s Employment

in

Steel, 1943

spent in watching gages and controls in booths apart from the
furnaces. None of the work of the women furnace attendants is
strenuous from the standpoint of weight handled.
Women are doing inspection, quality-control checking, and
observing and recording furnace temperatures with sighting in­
struments such as the pyrometer. They are found also on the
usual incidental jobs of cleaning-up, crane operating and follow­
ing, tractor and lift-truck operating, and painting with spray guns
and brushes.
Quality-control and laboratory workers.
In the research, metallurgical, and chemical laboratories of the
steel plants, there are many jobs of a professional, routine, cler­
ical, and manual nature that can be filled as well by women as by
men. In some of the mills the laboratories were the first depart­
ment to induct women workers. In a few the numbers of women
employed exceed those of men.
The number of women who are professional chemists and
metallurgists doing research and analyzing steel is small, and the
number of jobs of this type, too, is limited. Most of the testing is
routine and repetitive work that requires little scientific back­
ground on the part of the employee but does require ability to
follow instructions and careful laboratory techniques. Testing
processes have been broken down. Women are found to be at least
as good and often better than men in following detailed pro­
cedures under supervision. The praise of women as laboratory
aides in steel is spontaneous and unsolicited.
Preparing tests of steel for microscopic inspection and testing
involves machining, and women are operating various kinds of
machine tools—drills, lathes, grinders; using polishing wheels,
saws; and doing such hand bench operations as etching, burring,
and grinding. Some of the tests are heavy—weighing from 50
to 80 pounds—but most are small and can easily be handled by
women. One mill at least had a new installation of roller con­
veyors in its laboratory so as to expedite the work of the women
test preparers.
Routine hardness testing on all types of devices such as the
Rockwell, Brinnell, and Scleroscope is a common job for women.
Carbon content for some testing is checked by women using the
carbometer. Women tend miniature heat-treat furnaces. Spark
testers observing the color of sparks on test operations determine
the properties of tubes being cut. Records of tests, of course, must
be precise and detailed, so laboratory workers generally are selected
from women with at least a background of a high-school education
if not more formal training.
Women laboratory aides not only work in the central laborato­
ries, but in the large plants are found in specialized laboratories
in the coke-oven, blast-furnace, open-hearth, and rolling-mill
areas.
Beginners in the laboratory often start as test carriers or mes­
sengers between the operating location and the testing divisions.
On this job the messenger may be exposed to all the hazards of the
areas to which the work carries her.



Women’s Employment

in

Steel, 1943

17

In some plants all laboratory work and most of the inspection
stem from a centralized quality-control department. With such
organization, observers, pyrometer readers, and inspectors in the
basic mills all report back to a central office. Few women as yet
know enough about steel processing to take over much of the
highly technical work, but the utilization of women in this type of
job has already made strides and it would seem to be one of the
places where there is a definite post-war possibility of employing
women.
Maintenance shops and miscellaneous services.
Women are workers in the maintenance shops of most of the
plants. The large mills where there is greater feasibility of job
specialization and break-down have a greater proportion of women,
as the lighter jobs not requiring an experienced mechanic can be
assigned to them. The electrical repair shop in steel mills has
been considered one of the most satisfactory and effective spots
to employ women. They repair and wind armatures, tape wires,
dip coils in insulating varnishes and bake them in ovens, clean and
inspect bearings and brushes, and do assembly, inspection, and
miscellaneous bench-work jobs. One woman was seen splicing
cables. Even in the electrical shop, work that would be suitable
for women in a light industry is out of the question because of the
size and weight of the heavy-duty equipment used in the steel in­
dustry. Then too, in all maintenance shops the possibilities of
having line-production methods, conveyors, hoists, and so forth
are limited because of the variety of work.
In blacksmith and boiler shops, a few women are helpers tending
hammers, following the blacksmith’s signals, welding, being
“stick-in” men setting hot rivets into holes for the riveter, and
doing lay-out and fabrication of sheet metal. The making, pasting,
and cleaning of cores and the acting as molders’ helpers are new
women’s jobs in foundries of the steel industry.
Women machine operators on lathes, drill presses, milling ma­
chines, shapers, grinders, and saws, and bench jobs cleaning and
burring small parts, are found to a limited extent in the machine
shops. Much of the machine-maintenance work is on very heavy
equipment requiring the use of large machines and tools in handling
and setting up, and, as in the electrical shop, the possibilities of
employing women are limited by the nature of the job. Grinding,
polishing, and lapping tools and dies are tasks that have proved
very satisfactory for women.
Women are helpers in the shops where rolls are repaired for
rolling mills.
Cleaning chips and scraps out of machine pits—a shoveling job
that is dirty and greasy; housekeeping and general clean-up;
tending tool cribs and storerooms; operating tractors and cranes;
running errands and carrying messages, are among the incidental
jobs held by women in the maintenance shops.
In the matter of skill the women in the maintenance shops vary
from the unskilled clean-up worker to machine operators who are
carefully following lay-outs and blueprints, doing their own set-up
and diversified work on lathes. Giving preference for shop women
to those who have had vocational training in machine-shop tech­
niques and standards was reported in several cases.



18

Women’s Employment

in

Steel, 1943

Blast-furnace gas is frequently used for driving turbines for
electric power and generating steam, and the power plant is likely
to be close to the blast-furnace area. Where a blast furnace is not
a part of the plant, the power plant is like that of any heavy in­
dustry. About one-fourth of the mills had women in their power
plants and-in at least one the women were one-third or more of
the oilers and greasers. The oiler wipes the machinery, turns down
grease cups, and crawls around watching turbines and engines
while they are in motion. Women clean the flues of boilers with
compressed air hose. Where blast-furnace gas is used, a leak in
an intake pipe lets loose the hazard of carbon-monoxide poisoning.
The plants train workers in gas prevention and rescue techniques,
and generally the rules require that employees so arrange their
work as to be at all times within close call and eye reach of a fellow
worker for aid and quick action in case of gas leaks. Clerical en­
gineering aides, recorders, air-compressor operators, water-soft­
ener helpers, and power-station tenders are other jobs in the power
area reported for women. The work of the women in the power
plants is light, requires considerable intelligence, and seems suit­
able for the few women that it is possible to employ.
Bricks are continuously on the move in a steel plant. Hundreds
of kinds of brick, varying in size and refractory characteristics,
are used to repair and rebuild furnaces, checker chambers, soaking
pits, and coke ovens and in general maintenance. The handling
of bricks as stores or supplies is a labor job and is one to which
a good many women have been assigned. Women unload the in­
coming bricks in sheds or yards, stacking them by size and type.
Weights of the individual bricks vary from a pound or two to more
than ten pounds. Roller conveyors, tow and lift trucks, are used
to push them around and the tempo of the work is not speeded,
so there appears to be no marked physical strain for women of
average strength. The women fill orders, loading according to
specifications on trucks or railroad cars, and sometimes follow­
ing on foot or by truck to deliver and unload the bricks in piles at
their destination. Women are reported as liking very much to
be on the loading and delivery gang, as the work has variety and
takes them around the plant area. In one plant a woman group
leader in masonry was enthusiastic about her job and her knowl­
edge of the many kinds of brick and stacking techniques. In the
steelmaking and other areas women distribute the bricks in small
piles near the spot where needed, and often hand the bricks one
by one to the bricklayer as his helper.
The yards of a steel mill are a meshwork of tracks, high lines,
and roads for receiving goods, moving materials and products
around the area, and shipping. Women laborers act as part of
the road gang on highways, cleaning, oiling, and spreading crushed
rock for highway repairs. They work also as cleaners-up on the
tracks and helpers on track repair. Women drive trucks and
serve as chauffeurs for company cars in and outside of the area,
for the plant transportation and delivery system. Women brakemen and switchmen are not common, but several plants are using
them and the women are riding on the fronts of the engines
throwing the switches and coupling and uncoupling cars according



