Women in the Printing Trades Part 6

One of the most important questions relating to women as workers is the exact relationship between their work and that of men, _i.e._, how far they are rivals in compet.i.tion and how far they are helpers in co-operation. In some of these trades, such as that of the lithographic artists, this question has never arisen, because women have rarely entered the trade. Only five instances of women working as lithographic artists are known to the head of St. Bride's Inst.i.tute. But that men and women have been rivals from time to time is placed beyond doubt, although it must always be remembered that the same work nominally is not always the same work actually.[33]

[Footnote 33: Men feeders, for instance, carry formes and do little things about the machine which women do not do. In one instance it was reported that a firm with a London and a country house, employed women in the latter to do binding done by men in the former. On enquiry it was found that the heavy work was done in London and the light work in the country. An interesting case in point is reported by a Scottish investigator. "Stated that in another workshop a man had been displaced at a paper-ruling machine and two girls taken on instead. I took special note of this case when visiting the workshop in question later. There were two girls employed at the machine, but they appeared to be working along with the manager of that department, who was supervising it." But there is work, such as the minding of platen machines which men do in London but which women do in Edinburgh and Aberdeen.]

Gold laying for cloth binding has, within the last quarter of a century, become the work of women who have taken the place of old "finishers" in some bookbinding firms,[34] and at Dunstable women are reported as doing binding throughout. Women are employed as compositors much more frequently in the provinces than in London. In Edinburgh and Aberdeen, for instance, women are reported as being engaged in every process, except making-up and the heavy work of carrying type, in which men alone are employed. Type-setting and distribution of type are often done by women in Scotland. In some of the Edinburgh printing establishments women do practically the same work as men. The extensive employment of women during the compositors' strike in Edinburgh in 1872 to secure a fifty-one hours' working week[35] was the result of the determination of the employers to defeat the Typographical a.s.sociation, and at least one firm in London tried the same policy during the bookbinders' strike for an eight-hours' day in 1902 though apparently with no success. The enthusiasts for the introduction of women into the printing trades had for some time been trying to get a hold upon Edinburgh printing offices, but had failed until the strike of 1872. An enterprising employer then trained some girls from the Merchant Company's Schools--a better cla.s.s of girls whom we find described sometimes as "stickit teachers"--to compose. The results were satisfactory, and the example was speedily followed. The strike failed and the displacement of men continued.

[Footnote 34: Reporting to their members in May, 1903, the Wages Committee of the London Society of Journeymen Bookbinders (Third Report) state regarding the award just given on certain points of dispute between the Unions and the Employers: "The right of employment of women in laying-on of gold has also been awarded against us, notwithstanding that no part of the proceedings evoked more strenuous opposition from your representatives. The hands of your delegates were weakened by the fact that the practice already existed: in some cases had crept in, and in others been extended unawares; yet they strove to preserve the right of the workman, whilst willing and anxious that the supercession of the workwoman, where she had been introduced, should be gradual and considerate.--The argument for the employers is that the employment of women on the cla.s.s of gold laying-on indicated, will enable them fairly to compete in other fields, and will tend to increase men's work instead of to reduce it. This view, the arbitrator adopted."]

[Footnote 35: So also in Aberdeen. "About a dozen years ago during a dispute about apprentices, seventeen men and three or five boys went out, and girls were then taken on."]

[Sidenote: The Perth dispute.]

Something similar happened in Perth, where twenty-five years ago four girls were taken into the newspaper department of the offices of the _Perthshire Advertiser_. About seven years ago they were introduced into a commercial printing office, and a year later the _Perthshire Const.i.tutional_ began to employ them on general bookwork and setting-up newspaper copy, the proprietor claiming that he had the same right as the other offices to have cheap female labour. Thus the practice threatened to spread throughout the other commercial printing offices, and the men's Union thought it was time to bestir itself. It decided that the women must either be paid the same rates as the men or be got rid of altogether. This ultimatum was sent to the employers. The _Const.i.tutional_ complied with the demands of the Union and dismissed its women workers. The _Advertiser_ at first proposed gradually to replace the girls by men in the commercial department, but to continue to run the newspaper department by female labour. The proprietor contended that this would not give him an unfair advantage over the other firms, as they employed linotype machines. The Union then decided to strike, and took thirty men out of the _Advertiser_ office. Four remained in, and some other non-Union men were also engaged. The office continues to work under this system.

