Women -- Employment -- Great Britain; Women labor union members -- Great Britain; Working class women -- Great Britain
Among the industries thus unwontedly disturbed were the jam-making,
confectionery, capsule-making, tin box-making, cocoa-making, and some
others. In some of the factories the lives led by these girls are almost
indescribable. Many of them work ten and a half hours a day, pushed and
urged to utmost speed, carrying caldrons of boiling jam on slippery
floors, standing five hours at a time, and all this often for about 8s. a
week, out of which at least 6s. would be necessary for board and lodging
and fares. Most of them regarded the conditions of their lives as in the
main perfectly inevitable, came out on strike to ask only 6d. or 1s. more
wages and a quarter of an hour for tea, and could not formulate any more
ambitious demands. An appeal for public support was issued, and met with a
satisfactory response. The strike in several instances had an even
surprisingly good result. In one factory wages were raised from 11s. to
13s.; in others there was 1s. rise all round; in others of 2s. or 2s. 6d.,
even in some cases of 4s. In one case a graduated scale with a fixed
minimum of 4s. 7d. for beginners at fourteen years old, increasing up to
12s. 4d. at eighteen, was arranged. One may hope that the moral effect of
such an uprising is not wholly lost, even if the resulting organisations
are not stable; the employer has had his reminder, as a satirical observer
said in August 1911, "of the importance of labour as a factor in
production."
* * * * *
Many women were enrolled in new branches of the National Federation of
Women Workers. Not all of these branches survive, but there was some
revival of Unionism in the winter, 1913-14, and many of the workers who
struck in 1911 will be included under the new Trade Boards.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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