Women’s Employment

in

Steel, 1943

19

to the orders of the crew chief. A few women are working in
the railroad repair shops attached to the mills, and are doing work
similar to that of women in the shops of the regular carriers.
Throwing switches and setting brakes are dangerous jobs, requir­
ing individuals who are agile and sure-footed. Women probably
are less sure-footed than men and more prone to falls. In general,
most of the jobs in the yard and transportation services are heavy,
subject the women to the specialized hazards of the areas, and can
hardly be recommended as suitable for women.
Some plants have women gardeners caring for the administra­
tive building lawns, flowers, and shrubbery.
About one-fourth of the plants have women as guards, most of
them armed and serving as military auxiliary police on gate and
patrol duty. The women receive the same training as men in
handling firearms and usually have proved better than men in
hitting the target. Women guards are no longer unusual in war
plants.
Women have been stenographers, typists, and record and general
clerks in the administrative offices of the steel plants for many
years, but inside the gates of the mill yards few women were
employed before the war. The induction of women into factory
or plant clerical work has been more marked than their induction
into production and service jobs. Women are now employed as
production record, stores, billing, accounting, timekeeping, per­
sonnel, and general plant clerks. Observers and recorders in the
mill are doing clerical work that takes them away from desks and
the usual office environment. Messengers in many cases are girls.
Women have been able to familiarize themselves with steel termi­
nology and records with much less difficulty than management
anticipated. In some plants the number of women on plant clerical
work exceeds that on industrial jobs.
Conclusion.
Women are now working in most divisions of the steel industry
but their proportion is small, about 8 percent. The need for new
workers is at-the labor level and most of the women are recruited
at this classification. Some of the jobs that would seem most
appropriate for women are closed to them because of the seniority
system. In the basic processes of the blast furnaces and steel
works, most of the jobs other than those of a labor classification
expose the worker to high temperatures and other strains inherent
in a heavy industry. The possibilities of employing any significant
proportion of women in the preliminary processes seem slight
More women are employed in the rolling mills and fabrication
departments, but these too have more heavy jobs than light ones.
The work in the laboratory and quality-control sections appears
especially suitable for women, and this would seem to be a place
where a large proportion of the force could be women in normal
as well as in war times.
Women are not able to work where marked spurts of strength
and energy are necessary at times. Most of the women are em­
ployed on the labor gangs or the auxiliary jobs, such as crane
operator, crane follower, laboratory aide, inspector, controlman
and pumpman tending levers and valves, and as general helpers



20

Women’s Employment

in

Steel, 1943

in the maintenance divisions. Management does not anticipate
that women will form any large proportion of the steel-mill work­
ers, but more can be employed. To secure effective employment
of women—most of whom are inexperienced—management has
given and must continue to give consideration to the lesser
strength, the lack of industrial experience and familiarity with
heavy industry, and the short-time viewpoint of women’s employ­
ment in the industry. It appears to be generally agreed that
women’s employment in steel is a temporary war expediency and
that men returning from the armed services will have seniority
and priority on the jobs in the industry after the war, so it seems
hardly fair to ask women to do extremely heavy labor and danger­
ous jobs and dissipate their strength on employment that is of a
temporary nature.
HOURS, RATES, WORKING CONDITIONS, AND
PERSONNEL RELATIONS
Working hours.
The basic hour schedule of the steel industry is an 8-hour day
and a 48-hour week. Until the summer of 1943, the 5-day 40-hour
week had prevailed. The shift to the longer week had been made
in all departments engaged on war products, but due to the curtail­
ment of civilian products rolled in the merchant mills, some of
the latter were still on a 40-hour week.
Blast and steel furnaces are continuous processes, usually stop­
ping only when the furnace is down for rebuilding or for repairs.
Workers customarily have one day in seven off. Only one mill
reported a 7-day week as a regular schedule for women; this was
in its tin mill. Another mill had occasional 7-day weeks for women
workers. Overtime beyond the 8 hours daily was rare for women.
Even for men the overtime demands have not been marked. Cur­
tailment of Government orders had temporarily reduced the hours
of some departments to less than 48 for at least part of the
workers.
The traditional plan of rotating shifts or changing turns in the
steel industry is weekly. On continuous processes the weekly
shifting has become an institution, and though some of the com­
pany and union officials feel that a longer period between changes
might be advisable for the health of the workers, the general con­
sensus seems to be that any change in the period of rotation would
not be desired by the workers, since the men have become ac­
customed to the practice. Approximately 20 to 25 percent of the
employees work on the day shift continuously—on maintenance
and service jobs largely—while the rest are on shifts that rotate
weekly. Women with home responsibilities and child-care prob­
lems find the adjustment of their work and outside-of-work
schedules harder than that of men, and the difficulties are apt to
be a contributing factor in absenteeism and turn-over. Some of
the mills have recognized this condition and have tended to assign
women to day-shift jobs to a much greater extent than men.
Lunch and rest periods.
In the steel mills—especially in the furnace and rolling-mill
divisions—the traditional and customary practice is for men to



Women’s Employment

in

Steel, 1943

21

eat their lunch and take their rest periods in “spells” from their
work. On a hot and heavy job, men are scheduled to work for a
definite time and then have a specified period off that is known
as a “spell.” A worker may have a cycle of 40 minutes of work
and 20 minutes of spell time. On some strenuous jobs the spell
time may be as long as the work time. As a result, there has been
little in the way of regular lunch periods in the steel industry.
To a visitor in the steel mills the lunch period appears to be con­
tinuous. Coffee is always being made on hot billets, slabs, and
plates of steel, and men on spdll time are always to be seen having
a snack from their lunch pail, or a cigarette, with a large cup of
coffee as a bracer.. Lunch counters are used primarily as a source
, °f food to be carried back to the workplace for spell periods.
The advent of women in the steel mills brought to the fore
the problem of a definite lunch period for them, especially in States
that have statutory regulations covering women’s lunch periods.
Such statutory regulations in States where steel mills were visited
in the Women’s Bureau survey are as follows:
New York—60 minutes but may be relaxed.
Indiana—60 minutes but shorter time may be permitted.
Maryland—30 minutes after 6 hours.
Ohio—30 minutes after 6 hours during war.
Pennsylvania—30 minutes after 5 hours except in continuous-operation
manufacturing processes; may be suspended during war.
Colorado—No regulation.
Illinois—No regulation.
West Virginia—No regulation.