[Sidenote: Value of women's work.]

There has also been trouble in Grimsby (1899), owing to the employment of women on a bi-weekly newspaper, at Redhill (1898-1900), and at Reading (1902). Other places where the Typographical a.s.sociation report women to be employed are, Louth (Lincolnshire), Aylesbury, Beccles, Fakenham, Warrington,[36] etc.; whilst in Birmingham the experiment was tried about 1890, but has been abandoned. They are also employed at Bungay, but in decreasing numbers, because their proofs require so much more correcting than the men's that the valuable time thus lost is not compensated for by the cheapness of their labour. The same is true of Edinburgh, where their wages have fallen from a rate of 1_s._ 6_d._ to 1_s._ per average page. In Leicester a firm tried to employ women in distributing type at low rates of pay, but a protest from the local executive of the Typographical a.s.sociation led immediately to the experiment being discontinued. There is an almost unanimous chorus of opinion that women's work as compositors is so inferior to men's that it does not pay in the long run. From the days of Miss Faithfull's experiments, the men have been able to boast that women could not touch them at the case. In Aberdeen the unwillingness of boys to submit to a long apprenticeship and the fear of parents that the linotype has spoiled the typographical trade, are said to be the main reasons necessitating the employment of women compositors.

[Footnote 36: Women were introduced into Warrington newspaper offices early in the decade beginning with 1880. They have been found to be quicker than men in plain setting-up and simple straightforward work.

They do not stay very long--the eldest girl compositor employed, when our investigator called, being only twenty-five. They are not employed in locking the formes; nor curiously enough are they employed in the machine-room to feed the printing presses, though they are so engaged in Manchester. The women compositors are paid one-third of the men's rate.

Here it was definitely stated that the cheapness of women's labour made it unnecessary to introduce linotypes.]

[Sidenote: The men's view.]

Men in these trades have never looked upon women compet.i.tors with a friendly eye, the reason being that so many branches are just on the margin line of those occupations which are so light and easily picked up that women can supplant men in them altogether.[37] The Typographical a.s.sociation for over a quarter of a century has had to carry on a constant struggle with the employers in order to protect the journeymen printers against three forms of cheap labour--apprentices, unskilled men and women.[38] Employers in a small way of business, maintaining establishments on little capital, where efficiency is not high, employ women on work done in larger and better equipped establishments exclusively by men. Here there is rivalry and compet.i.tion, and women are preferred mainly because they accept lower wages, and because they are not members of Unions;[39] and their lack of technical skill is not found to be a sufficient counterpoise to these advantages. But in these places an inferior kind of work is done, and if men were employed they would either have to accept wages below the generally enforced scale, or the whole character of the work and organisation of the business would have to be changed.

[Footnote 37: It is interesting to note that an official of the Lithographic Printers' Society, ent.i.tled to explain the att.i.tude of the Union, stated, "The Lithographic Society distinctly encourages girls; when boys feed the machines they are apt to pick up too much and want to become litho-printers before going through the apprenticeship. The women, not desiring to become litho-printers, are better from the Society's point of view."]

[Footnote 38: This is the real opposition which the men offer to women.

In Perth and Bungay, for instance, the women put in a bill at the end of each week, worked out on the men's scale of rates. The cashier then divides the total by two and pays the women accordingly. In Edinburgh women's piece rates for composing average about two-thirds those of men.

