Women in the Printing Trades: A Sociological Study.
General
Women in the Printing Trades: A Sociological Study.
Printing industry -- Great Britain; Women -- Employment -- Great Britain; Women printers -- Great Britain; Working class women -- Great Britain
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
Constitutional_ 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
_Constitutional_ 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 Association 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 Association 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.
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