Women in the Printing Trades Part 30

In answer to the claim of the union to equal pay for equal work for women and men, it is urged by the masters:--

(1) Women when employed as compositors at piecework rates get the best, _i.e._, the simplest jobs. They are put to do what boys would be at when half through their apprenticeship. They are kept always at pretty much the same kind of work, and thus become very skilful at it. Boys, on the other hand, would claim to be shifted on to the higher branches of the trade.

(2) The man who now does the solid type-setting, which the employer wishes to see a woman do, is paid higher than a woman would or should be, because he is liable to be called on at any moment to undertake the more complex operations of his craft, while a woman is not. In other words, the man is paid for potential ability.

(3) If women were taken on freely to do solid setting, it is not at all likely that they would seriously aspire to the higher stages of the compositor's craft.

(_a_) Partly for physical reasons. Women are not fitted to handle the heavy formes.

(_b_) Partly because they could not be relied upon to go through a full course of training. They would be continually leaving in the middle or at the end of it, and employers, therefore, would not take the trouble to train them. "The pick of the girls get married. The qualities which make a girl smart and successful at her work would similarly make for her success in the marriage market."

(4) The cheaper type-setting of women is needed in order to compete successfully with the Linotype machine. There is no doubt that to a certain extent the comparatively low price of women's labour tends to r.e.t.a.r.d the introduction of machinery.

(D.) _Bookbinding._

In the bookbinding trade girls fold, put in plates and ill.u.s.trations, collate, sew by hand and by machine. Sewing used all to be done by hand, but machines were introduced some fifteen years ago. In the case of primers and st.i.tched books girls do all except print the covers. They make cloth cases as distinct from leather cases. Girls also lay the gold leaf on covers, which are subsequently stamped by machines operated by men. For at least half a century women have worked in these branches, but while in earlier days they learnt a variety of operations the tendency now is to keep them to a special process or machine. Hence a smart girl can pick up her task in a week. The old custom of a four years' apprenticeship still survives. Girls start at fourteen, or at thirteen if they have pa.s.sed the fifth standard. The initial wage is still in some shops 3_s._ a week, but there is a decided upward tendency, which in one case was found to reach 4_s._ 6_d._ for beginners. On the termination of the apprenticeship an average wage of 10_s._ a week is paid, but in the exceptional case referred to above the average was given as 12_s._ 6_d._, while 15_s._ is earned by expert pagers, coverers, and perforators who have been in the employment of the firm for some time. A chargewoman gets about 15_s._ a week, while the princ.i.p.al forewoman in a firm employing nearly 300 girls in its bookbinding branch is paid a guinea per week. Folders and hand-sewers are paid piecework rates in the large shops, but not in the smaller ones. To the casual visitor these pieceworkers exhibit a remarkable swiftness and accuracy, and the work must involve no small physical strain. Although the girls engaged in folding and the allied processes are as a rule of higher intelligence than mill girls and machine feeders and drawn from different social strata, there are many who come, frail and under-fed, from very poor homes. To these especially the early hour at which the day's work begins is a hardship. On a Glasgow winter's morning to start work at 6.15 on a hurried bite of bread and margarine, with the distant prospect of more bread and margarine three hours later, leads logically to "broken time." There has been some slight tendency towards beginning at 8 o'clock and stopping on Sat.u.r.days at 1, but two of the largest firms still adhere to 6.15 a.m. and finish on Sat.u.r.days at 10 a.m. The manager of one of these characterised the system as a "relic of barbarism," and said he had tried to alter the hour to 8 o'clock, but the men vigorously opposed the change and the scheme had to be dropped. As matters now stand, and owing to the great irregularity of the attendance during the week, work has often to go on from 11 till 2 on Sat.u.r.days. Otherwise in this establishment overtime is systematically avoided, the manager maintaining that the normal week of 52 hours is quite exhausting enough for the girls. When, as at seasons of unusual pressure, overtime is reluctantly resorted to, it is paid time-and-a-quarter, as in the case of men. The busy season lasts from August to March, but the girls are hardly affected, and have plenty of work round the year. In another large firm, where much railway printing is done, the conditions differ somewhat. The hours are as follows:--

6.30 a.m. to 9 a.m.

10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

3 p.m. to 6 p.m.

Sat.u.r.days till 1 p.m.

There are small fines for spoilt work, but the money goes to the Workers' Benevolent Fund. These fines do not amount to more than sixpence per head per annum. Overtime is worked to the full limit. It is paid at a higher rate, but not at the same proportionally higher rate as men. Girls are never suspended in slack seasons, but are put on time wages of 13_s._ or 14_s._ a week for the best workers.