Most of the steel mills have a policy of a half-hour lunch pause
for women, and they have provided tables and chairs and in some
cases electric plates in the women’s rest rooms. Actually, .how­
ever, on continuous processes women tend to follow the men’s
routine, taking their lunch and rest periods as spells allow, and
often the women’s lunch periods are on the job and as indefinite
as those of the men.
Where lunch periods have not been formally designated in the
steel mills, the usual practice is to pay for the over-all work period.
A few mills in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Maryland, claiming that
since the law requires definite lunch pauses for women a deduction
of a half-hour must be made from their work time, give the men
8 hours’ pay and the women 7i/2 hours’ pay. While it is not the
practice in most industries to pay for lunch periods, in an industry
where men are paid for their spell time it seems unfair to pick
women out for different treatment. On day shifts where the
over-all hours are not limited to 8 by rotation practices, an 8%
hour spread of work time with a half-hour lunch period is cus­
tomary. Some of the mills, of course, treat women as men and
pay them on the same basis for their lunch period.
Spell periods are rest periods in steel, and though in most of the
mills it is not usual to set aside definite and formally designated
rest periods for women, allowances of 10 or 15 minutes in the
first and the second half of the shift are made for rest and re­
freshment.




22

Women’s Employment

in

Steel, 1943

Rates of pay—Equal pay.
A highly virtuous feeling seems to imbue managers when they
pay the same rates to women as to men on the same, similar, or
comparable work. They report with pride that women are treated
the same as men, or that they have agreed with the union that
women shall receive men’s rates of pay when they replace themAll the steel mills visited have accepted the equal-pay policy—at
least in part. On all regular jobs the rate has been set by the job,
and as soon as a worker qualifies on seniority and merit he is paid
the established rate. When women have replaced men as laborers
or on jobs carrying a low degree of seniority for which they can
qualify, they have almost universally received the same rates as
men. Organized labor has insisted that women shall not compete
unfairly with men by taking their jobs at lower prices. On jobs
that traditionally have been women’s, however, such as the as­
sorted in the tin-plate mills, the beginning rate sometimes is
below the established minimum for inexperienced men. In some
plants the women beginning at these jobs are paid 6214 and 63
cents, while if they began on a man’s job in the same plant their
rate would be 78 cents. The beginning rate for the women as­
sorted largely reflects the general attitude toward women’s wages.
In a few instances it is claimed that women are not performing
the full job as formerly done by men, and that for this reason a
slight differential in the rate paid is justified. In some such cases
the difference in the duties is questionable. In one plant visited
the hourly rate for women crane operators is 11 cents less than
that for men because women are not supposed to oil or make re­
paid on the cranes they operate. Inquiry by Women’s Bureau
agents revealed, however, that it is not customary for men either
to oil or to repair cranes, as regular maintenance crews take care
of this servicing. In the same plant, since the State law requires
that women be allowed a half-hour for a lunch period, this time
is deducted and the women are paid for 7J/2 hours while the men
are paid for 8. The men are not allowed a specified period for
lunch but have “spells” during which they eat their lunch, and this
time is reported as about half an hour. The woman crane-opera­
tor’s lunch period is regarded as one of her “spells,” and actually
she usually has no more time off than the man operator.
On some of the new war work of a fabrication nature on am­
munition components, learners’ rates have been established for
jobs held by women, with periods of several months’ progression
before they reach the minimum rate at which men start on labor­
ing iobs. Men also must be trained on the job, but there are no
similar learners’ rates below the basic minimum for them. Further,
for women clerical workers the traditionally _ lower rates paid
women are reflected frequently in the wage policies, and as these
workers ordinarily are not covered by collective-bargaining agree­
ments, women who replace men do not always receive the same
basic pay. In general, however, for most of the plant workers
the equal-pay policy is practiced on jobs held by women.
Rates paid to women plant workers.
The lowest starting rate paid to a woman plant worker in the
steel mills covered in the survey was 621/2 cents an hour; women



Women’s Employment

in

Steel, 1943

23

on plant clerical work, however, had starting rates of 50V& cents
on jobs formerly held by men at much higher rates. The highest
starting rate paid to a woman was 84i/2 cents—the minimum both
for men and for women in some plants. A large majority of the
plants had a beginning rate of 78 cents, which is the lowest rate
recognized in most of the union contracts for basic steel. Since
most of the women have been employed in the steel industry for
only a short time, it is not surprising that the usual starting rate
and the prevailing rate are the same, 78 cents. In some of the
mills the 78-cent minimum applies only to workers who do not
rotate on shifts. Turn laborers who rotate weekly receive 791/2
cents, but otherwise there are no differentials for night work. The
range of women’s wages is limited and very few have reached jobs
with hourly rates of more than 90 cents.
Automatic wage increases are not customary. Seniority rights
of workers are recognized in most of the steel mills. Progression
and upgrading are dependent on seniority combined with merit.
Since the tenure of women in steel is short and since the women
are regarded as temporary substitutes, upgrading has been limited.
Seniority regulations sometimes bar women from certain of the
lighter jobs. It has been customary for many years for men to
begin in the steel mills as laborers and advance with experience
to better-paid and usually less strenuous jobs. Some of these jobs
are better suited to women than others on which they are em­
ployed, but men who have served their turn at heavy labor, and
probably now beyond draft age, rightly have a claim to such jobs.
When vacancies occur above the labor level, seniority is a factor,
and while the unions recognize the seniority of women they do
not want to give them special privileges. A small number of
women are now securing some seniority and will be eligible for
promotion. All workers who have been taken on as replacements
of men in the armed services and for increased production have
been employed for the emergency period, and they are not expected
to attain seniority that will give them precedence over steelmen
in the service.
A large proportion of the jobs in this industry have tonnage or
other incentive basis of payment. Group work and group bonuses
are more usual than individual piece work or task systems. Actual
earnings of many of the men are increased materially by the bonus
payments but the proportion of women who have, been assigned
to work that carries bonus rates is small. In some plants all the
women are on a time basis.
Occupational rates.
Multitudinous job rates are characteristic of steel mills. Several
of the steel personnel men estimated that their companies had
thousands of job rates, which had been established by negotiation
between management and labor. Rates for jobs covered by the
same terminology vary not only among departments but within a
department. Most of the women, however, are on beginning jobs
rated in the lower brackets of skill that concentrate at the under80-cent levels, with relatively few women on rates of 90 cents and
more. The lowest rates for women who were industrial workers__
62i/2 and 63 cents—were for beginning assorters in some of the