At Warrington, women do machine-ruling for prices ranging from 15_s._ to 20_s._, whilst men are paid 32_s._ for the same work. A more definite statement is made by a Manchester employer. He estimated that a woman was two-thirds as valuable in a printer's and stationer's warehouse as a man, and she was paid 15_s._ or 20_s._ to his 33_s._ A further example of this is given in connection with a Scottish firm executing Government work. "As the Government insists upon the men's Union price being paid, the work is being done by men, although in the ordinary way it would have been done by women." "But they would never allow the women," said our informant of her employers, "to make such big money as that."]

[Footnote 39: This is why the Typographical a.s.sociation offers a steady resistance to the employment of women. It does not object to them as women, but as forms of cheap and unskilled labour.]

[Sidenote: Apparent rivalry.]

In the better equipped houses, where women are employed on work generally done by men, as in composing, only parts of a compositor's duty are performed by women, and the heavier or the more technical duties, such as carrying about the formes or imposing, are done as a rule by boys or men.[40] So that here the rivalry is but partial, and, moreover, the employment of women does not always pay. It appears that in some cases, particularly in bookbinding, the application of machinery[41] makes it possible for the less skilled and lower paid women to do work formerly done by men, so that men regard women _plus_ the machine as their compet.i.tor. On the other hand machines have displaced women and have made new openings for men, as in the case of one of the most recently introduced folding machines which feeds itself.

But the re-organisation of the workshop which follows the introduction of the machine cannot be regarded merely as a subst.i.tution of men's labour by women's or the opposite, for what really happens is an all-round shifting of the distribution of labour-power and skill, and a re-arrangement of the subdivision of labour.[42] Men are transferred from one kind of work to another, owing mainly to a change in the volume of production; women are introduced not so much to take men's places as to fill places created by the re-organisation of work; youths also find a footing more often at the expense of women than of men. At certain points the machine simplifies processes and abolishes the need of paying for skill in the worker; at others it makes skill (sometimes, perhaps, a new kind of skill) more necessary; at one point it abolishes the need of paying for strength, at another it makes a new opening for strength. Thus the displacement which occurs, and the compet.i.tion set up are often more apparent than real.

[Footnote 40: As a type of the reports from firms employing women compositors, the following from Edinburgh firms may be summarised: Seven girls are employed on each machine (monotype), five on the keyboards and two correcting proofs. A man is kept for every ten or twelve girls, his work being to "make up" the girls' work. Another firm employs a man to attend to every three monotype machines used, for the purpose of keeping things going. Another says it employs two men compositors and one labourer for thirty-eight girls.]

[Footnote 41: Machinery has also tended to increase the employment of women in stamping and embossing.]

[Footnote 42: An official of a Bookbinders' Union states: "In A works there was much gloom among the men when the rounding and backing machine came in; profitable work was taken away from the 'rounders' and 'backers,' but they had more 'lining-up' and other work to do in consequence, so n.o.body was turned off."]

[Sidenote: A miscellaneous survey.]

In the more miscellaneous trades over which this enquiry ranged a considerable ma.s.s of evidence points to the displacement of men by women. General statements to this effect are common in the evidence of both employers and employed. In firm A. it is alleged that women do the same work in card mounting as used to be done by men, and are paid 2_s._ for work which used to be paid for at 10_s._ Paging and numbering used to be men's work, but is now almost exclusively done by women. Plain relief stamping and black bordering have also drifted into the hands of women, whilst in various directions, such as the making and binding of cases, wrappering, or feeding printing and particularly lithographic machines, women are beginning to encroach upon men. These displacements are very often only local. Manchester has one experience; Edinburgh another. Leeds was agitated because women were displacing men on a French ruling machine, whilst elsewhere no similar move was taking place. But it must be emphasised again that in many of these instances careful enquiry shows that when men were employed they did something that the women do not now do,[43] and that the employment of women was owing to an increased volume of trade, when new machinery or some other change had made a greater subdivision of labour possible and profitable.

