Women -- Employment -- Great Britain; Women labor union members -- Great Britain; Working class women -- Great Britain
But after all the domestic difficulty does not explain the whole problem
of woman's apathy and indifference in Trade Unions. Supposing the meeting
occurs only once a quarter, as in some places, house-work cannot be an
insuperable obstacle to attendance at such rare intervals. One weaver told
me she had been "bread-winner, nurse, and cleaner" at home, and yet had
found time to attend meetings. Probably the real explanation of the
attitude of women generally towards the Union is to be found in their
education and outlook. Lloyd Jones, in his life of Robert Owen, explained
the failure of the early co-operative societies by the fact that at that
time the working-class had no habit of association. The old forms had
gone; the new had been legally suppressed. Under the changed conditions of
modern life the working-class has had to evolve a new set of social habits
and a new code of social duty. The habit of association has developed more
slowly among women than among men, because to some extent it does
undeniably come in conflict with the traditional moralities of women. To a
great many women the idea of home duty means duty within the home; they
are only beginning to find out by slow degrees that their home is largely
dependent for its very existence on outside impersonal forces about which
it is incumbent on the home-maker to know something, even if she has to go
outside to get knowledge. The Weavers' Secretary, even in Lancashire,
still finds that "females are a deal more arduous to organise than males";
he supposes, because "they've been brought up to be different." They cost
more in collecting expenses, and the propensity of girls to get married,
to leave work or change their occupation is a constant source of anxiety.
"They are always on the move," and perpetual watchfulness is needed to
enrol the young ones as they enter the mill. Tact and diplomacy are
expended in inducing the women-workers to keep an eye on the younger
members, to bring them in as early in their industrial careers as
possible. Even such homely arguments as "it saves your money from stamps,"
are not disdained in the effort to persuade the women to use their own
personal influence to keep the flame alive. Small commissions are given to
a member of a Union who brings in a new member. But without commissions
women do a good deal of recruiting in the mills. The Lancashire cotton
Unions do not run themselves; their efficiency is very largely the result
of constant watchfulness and patient effort on the part of the officials,
backed up by the pluck, tenacity, and high standard of comfort of the
Lancashire woman herself.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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