24

Women’s Employment

in

Steel, 1943 '

tin-plate mills. This has long been a woman’s job and the rates
reflect the traditional attitude of evaluating women’s jobs on a
lower plane. Some of the tin-mill assorters, however, start at 78
cents, the most common rate for women.
This survey of women in steelmaking did not include the copy­
ing of pay rolls and job classification by individuals. Instead, the
job rates were secured from personnel and other company officials.
In the appendix of this report is a list of hourly rates paid women
at time of survey. It is not exhaustive but is indicative, of the
typical rates being paid to women in the principal plant divisions
in the eastern and midwestern steel plants. Most women were
on the lowest-priced jobs.
Rates for office workers.
Clerical workers in the plants often are paid less than the in­
dustrial operatives. Few women were employed in the steel plant
offices before the present war, and when women replace men the
tendency is to assign rates comparable to those paid women in
the administrative offices and not on a par with those formerly
paid to men. Women with clerical experience were reported as
being taken on at $90 a month to carry jobs in plant offices for
which men had received $150 and $160. Clerical workers have
not always been included in union negotiations. Even with over­
time payment for hours over 40 a week, many of the women on a
monthly basis were earning less than $125 a month on office work.
Labor supply.
Steel is a basic raw-materials industry for both civilian and war
goods and its expansion has been largely in the increased use of
existing facilities and staff. Weekly hours had been 40 or less
until the spring and summer of 1943. Steel communities tend to
be made up of steelworkers’ families who have been rooted in
steel for more than a generation. Many of the retired workers
came back when labor was needed. In some of the steel communi­
ties Negroes were recruited or came of their own volition to work
as laborers in the mills. The manpower problem was not generally
so acute as in the newer war industries, even in areas where other
industries were experiencing an acute shortage of workers. When
it became necessary to recruit women, the local supply, with a steel
background, has proved adequate. Wives and daughters of steel
families have been given preference and also were the first to
apply. Most of the women employed in the steel mills have not
come from other manufacturing plants but are housewives or
former workers in the service industries. None of the mills report
any difficulty in recruiting women. Some of them say that they
have only to make it known round the mill that additional women
are being considered for employment, to have more women apply
than are needed.
Employment policies.
Ago.

The usual minimum hiring age for women in the production
area of steel mills is 18, but in two mills no women under 21 are
employed, and in one mill girls of 16 are taken on. Girls 16 to 18
are employed as messengers and office workers in some of the



Women’s Employment

in

Steel, 1943

25

administrative offices, but are not allowed to go into the plants.
In most of the mills some boys of 16 to 18 are working. While
women under 40 are preferred, as stronger and more agile for
heavy work, there is no fixed maximum age. Occasionally a grand­
mother on a production job is pointed out, but women in their
50’s and 60’s are few. Usually they are janitresses.
Marital status.

Most of the steel mills are not concerned with the marital status
of their women employees. One mill is reported as not hiring
married women except the wives of steelmen in the armed services;
others give preference to such women but beyond that are not
concerned with marital status.
There is no general policy with reference to the employment of
women with young dependent children. Most mills accept them.
Usually inquiries are made as to provision for the care of the
children in the mother’s absence, and women whose plans seem
inadequate are not employed. Two of the mills investigate to make
sure that the provision for child care is satisfactory, and one makes
special investigation when the interviewer feels that the plans
of the mother are inadequate or questionable. Another mill does
not hire any woman with a child under 12 months. Little interest
was expressed in child-care centers, primarily because the hours
of the steel industry with rotating shifts do not fit in with the
hours during which child care can be obtained at a nursery. The
proportion of women in the industry is too small for much concern
along these lines.
The same is true of policies and practices in regard to handling
cases of pregnant women; few plants have formulated a definite
policy and most plants handle each case individually. In one mill—
the one with the most definite plan—any woman reported as
pregnant is interviewed by the company doctor and the period of
time she is permitted to remain is determined from this interview
plus a statement as to her condition from her physician. A woman
worker who left because of pregnancy may be reinstated from
2 to 6 months after the birth of her child if she furnishes a state­
ment from her own physician that she is fit for work and passes
a check by the company’s doctor.
Negro women workers.

Negro women are employed in most of the steel mills. The
majority, like the white women, are working at labor jobs. The
proportion of Negro women in the masonry and outside-labor gangs
is large. Where women are employed in the sintering plants, they
are chiefly Negroes.
Work clothing.
Women working on heavy jobs in the steel mills usually are
dressed suitably for their jobs. The necessity for suitable clothing
soon becomes apparent to women as well as men even if manage­
ment does not set the standards. Women working in the yards,
the stock houses, furnaces, and many of the rolling mills soon
discover that they need sensible shoes, heavy slacks or overalls,
a working man’s shirt, and a visored cap or turban that covers the
hair and keeps the dirt out. Except in the tin-plate sorting rooms,



26

Women’s Employment

in

Steel, 1943

laboratories, and plant-office jobs, trim garments in pastel colors
have little place. In tin-mill assorting, where light-colored uni­
forms are reported, the girls constantly see their reflections, and
perhaps uniformity and trimness aid production.
,
Many women wear men’s work garments and boys’ ankle-high
shoes, and as one approaches a labor gang on the trestles, in the
yards, in the blast-furnace area, the sex of the workers cannot
be determined by the clothing worn- They all look pretty much
alike. During cold weather the women have found wool trousers,
long underwear, and extra sweat shirts or woolen shirts as neces­
sary and desirable for them as for the men. Uniformity in the
sense of special “wow” suits is not characteristic of the steel in­
dustry. Personnel and safety officers determine standards for
suitable and safe clothing. Safety has been actively promoted
by the steel industry for many years and safe clothing m a steel
mill may be not only insurance against maiming and disfigurement
but a matter of life and death. Wherever special accessories are
required, such as hard hats for protection against falling objects,
asbestos leggings, protective jackets, helmets and shields for
oxyacetylene burning, scarfing, or welding, they are supplied by
the company. Workers usually provide their own gloves.
Head covering in the steel mills is needed not so much for pro­
tection from whirling machinery as from dirt, sparks, and burns.
Many women wear men’s visored caps. Turbans or closely woven
caps are preferred to keep out dirt, fn the assorting of tin plate
and in some of the other jobs there is no apparent need of caps.
Wherever there is a hazard of burns from sparks or hot metal,
compliance with or enforcement of safety-headgear standards is
g°ffigh shoes are more satisfactory than low shoes for heavy work
of a manual-labor nature, as they afford more support and pro­
tection against dirt and injuries. In several mills comments were
made by safety representatives that women of their own volition
had adopted the wearing of boys’ or men’s high-cut safety shoes
because they found them to be better wearing, more comfortable,
and more satisfactory than the women’s safety shoes. Men have
been urged to wear safety shoes in the steel industry for many
years and the same policy has been followed with women, but it
has been difficult to secure satisfactory women’s work shoes of a
safety type, and women in most mills have been allowed to wear
any shoe that apparently was suitable. A steel mill with its dirt,
its tracks, uneven floors, and brick footing does not tend to the
wearing of light, high-heeled, and open footwear. In one of the
mills visited, whenever a shipment of either men’s or women’s
desirable safety shoes was received, a truck with the shoes and
a fitter made the rounds of departments offering its stock.
Job training.
War production, with the hordes of new workers in the last two
years, has focused a great deal of attention on training. Most
plants are now training-conscious. All but a very few of the steel
plants have training classes of some sort for foremen and key
personnel to teach them to instruct on the job and to supervise
the workers assigned to their departments. A few women who