In some cases girls displace boys for no other reason than that boys cannot be found to do the work; this was the case in Manchester some ten years ago, when girls took the place of boys in letterpress work.

[Footnote 43: An Edinburgh employer put that in this way: "If women were paid the same rates as men they would have to pay for their overseers and a.s.sistants."]

[Sidenote: Conclusions.]

Generally, the results of our investigations show the following summary of the advantages and disadvantages of women's labour to the employer, and their employment in preference to men depends upon how far in any given case or under any given circ.u.mstances the balance of these advantages and disadvantages is on the side of the women--or, it must also be said, how far the employer is bound by conservative use and wont so as to be protected against any impulse to employ the best organisation for the efficient conduct of his business.

The advantages of the woman worker are:--

1. That she will accept low wages; she usually works for about half the men's wages.

2. That she is not a member of a Union, and is, therefore, more amenable to the will of the employer as the absolute rule of the workshop.

3. That she is a steady[44] worker (much emphasis must not be placed upon this, as the contrary is also alleged), and nimble at mechanical processes, such as folding and collecting sheets.

[Footnote 44: "In Mr. W----'s youth, men used to do all the card mounting. Women were introduced for it about twenty-nine years ago. They were brought in because the men drank so and kept away." But later on the same informant said that he had to introduce a varnishing machine because women "kept away so."]

4. That she will do odd jobs which lead to nothing.[45]

[Footnote 45: Birmingham boys, for instance, would not feed printing machines, because it "leads to nothing," so girls were employed. _Cf._ Aberdeen, p. 47, etc.]

Her disadvantages are:--

1. That she has less technical skill than a man, and is not so useful all round.

2. That she has less strength at work and has more broken time owing to bad health and, especially should she be married, domestic duties, and that her output is not so great as that of a man.[46]

[Footnote 46: An employer with considerable experience both of men and women in the printing trade in Scotland, says, "given a certain area of floor s.p.a.ce for men and women, on the former would probably be produced half more than on the latter."]

3. That she is more liable to leave work just when she is getting most useful; or, expressing this in a general way, that there are more changes in a crowd of women workers than in a crowd of men workers.

4. That employers object to mixed departments.[47]

[Footnote 47: 1, 2, and 4, together lead London employers to conclude that an extension of women's employment is impossible, because it would mean larger workshops in proportion to the numbers employed, and consequently ruinous rents.]

One interesting point must be noted in connection with these conclusions. In London, where women mainly work on the more unskilled and irregular processes, it is often difficult to see what industrial influence they are exerting. In Edinburgh or Aberdeen that is not so much the case. And one thing which is observable in these places is that the employment of women of itself leads to those minute subdivisions of labour characteristic of machine industry. "There are more subdivisions of labour amongst women than amongst men in the printing trade. For example, one girl will set-up the type, another will "bra.s.s-out" (put in heads and finish it), or two may sometimes be employed in finishing it."[48]

[Footnote 48: So in bookbinding. A Dundee manager of a general binding establishment, says: "The subdivision of labour system has certainly favoured the increased employment of women in the trade."]

Cheap, mechanical and light work consequently tends to be done by women, whilst the men enjoy almost undisputed possession of the rest. The woman worker, for instance, competes with the man in binding the cheap light note-book, whilst she rarely interferes with him in binding heavy ledgers.[49] On the other hand, in some of the more mechanical departments, such as examining sheets of paper by touch, she attains a wonderful dexterity.

[Footnote 49: The following report from Aberdeen gives an interesting account of the subdivision of labour in a firm which has introduced women for cloth-case making:

"The department where girls are beginning to encroach on men is in cloth-case work, that is, making the cases and putting them on. In the higher reaches of the trade the women do not show themselves to be so skilful. As yet the men's Unions have not shown much active opposition to women's work in this branch, provided always that one man is set to work with every five girls employed on it. The making of a 'case' is divided into five sections and ill.u.s.trates the modern development of the division of labour system.