The employment of married women is regarded as exceptional, but all large firms have a small number of such--3 or 4 per cent., perhaps. The usual practice is for girls to come from school and remain on until they get married or leave for some domestic purposes. Some come back as widows or when living apart from their husbands. Some firms boast a considerable number of workers who have been employed for very long periods, ranging from 15 to 30 years and upwards. There are no signs of married women lowering the rates of pay. It is customary for those who return after a long absence to do so at the old wages. Efforts have been made from time to time to organise the women into unions, but they have invariably proved disappointing. Indirectly the women have gained by the successful efforts of the men to shorten the hours of toil. Generally speaking the att.i.tude of the men's unions is not so much one of hostility as of indifference to women's work, except where it threatens to encroach on the men's preserves. There is no positive agreement as to the line of demarcation; it is determined tacitly by use and wont. The men profess to see a tendency among employers to extend the field of female labour. This extension of woman's sphere they deprecate as likely to lead to the lowering of men's wages. Just as men are never employed in folding in the bookbinding department of a publishing firm, so certain processes are invariably never done by women. As a rule men do the heavier and more complicated work, while women do that which is preparatory or supplementary. In jobbing-shops where odd volumes come in to be bound in various styles women are unsuitable, and men do the work right through; but in large publishing houses where orders run into thousands women specialise on particular processes. Women's work is apt to be extended where there are large quant.i.ties involved and where the work can be sub-divided. While women perform many of these sub-divisions quite as skilfully as men, they do not exhibit a like concentration of effort, and are more inclined to scamp.

Opinions differ as to the amount of homework done nowadays. The plant required is just a folder--a piece of bone. There is no doubt that to some extent folding is still done at home by the older girls who have _during the day been employed in the factory_. One employer admitted that on "not more than three or at most four nights in the year" do girls take work home from his shop. The cause is set down to the impatience of the public. Everybody wants his order executed immediately. Rates paid for homework are, if anything, a shade less than those paid for work done in the factory. While such work increases the total earnings this is not the main motive for undertaking it. A good deal of it is forced, and due to the urgency of the public demand.

During very busy months some firms have a great deal of folding done as _outwork_ by widows and married women _not_ now employed in the factory during the day. But this practice is declining. Twopence per 1,000 extra is paid by one firm, _i.e._, 10_d._ as against 8_d._, for this outwork to compensate for lack of facilities in the home.

Despite the great number of sewing and folding machines introduced in recent years there are probably more women employed at the trade than ever. There is more work. The small shops tend to retain women's labour.

Their jobs are so small in amount and varied in character that it would not pay them to introduce machinery. Further, in the large shops, folding machines have not always proved satisfactory. Doubtless, had men been engaged in folding during the last fifty years, employers would ere this have perfected a folding machine, but the cheapness of women's labour takes away some of the incentive to invention. Sometimes the introduction of a machine reduces women's work in one department and increases it in another. Take as an example the wire-st.i.tching machine used in the production of tens of thousands of penny pocket time-tables and diaries. If the diary is not out during the first three days of the month it may as well not appear at all. There is a short selling time during which sales are keen. Without the device of the st.i.tching machine the only way in which large quant.i.ties of such ephemeral publications could be placed quickly on the market would be by the employment of a very large staff of women. But the big and rapid output possible by means of the machine, although it reduces the work of women st.i.tchers, brings increased work to the women folders.

(E.) _Machine Ruling._

Girls who start as feeders are sometimes promoted to the supervision of simple ruling machines. Men look upon this with disfavour, as it used to be considered their work. One firm is said to have only two men now employed where there were once forty, and the two that remain are tenters, who supervise the girls and the machines. Machine ruling is paid at time rates. Wages rank as high as 17_s._ a week, where men formerly got 28_s._ For more complex machines girls would need to be specially trained, but managers think they could easily be prepared, as intelligence rather than strength is necessary. The girls themselves believe they would succeed if given a chance.

(F.) _Type and Stereotype Founding._

No type founding is done in Glasgow, and no women are employed here in stereotype founding. Such work is considered unsuitable for women, and there seems no likelihood of their taking it up.

(G.) _Paper Staining._

This work has always been done by women. There is no formal apprenticeship, but it takes a couple of years before the girls are thoroughly initiated. They are taken on at thirteen or fourteen at a wage of 4_s._ a week, paid 5_s._ at the end of the first year and 6_s._ at the end of the second. Afterwards their wages range from 12_s._ to 14_s._, with an average of about 12_s._ 6_d._ per week. There is no piecework and no fines are exacted. The working hours are 56 per week, distributed as follows:--

6 a.m. to 9 a.m.