Women’s Employment

in

Steel, 1943

27

are to be instructors or group leaders are trickling into these
couises, but most of the training is done by men. The various
courses and methods that have been developed by the TrainingWithin-Industry Service of the War Manpower Commission are
the basic primers for developing job instructors.
In the home office of one of the companies a central training
department develops plans and coordinates courses of instruction,
methods of training, films and exhibits to be used by all the plants.
Each plant has its own training department with representatives
working m all other departments.
Training for steel occupations is almost entirely on the job.
Some women have been recruited from those who have had pre­
employment vocational courses in machine-shop practice, welding
inspection, and drafting, but the needs and opportunities for
women workers along these lines are limited. Most of the jobs
for women are of a labor type and little training is needed beyond
that which can best be given on the job, such as handling shovels
cleaning equipment, piling bricks. In one plant new women are
8lvf”?everal hours of classroom training in the proper methods
i “ting, carrying, handling shovels, and loading and moving
wheelbarrows. Correct methods are demonstrated and each re­
cruit is required to demonstrate and have her application of the
instruction criticised.
Crane operators are given very careful instruction before being
put in clicirg’© of cranes. In one plant when the decision was made
to employ women instead of men in a new mill, the women selected
for crane operators were given 40 hours of intensive training by
key crane operators, using the cranes in a division of the company
that was experiencing a temporary lull in operations. When the
women crane operators were placed in the new mill they were
able to operate the new cranes, which tended to minimize the ob­
jections of the superintendent and foremen of the division to
women operators. Where women crane operators are employed in
Pennsylvania, it is necessary to have the crane and the ladders or
steps used in climbing to the cab approved by the State Industrial
Commission, and the women must work as trainee operators with
an experienced operator in the cab for at least 30 days. This is a
longer period than is given to training men operators, and it is
considered longer than necessary for women and may have tended
to deter their employment. Plants in other areas reported training
men and women as crane operators in 10 days or 2 weeks.
Laboratory aides or technicians are in some cases considered
as trainees on the job for various periods. In one mill the women
are not paid the rate for the job until able to perform four basic
tests satisfactorily. Before that they are classified as “wash­
house attendants, at a rate of about 10 cents an hour less than
the going rate.
In some mills plant clerical workers, even those with considerable
office experience, are classified as learners for various periods and
are paid rates considerably less than those formerly paid to men.
Iheir learning period is devoted not to formal training but to be­
coming familiar with practices and policies of the plant. Since
there had been no such plan for men, this constitutes a wage dis­
crimination toward women.



28

Women’s Employment

in

Steel, 1943

Women in personnel work.
Old-established plants taking on appreciable numbers of women
for the first time, as well as the new war plants, have accepted
fairly generally the idea that there should be women personnel
workers—counselor, matron, welfare adviser, and social worker
being some of the titles—whose duties are to lessen in some way
the impact on both women and management of the new employ­
ment status of women. In normal times in woman-employing in­
dustries there have been women personnel directors, interviewers,
and welfare workers concerned especially with women personnel,
but in the last two years their numbers have mushroomed. Often
the duties of the position are not well defined and the work done
depends on the resourcefulness of the counselor in making an
effective place for herself in the organization. In some plants the
women personnel workers are little more than police matrons, who
patrol the toilets and rest rooms, supervise the wearing of work
clothing—a time-consuming job—and represent management when
disciplining appears to be in order. In others the duties seem
to be only quasi-personnel and largely welfare, with emphasis
placed on advising on child-care, home, and personal problems.
In still others women personnel workers study the jobs, the work­
ing conditions, and other factors of women’s employment; inter­
view, select, place, and induct; help with the training and follow
up the women on their job performance—a real personnel job.
Most of the steel plants have women attached to the personnel
department to serve in some capacity. In one of the large com­
panies the main office has a woman consultant who advises and
coordinates employment policies and practices for women through­
out the many plants in the organization. In one of the largest
plants of this company a separate employment office for women has
been established, with a woman in charge. This woman has
women assistants who interview and place the women applicants,
using mental and aptitude tests as an aid. The woman in charge
worked for many years in one of the plant offices. and is steeped
in knowledge of the conditions and jobs. In addition she has the
most essential attribute of good judgment, and has a sympathetic
appreciation of the possibilities and problems of the women as well
as the needs of the company. Plant policies, hours, wages, safety
program, work-clothing regulations, and so forth are explained
to the applicants before they leave her office. She is at all times
available to the women to talk over their jobs and personal prob­
lems and she serves as a liaison person on special difficulties ot
women workers, at the request either of the women or, on the other
side of foremen or superintendents. This company tended to select
women for the new women’s-counselor jobs from their nursing
force from foreladies in the sorting departments of the tin mills, or
from' office workers whose past records indicated suitability and
adaptability for such work. A person who has a background m
the industry and who is known to the foremen as an old employee
inspires confidence and acceptance by both workers and foremen.
Usually in the steel mills there are only a few women—1 to 4—
assigned to the special women’s personnel work, but in 1 plant a
women’s division that has been made a Dart of the industrial rela­



Women’s Employment

in

Steel, 1943

29

tions department is composed of a supervisor, an assistant super­
visor, 9 senior matrons, and 46 shift matrons. This department
is not concerned with the initial employment and placement of
women, but advises on suitable jobs and types of women to be
hired.
Though the matrons here have their desks in the women’s rest
rooms and keep a close supervision of the service facilities for
women, they are not “matrons” in the usual sense of this job title.
They are given several days’ training in safety, first aid, sanitation,
work clothing, wage systems, job-instruction techniques, relations
with foremen and supervisors, State laws covering women workers,
and their general duties and responsibilities on the job. Women
workers in the plant are supposed to bring their grievances and
problems to the matron, who is required to know the women’s
jobs in her departments, to check on the women’s performance on
jobs, their observance of safety rules, clothing requirements, and
misuse of rest periods, to answer questions about wages, tax deduc­
tions, and so forth. The matrons are expected to preserve order
and maintain discipline among the women. Unfortunately, some
of them are so conducting themselves as to be considered dis­
ciplinarians rather than counselors by the women workers and
consequently are much resented.
The senior matrons supervise and coordinate the work of five
or six matrons, supervise and train new matrons for 2 to 3 weeks,
and make orientation and induction talks to new workers in the
departments they cover. The senior matrons are stationed per­
manently on the day turn and the others rotate weekly, so all have
the advantage of this senior counseling at regular periods.
Experience, judgment, and common sense in dealing with human
beings seem to be the chief requirements for a woman counselor.
Academic background is of only secondary importance. Women
counselors who have no well defined status and are used only to
police the women neither add to the morale nor increase the
efficiency of women on the job. Unless the counselors are assigned
duties that really relate to the effective employment of women,
and authority to promote and enforce policies affecting the women’s
welfare, their positions as advisers on personal problems and as
police matrons cannot be considered good personnel work.
Welfare facilities.
After a steel mill decides to employ women, usually the next
consideration is to plan for service facilities, or welfare stations
as they are called in steel. Additional toilet rooms, washing
facilities, cloak, rest, and lunch rooms are required. Steel being
an old industry has many old buildings, with equipment designed
and_ installed in the days when the workers’ comfort and con­
venience were secondary considerations in most plans. Men’s
facilities in some cases provide only the meager essentials and are
not too adequate in number, so men’s welfare stations can not be
cleaned up, remodeled a bit, and turned over to women because
frequently there is nothing to convert. New locations must be
found,_ priorities for equipment secured, and delivery and con­
struction engineered and effected. Even with priorities the de­



