The war apparently proved a great stimulus to trade unionism among women workers in England. Prior to the war, as in other industrial countries, women workers were notoriously hard to organize, and formed but a small minority of trade union membership. In 1913 nearly 4,000,000 men and only 356,000 women were said to be members of English trade unions. Aside from the fact that before the war most women were found in unskilled and low paid occupations in which union organization had made but little progress even among men, the usual explanation of the difficulty of organizing them was that most of them were young and expected to marry within a few years and to withdraw from industry. The one exception to this condition was the cotton textile trade, in which a large proportion of the women belonged to labor unions. Out of the whole number of organized women, 257,000 were in the textile trades. As already indicated, many of the unions in the skilled trades would not admit women members and were unfavorable to any extension of their work.

Two special organizations were devoted to the promotion of trade unionism among women. The older, the Women’s Trade League, was made up mainly of affiliated societies and was formed with the idea that a place could be found for women in existing organizations. But in many trades where there were large numbers of women unions did not exist, or the men’s unions forbade the employment of women. The National Federation of Women Workers gave its attention to these occupations. Its membership was stated to be about 20,000 in 1913.

During the war the number of women trade unionists increased at an unprecedented rate. At the end of 1914 their number was officially reported as 472,000, at the corresponding period in 1915 as 521,000, and at the end of 1916, 1917 and 1918, respectively, as approximately 650,000, 930,000 and 1,224,000—an increase of nearly 160 per cent between 1914 and 1918. During the same period the number of male trade unionists increased about 45 per cent.[98] Out of 1,220 craft and trade unions, 837 had only male members, 347 included both men and women and 36 were composed wholly of women. The latter included some 95,000 members, and the largest of them were the National Federation of Women Workers and the National Federation of Women Teachers.

A report by the factory inspectors enumerated ten important trades, including several of the textiles, boots and shoes, furniture, cutlery, fancy leather goods and tobacco, in which the number of women unionists was 365 per cent greater in 1914 than in 1917, rising from 41,778 in 1914 to 152,814 in 1917. A small but interesting union was that made up of women oxy-acetylene welders, a skilled trade which women had entered for the first time during the war. Its membership was mainly made up of educated women who were active in securing “equal pay” for themselves. Detailed figures for seven individual trades are as follows:

NUMBER OF WOMEN
TRADE UNION MEMBERS[99]

Another development of trade unionism among women during the war was that for the first time in the so-called “mixed unions,” composed of both men and women members, a large number of women were elected as branch secretaries and local officials. This change was forced by the withdrawal of men for military service, but the new officers were reported to be “as a whole extremely satisfactory.”[100]

It is generally believed that the chief reason for the growth of trade unionism among women during the war was the increase in their wages, together with the resentment aroused at the same time by frequent failure to achieve “equal pay for equal work.” Other causes sometimes mentioned cover many of the principal effects of the war on women workers. Women’s customary docility was said to be reduced by the absence of their men folk on military service, forcing them more often to assume the initiative. The public recognition of the value of women’s work likewise increased their self-confidence. Contact with the stern realities of war was believed to have reduced the irresponsibility of the younger workers and the petty caste feeling frequent among women of all ages. The shortage in the supply of workers strengthened labor’s general position, and government acknowledgment of the importance of trade unionism also weakened opposition by employers.

But in spite of the growth in unionism some complaints were made that it was even harder than usual to interest certain of the new workers in organization because they were so consciously working only for the duration of the war. Women have been found who believed in the value of the unions sufficiently to keep up the dues of the men whose places they were taking, but who refused to join themselves.

The principal agency concerned with unionizing women munition workers during the war period was the National Federation of Women Workers, which is reported to have more than tripled its membership during the war.[101] Under its energetic secretary, Miss Mary Macarthur, it was credited with securing legislation and official action in behalf of the women war workers, in addition to its organizing work. Its breezy little monthly paper, The Woman Worker, which sheds much light on the point of view of the woman trade unionist toward events of the day, was started in January, 1916.

In its task of organizing munition girls, the Federation of Women Workers had the advantage of an informal alliance with the Amalgamated Society of Engineers. In May, 1915, this strong union rejected a plan to admit women workers on the ground that it would prevent excluding them from the trade after the war. But the following month the A. S. E. arranged with the federation to set up joint committees to fix wage scales for women and to support the Federation in enforcing the demands jointly agreed upon. Somewhat contradictory reports were received on the results of this action. The federation praised the society’s help highly, saying that several new branches were “literally made by A. S. E. men,”[102] though a writer in the Women’s Industrial News stated that the one or two cases of A. S. E. action in behalf of the women “have had no pressure behind them,” and secured only “negligible” results.[103]

The substitution question, it has been shown, emphasized the unfriendly attitude of many unions in the skilled crafts toward the woman worker. Some unions, for instance the two covering tramway employment, flatly voted down the admission of women without making any such substitute arrangements for them as did the A. S. E. In a number of cases, even where they were forced to permit “dilution,” they seem to have retained an attitude of hostility or suspicion. Numerous individual instances of this kind may be found in the pages of the Dilution Bulletins. In some cases tools were purposely set wrong or were not supplied at all, and unfavorable reports of the women’s work were made without substantial basis.

Other unions—apparently on the whole the newer and more radical bodies—did let in the women workers. The waiters’ union even opened a class to train them to replace the interned enemy aliens. The steam railway organization admitted them, though not exactly on the same terms as men. The women substitutes naturally appear to have had a “smoother path” under these circumstances than where the policy of exclusion was maintained.

Since the armistice there has been a decline in the number of women trade unionists, and it is doubtful if the war level will again be reached for some time to come. There is, however, a greatly increased interest in trade unionism among English working women, which will undoubtedly be maintained under the changed conditions of peace and reconstruction. The movement is, of course, closely connected with the way the “dilution” problem is settled. This will be discussed in the chapter dealing with the situation during the first few months after the armistice.