10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

3 p.m. to 6 p.m.

Sat.u.r.days, 6 a.m. to 9 a.m.

10 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Work is plentiful all the year round. No dangerous machinery is used, and there is no special trade disease. The girls remain on till they get married. They are drawn from the "better sort" of working-cla.s.s families, and some were reported as coming to the factory on cycles.

They have no trade organisation, and there do not seem to have been any attempts on the part of the girls to supplant men in the allied processes. No machinery has yet been devised capable of doing the work of the girls.

(H.) _Paper-box Making._

Girls come from school and begin by dabbling about the shop and running messages. Presently they become "spreaders," and in two or three years'

time "coverers," the highest position open to them. The cutting of the paper and cardboard is done by machines, which men operate. The material thus prepared to the required sizes is pa.s.sed on to the girls to be glued up into boxes. The girls use no machinery, and stand to their work at benches. At the height of summer, and despite the gluey atmosphere of the workrooms, the girls have the usual reluctance to open windows.

Wages start at 3_s._ or 3_s._ 6_d._ Spreaders are paid from 5_s._ 6_d._, to 7_s._ 6_d._; coverers, 10_s._ and 11_s._ Hours vary from shop to shop. Some begin at 8 and finish at 6.30 (Sat.u.r.days, 12.30), with a meal hour at 1 o'clock. Others allow an hour and a quarter for dinner, so as to enable girls to get home. The week is then arranged as follows:

7 a.m. to 9.15 a.m.

10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

3.15 p.m. to 6.30 p.m.

Sat.u.r.days, 7 a.m. to 9 a.m.

10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

(I.) _Pattern-book Making._

This trade consists in making pattern-books for travellers, and is usually found in close alliance with box-making. Girls get 4_s._ to start, and rise to 13_s._ a week. The hours in one factory visited were found to be as follows:--

8 a.m. to 1 p.m.

2 p.m. to 6.30 p.m.

Sat.u.r.days, 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. without a break.

APPENDIX IV.--WOMEN IN THE PRINTING TRADES IN BIRMINGHAM.

FIFTEEN firms were visited.

No women compositors were found in the chief printing businesses visited in Birmingham. The wife of the manager of one factory said that ten years ago in non-society places there had been a very few women compositors in Birmingham. They took 15_s._, as compared to 33_s._ taken by the men compositors for the same work. It is now fifteen years since the informant left the trade, and she believes that at present none exist in Birmingham. She imagines that it is the strength of the Compositors' Union which has driven them out.

Only one owner of a printing business considered that factory legislation was detrimental to the interests of women in the printing trade. He says that he keeps a number of youths where he would otherwise employ women, as in stress of trade overwork has to be done, including Sunday work, _e.g._, at the time of the great cycle boom. He tried to get permission for the women to work on Sunday, but could not.

Another manager considered that the Compositors' Union spoilt the chance of women workers in the printing trade. He himself, if it were not for the Union, would like to train girl compositors. No other printer expressed this opinion. All said that, on the whole, men were better in the compositors' room, as they could be set on any job, and the pressure of women would necessitate much rearrangement.

MACHINE RULING.

_Training and Wages._--_Machine Ruling_ is the only process for which training can be said to exist. In some houses women are still articled or apprenticed to this branch, but in many they simply learn their trade as they can, from the foreman or forewoman. They generally begin as machine feeders of the ruling machine. The secretary of the Union of Bookbinders and Machine Rulers gave the information that women had been first employed as machine rulers about twenty years ago. He himself had learnt his trade under a woman who was head of the whole department. The final wage of a woman machine ruler is 17_s._ to 20_s._ In one case a female ruler was taking 22_s._, but I was told that was because she was a relative of the employer. The minimum wage of a man belonging to the Union is 32_s._ I was informed, however, that the man always worked a heavier machine, generally made the pens, was responsible for the good condition of all the machines, and that his output was always in advance of that of a woman.

_Men and Women._--In six businesses (the largest in Birmingham visited) the proportion of women machine rulers is about three to one man. An attempt was made about eight years ago to organise the women machine rulers in Birmingham, but met with no response. The secretary of the men's union informs me, "The reason why the attempt failed is probably that they have little to complain of. The wages vary from 4_s._ to 5_s._ per week for beginners, to 1 per week of fifty-two hours."