30

Women’s Employment

in

Steel, 1943

livery of equipment may be slow, and in some of the mills the lack
of service facilities delays the employment of women. When the
new facilities are ready, they are in most plants far better than
those provided for the men and will fill a need for the men even if
women do not remain long in the industry. Occasionally, because
of the uncertainty as to numbers of women to be employed and the
temporary stay probable in their .case, management has hesitated
to spend a lot of money for special facilities and the provisions are
crude and not always convenient. On the whole, however, the
numbers of toilets, washing facilities, dressing and locker rooms
are adequate. State requirements along these lines are met.
Washing facilities are equipped with hot water in most cases
and the spray-fountain type of equipment is common. Difficulty
in securing either paper or linen towels, soap and containers, is
reported; further, in many plants it has been the custom for men
to provide their own soap and towels. Paper towels are not too
satisfactory for bathing, nor for drying larger body surfaces than
the hands, so workers still tend to have their own towels and soap
and keep them in their lockers. Some washrooms are adequately
equipped with both paper towels and soap, but it is not general.
Because of the dirty nature of the work, showers are provided
more generally in steel than in other industries. Many adequate
shower rooms were inspected and evidently are much used, es­
pecially in the summer months.
Lockers and dressing-room facilities usually are connected with
the central toilet rooms. Floor racks and hooks on the wall are in
a few cases the only equipment, but in most plants individual
wooden or steel lockers are available for the women. Several mills
have chain lockers—overhead racks with hangers and baskets for
shoes and the miscellaneous odds and ends such as hats, purses,
and gloves. Individual chains on pulleys raise and lower the
hangers and baskets, and each worker padlocks her own chain for
safekeeping of her possessions. This is a most satisfactory ar­
rangement where space is too limited for standing lockers. Dress­
ing rooms are sometimes extremely crowded during shift changes
and the ventilation is poor.
Rest rooms, rarely provided for men, are a new feature for
women in the steel industry. The facilities are not so adequate as
the more essential ones—toilets and washrooms—and sometimes
are entirely absent. There is a real need of at least a few cots,
long sofas, or benches where women who are temporarily in­
disposed or fatigued can lie down for a few minutes. The elaborate
clubroom type of furnishings is not essential, though in a few mills
the new rest rooms provide a lounging-room atmosphere with rugs,
draperies, and easy chairs and sofas.
Lunch rooms, tables and chairs, and in some cases a hot plate to
heat soup and drinks usually are provided, this too an innovation
in the mills, as men eat at their workplaces. Such facilities
generally are a part of the welfare station. Food facilities in the
way of restaurants, cafeterias, canteens, and so forth usually
are poor.
Nourishing, well prepared food, hot or cold as required, milk and
hot drinks, a place to sit down while eating in a clean ventilated



Women’s Employment

in

Steel, 1943

31

SZ;?°U^?e thf m|1?™um standard of food provision for emThe restorative value of the mid-shift break to the
worker, both as a human being and as a cog in industry is in­
creased by a satisfactory lunch. Good lunches can be packed at
j™ra®’ :,ut fortunately many workers have no time themselves
lor anyone to prepare their lunch. The steel industry—or so it
m “any plants—has a traditional conservative attitude that
good cafeterias and lunch rooms are for the light industries.
Steelmen grab a bite out of their lunch pail and a swallow of hot
coffee whenever there is a lull.
Only a few of the mills have adequate or desirable lunch rooms
In most cases they are drab and dirty places run by concessionaires
whose incentive is the profit motive, not food or service for the
employees. Usually they are places where soft drinks and food_
tbpS’m(inkeSwifd sandwiches—can be purchased to carry back into
e mill. When an agent of the Women’s Bureau commented on
the unsatisfactory lunch rooms, the reply was that lunch periods
company time and the plan is to avoid making the eating
places comfortable or attractive loafing centers. Because of the
wide expanse of the units that make up a steel plant, a central
lunch room would be inaccessible to most of the workers Food
wagons or mobile canteens carrying food and drinks from a central
kitchen and distributing them in wholesale lots to department
lunch rooms or by direct sale from the mobile unit have been found
feasible and satisfactory m many of the new war industries
®?iemS t0 l-e "° reas°n to assume that steelworkers do not
need and appreciate good food and eating facilities as much as
other workers. By having tables, chairs, or benches and in some
cases hot plates m their rest rooms, the women have more than
the men, but eating facilities in the steel industry are not good.
Medical facilities.
• Jir;st:aid a”d medical facilities are better in, steel than in most
industries. Health and safety programs are of many years’ devel­
opment. Most of the larger mills have hospitals with doctors on
on ca]1 at all times. All mills have arrangements for
caring for first-aid cases at any time. In the large mills ambu­
lances or special cars are on call to transport ill or injured workers.
hiaVe a Preemployment examination and
the nature of this preemployment physical screening varies from a
quite superficial examination to a complete physical covering eves
ears, heart lungs, blood tests, a hernia checkf and a hsUng of all
disease and injury experience to serve as a basis for rejection or
placement and for background data for future illness or injury
borne of the plants have a program of follow-up examinations
for certain occupations at intervals of from 3 months to a veTr
he employees for whom follow-up examinations are required are
riggers
crane
operators,
all who
do high that
climbing
operate
rahy
roads drive
tractors,
or control
equipment
involVes
the safe
nLath7S’ a£d porkers exposed to fumes from molten leld or lead
products. On inspection jobs where perfect vision is reauired
Smetlant; exami"ati°™
» P-t of the medical proSta




32

Women’s Employment

in

Steel, 1943

Accidents and strains.
Accident-prevention and safety education, as already suggested,
has been a crusade in the steel industry for many years, so m
most of the mills the safety departments are consulted m deter­
mining and recommending jobs that are suitable for women, gen­
erally women are placed on the least hazardous and strenuous jobs
in the plants. Few severe accidents to women have been reported.
Slight burns, minor cuts and lacerations, pinched fingers, toieign
bodies in eyes, foot injuries from falling objects have been re­
ported, but severity and frequency rates are lower for women than
for men. At the time of the survey, none of the plants had cal­
culated separate figures on accidents for men and women, but the
concerted opinion of the safety men interviewed was that women
were proving safe workers.
, .
Of course women are not exposed to hazards and strains so seve e
as those of men. Exposure to outside weather conditions; heat
and drafts inside many departments; burns and fumes from hot
metal; dust; blast-furnace gas (carbon monoxide); the hazard ot
falling from trestles, from platforms, from slanting-bottom-hopper
feeding cars, and from uncertain footing of rough floors; and
strains from lifting, are the most usual accident possibilities.
Safety meetings, safety posters, pep talks on careful work habits,
and demonstration of the proper methods of lifting generally are
part of the induction procedure. Arbitrary standards as to the
weight limits to be lifted by women are not usually set, as safety
men realize that the weight lifted is not the sole determining
factor and that frequency, distances carried, and methods ot lift­
ing must be considered. Limits of 35 and 50 pounds as the maxi­
mum loads for women were reported in a few cases. In one mill,
however, two women were observed constantly lifting together and
turning flat pieces of metal that weighed 120 pounds. In several
instances, company representatives told of trying out women on
jobs not considered heavy for men that proved too strenuous tor
women Women’s utilization as scarfers and grinders is limited
because women have not been able to do the lifting and moving of
billets that are incidental to such work. Some of the older types of
cranes have heavy lever controls and women cannot manipulate
them without undue fatigue and strain. Swing grinding where
there is considerable pressure and arm movement is found too
heavy In some instances women are provided with lighter and
shorter-handled shovels for clean-up and labor jobs. Safety men
in the mills are conscious of the need of special precautions for
women and seem to be meeting the problems of strains and
hazards to women constructively.
Turn-over and absenteeism of women.
Turn-over in terms of monthly percentages was reported by
15 plants. The 15 plants’ monthly turn-over ranged from 2.04
percent to 5.4 percent. No separate figures were kept for the
women. Some plants estimated that turn-over was less for women
than for men, some that it was about the same, and some that it
was slightly more. Apart from those going to the armed forces,
men left for higher wages or to learn trades in other industries,




i

Women’s Employment

in

Steel, 1943

33

and a considerable group were reported as unstable employees with
job-shopping tendencies. Women left less frequently for higher
wages. Their terminations were in most cases attributed to home
duties, child-care problems, or not liking the type of work offered
them in the mills.
Only four of the mills had absenteeism figures separate for men
and women. These are as follows:
Percent absent
Male
Female

■

3.47
1.00
1.80
4.17

4.75
1.65
5.63
6.35

In all four of these mills the absence rate was considerably
higher for women than for men. The chief reason given for
women’s absence was illness of self or other member of the family.
For all employees, absence rates were reported as from 1 percent to
8 percent. Most of the mills were attempting to reduce absentee­
ism by conferences with supervisor and absentees, by requiring a
written statement of reasons for lost time, by having company
representatives visit or telephone the absentees. Some plants felt
that these methods werq beneficial, but others were doubtful that
they had any real effect on absenteeism. A number of mills re­
ported that absence was not a problem; in fact, there seemed
little uniformity among the plants in attitudes, figures, and prac­
tices in the handling of absenteeism.
Employee organization and women’s membership.
United Steelworkers of America (CIO), through its locals,
had agreements with all but two of the steel plants visited. In­
dependent unions bargained in the other two plants. The unions
ha /e welcomed the women steelworkers to their organizations and
both management and local unions reported that women have
joined the unions with fully as much alacrity as men. Two mills
reported that 98 percent of the women plant workers were union
members. In a number of mills women shop stewards are repre­
senting the workers, and a few women are serving on grievance
committees. _ At least some of the local unions have not encouraged
active participation in union affairs by the women. They are re­
garded as having tenure only for the duration of the war and so it
seems hardly worth while to encourage their activities or develop
leadership among them. No women were reported as members
of labor-management committees.
One union local recently had brought to the Regional War Labor
Board a case concerned with starting rates unequal for men and
women and had received a decision that abolished the discrimina­
tory learners’ rates for women.
Women’s seniority on the job is recognized for the duration of
the war, but it is assumed by both the union locals and the manage­
ment that in the post-war era women will return to their peace­
time activities._ Management representatives reported that the
seniority provisions in collective-bargaining agreements have inter­
fered with the full utilization of women on jobs that would be



M

Women’s Employment

in

Steel, 1943

suitable for them but which they cannot reach with their lack of
seniority rank.
Note.—Representatives of the union made the statement that the steel
firms have employed women for the purpose of filling a gap in their working
force resulting from inequitably low wage rates for the starting jobs. Having
reached the point of being unable to fill these jobs at the bottom rungs of the
wage ladder with male workers, the steel firms resorted to the employment
of female workers. In many instances these hard laboring jobs are not suit­
able for women, and the primary reason why women have been employed, is
that the firms became unable to secure men at the rates paid. Had the in­
dustry upped the wage rates for the lower jobs, men would have been available
and women could have been employed for work for which they are better
adapted.




Women’s Employment

in

Steel, 1943

35

APPENDIX
Occupations In Which Women Are or Have Been Employed,
41 Steel Mills, by Department

Acetylene-generator tender _
Air-compressor op. and learner__
Annealer and helper
Assembly—miscellaneous _
Assorter and helper and learner
Bagging sulphates.
Banding, hand and mch. op. and helper.
Bending wire..__ _____
Billeteer-mch. op______
Blacksmith helper. _ _____
Boilermaker helper.
Bolt-threading-mch. op. _
Bomb and shell machining _
Bonderizer and helper _
Brakeman and switchman_____
Branner-mch. op______
Brickmason helper
Bundler and helper and learner
Burner and flame cutter and helper and
learner_________
Burrer ______
Cable splicer_______
Car-block learner_______
Car bracer___ __ __
Car checker and loader and helper
Car dumper _
__
Car-repair helper______
Carbometer (inspector)
Catcher—tin mill
Checker. __
Checker-chamber clean-up
Chemist and learner___
Chipper—boiler shop.
Cleaning ore cars
Controlman and learner___
Cover op____
Crane hooker and learner_____
Crane op. and learner _____
Cut-off op. (pipe)..

★

★
★
★

★
★
★

★

★
★

★
★
★

k

k
★

★

k

★
k
k

★

k

*

★

k
k

k

★

★
★

k

★

★

★

k

★

★
★

★
★

*

★
k

★
★

k
★

k

*

★

★
★

★

★
★

★

★

★

*

★
★

★
k
k
k

★
k
k

★
★

★

★
★
*

k

Forelady and leadwoman ... __
Forming-and-crimping-mch. op. _

★

k
k

Furnace charger and heater.__
Furnace feeder____
Galvanizer_________

★
k
★

k

★

k

★

★
★

k
k

★

★
k

★

★

★
★

★
★
*

★

Electric-locomotive op __
Electric shop—bench work, and helper.
Expediter_________
Feeder___________
Filterman________
Fire-clay mixer________




Yard, track, and
transportation

★

Door puller_______

Grinder and learner____
Heater helper__ __
Heat-treat man and helper __
Helper not elsewhere classified____
High-line laborer______ __
Hot-bed operator__________
Hot-top knocker_______
Inspector and helper and learner. _
Instrument-repair learner _
Keg and spool maker______ _____

Shop m aintenance

Shipping and ware ­
house

Power and fuel

quality-control

L a b o ra to ry an d

Other finishing and
fabricating depts.

Rolling mills

Steel works

Blast furnaces
|

ucts

Occupation

Coke and by-prod ­

Cler?c3’. Messengers, Guards, Nurses, Counselors, and Janitresses are not
connected “th produc«o"!f °r
Ser™e W°rkerS Wh°Se activitiea are ”<* directly

★

★

k

*

★
★

k
★

★

★

★
★
★

k
★
k

★
★
★

★
★
★
k

k

★

k

★
★

Women’s Employment

36

Steel, 1943

in

.

, . ,

★

it

★

★

★

it

★
★

★

★

★

m

f—^
02

•X}

G

if
if

★

★

★

★

★

if

Machine op. not elsewhere classified
and helper and learner---- ----------------

☆

___

ic

-A★

it

if
if
if
if
if

it

★

★
Straightener and gag-press------------------




★

★

transportation

★

Pn

Jj

ard, track, and

►J

c«
<B
1

lop m aintenance

6“-

bo
1

quality-control

K

1

lipping and ware ­
house

.

ab o rato ry an d

,.

finishing and
ibricating depts.

,

1
s

1
O
►

Lher

O
T .

1
1

>ke and

Occupation

by-prod ­
ucts

Occupations In Which Women Are or Have Been Employed,
41 Steel Mills, by Department—Cont.

★
it

Women’s Employment

in

Steel, 1943

37

'k

★

★

★
★

1c
★

1c
1c
1c

★

1c

★

*

★

*

★

★

Transfer-buggy

op.; tram

Transfer-car op__

_

op.

____

★

quality-control

★

★
★

Track cleaner____________________ ___
Trainee—mill __
______
__

★

★
★
★
★
★

★

and

__

Yard, track, and
transportation

1c
★

Shop m aintenance

___

Shipping and ware ­
house

Other finishing and
fabricating depts.

★

Power and fuel

Rolling mills

★

L a b o ra to ry and

Steel works

Occupation

Blast furnaces

ucts

Coke and by-prod ­

Occupations In Which Women Are or Have Been Employed,
41 Steel Mills, by Department—Cont.

★

★

★
1c
*

★
★
★

★

★
Weigher and helper

_

_______

★

★
★
★

★
★
hr
★
★

★

★

★
★

★
1c

*
★
★

*

Percent Distribution by Department of 8,222 Women Plant
Employees in 17 Plants of a Steel Corporation
Department

Percent of women

All departments (8,222 women): 100.0
Ore docks_____________________________________ ____________________
.8
Coke and by-products__________________ .
2.6
Blast furnaces _
4.5
Steel works ________________________________________________________
5.0
Rolling mills
39.8
Bar and rod
5.9
Bloom and billet._______________________________________________
9.5
Plate '
7.4
Sheet-tin plate and strip __________________ ____ ______________
9.1
Slab
.8
Structural ;
3.9
Rail
1.2
Other and not specified
1.9
Other finishing and fabricating depts
9.0
Laboratory and quality-control_______
13.9
Power and fuel_____________________________________ _______________
1.4
Shipping and warehouse,
1.1
Maintenance and service 19.8
Shop maintenance _______
14.4
Brickyard and masonry_______________________
1.3
Yard, track, and transportation
2.6
Plant protection:;_______________________
.9
Construction
.2
General_____
.4
Clerical, engineering, and accounting________________________________
1.2
Department not specified—labor______
.9



38

Women’s Employment

in

Steel, 1943

Typical Hourly Rates of Women at Time of Survey, by Department
Receiving, Coke Ovens and By-peoducts, and Blast Furnace Areas

Hourly Rates
(cents)
78 and 79%
81
81%
82%
84%
87
96
97%

Jobs

Laborer such as clean up, topman, panman, car washer, sul
phate bagger, bin stocker, luterman helper.
Panman, bricklayer helper.
Stove cleaner.
Larryman helper.
Crane operator in cast house.
Cinder crane operator.
Benzol-still attendant.
Larryman.

Steel Furnaces—Open Hearth, Bessemer Converter, and Electric

78 and 79%
81
82%
84%
85%

Laborer, ladle-liner helper, hot-top knocker, brick handler, test
carrier, hooker, buggy operator.
Scrap burner.
Hooker stock yard.
Door operator, ingot-mold crane operator.
Observer, spectroscope.
Rolling-Mill Divisions

62% and 63 Assorter learner tin plate.
78 and 79% Laborer, clean-up-gang member, pit cleaner, cover and door op­
erator, heat number carrier, cut-off saw operator, hot-bed
helper, hooker, slab-car operator, gag-press helper, learners
(burning, scarfing, grinding, etc.), tin bundler, assorter,
car blocker helper, painter helper, test carrier, car checker,
stamper, billet painter, gag-press control man, test recorder,
gager, assorter tin plate.
80
Hooker, weigher, straightener.
81
Burner helper, furnace helper, piler operator, furnace tender
and heater.
,
81%
Cold transfer operator, stamper, shear operator, scarfer, paint­
er, weigher, saw operator.
82
Gag-press control.
82%
Centerless grinder, scrapman, cold saw hooker.
83%
Cold steel recorder, steel tracer, buggy operator (tow trucks,
lift trucks, etc.).
84
Transfer table operator, grinder.
84%
Crane operator, hooker, ingot-buggy operator, scarfer.
85%
Hot-bed operator, hydraulic-shear operator, screw operator.
86
Recorder, burner, furnace tender, hot-bed operator.
87
Straightener, weigher.
87%
Stamper, painter, piler operator.
88
Hooker.
88%
Billeteer operator, chisel grinder.
89%
Leveler operator, loader, expediter roller line, recorder.
90
Recorder.
91
Car checker, recorder, swing grinder.
91%
Crane operator, expediter-loader.
93%
Scarfer, hooker, heat-treater.
94
Loader.
95
Grinder.
96%
Test recorder.
97
Crane operator.
100
Grinder.
110
Contract recorder.
Maintenance Shops

78

Laborer, matron, janitor, sandman, loader and unloader bricks,
coil winder, helpers (blacksmith, boilermaker, coremaker,
locomotive repair, welder, meter repair, babbitman, molder,
pattern maker, machinist, die changer, die polisher).




Women’s Employment

Hourly Rates1
(cents )
78 to 89 V2
79%

80

80%
82
82%
83%
84%
85%
86%
87
88
89%
90
91
91%
95%
97
102%
105

in

Steel, 1943

39

Jobs
Machine operators (lathe, turret' lathe, drill press, boring
machine, shaper, gear cutter, grinder, etc.), lay-out and
bench work.
Oiler.
Repair helper, hooker, painter, tool-room attendant, electrical
bench work.
Sand-mixer helper.
Oiler.
Helpers (bricklayer, etc.), safety-goggle repairman.
Millwright helper, tool-room attendant, route and dispatch
clerks, crane operator.
Machinist helper.
Hooker.
Oiler.
Motor inspector helper.
Tool grinder.
Machinist helper.
Die reamer, machine operator.
Crane operator.
Truck operator.
Crane operator.
Welder, planer operator.
Acetylene tool repair.
,
Die polisher.
Laboratory and Quality-Control

78
80%
83
84%
86%
87
90
94%
97%
99%
108, 110,
115%, 126

Inspector, test carrier, test reporter, observer, laboratory aide,
helper, carbometer.
Laboratory aide, test drilling and machining.
Test polisher, inspector, observer, pyrometer observer.
Inspector and machine operator.
Saw operator.
Laboratory aide.
Machine operator.
Chemist.
Milling-machine operator.
Alloy inspector and tester.
Chemist and metallurgical technician.

1 Many jobs have bonuses, which increase earnings above rates.