Some of the strongest tributes to women’s industrial efficiency came from the Ministry of Munitions. Lloyd George stated that, “the country has been saved, and victory assured by the work of women in the munition factories.” From time to time the Dilution Bulletins contained examples of an actual increase in output when women replaced men. For example, at an east coast aeroplane factory, twelve women were said to be making twice the number of pulleys formerly made by sixteen men. The output of a horseshoe manufactory increased 7½ per cent after ninety women replaced the same number of men. In one factory turning out 9.2 inch shells, the men handled from eight to eleven during a ten hour shift, while the women handled twenty-four. Frequently when women failed in their work the cause was found to be outside their control. In one case spoilt work was due to the setting of tools wrong by men who were opposed to “dilution.” Lack of proper lifting devices was not an uncommon handicap.

The question is of course greatly complicated, especially in industry, by the fact that women are probably not in the majority of cases doing precisely the same work as the men who preceded them. At least four different forms of substitution can be distinguished, in all but one of which the woman’s work is not identical with the man’s. These have been called (1) complete or direct substitution, (2) group substitution, (3) indirect substitution, and (4) substitution by rearrangement.

“Complete” or “direct” replacement occurs only when a woman takes up the whole of the same work that a man has been doing. The frequency of this form of replacement was perhaps overestimated during the early months of the war, because it necessarily occurred when women took men’s places in such nonindustrial positions as postmen, drivers and tramcar conductors, with whom the public comes in daily contact. Until perhaps the third year of the war, however, such complete replacement was for the most part found in the lighter forms of comparatively unskilled work, for instance, sweeping in bakeries, filling sacks in chemical plants, and some light, unskilled work in munitions and other metal trades. Even in clerical work women were substituted for men largely in the more routine, less skilled branches. But from about 1917 an increasing number of women proved able to do the whole of a skilled man’s work in industry, even, in some cases, to “setting up” and repairing their machines. Women were found who seemed to be “natural mechanics”—a quality formerly thought to be entirely lacking in the female sex. The direct substitution of women in scientific, managerial, and supervisory work during the same period has already been noted.

“Group” substitution is said to take place when a group of women do the work of a smaller number of men. It is the method of substitution often used in provision stores and other forms of retail trade. In some cases it has proved to be only a temporary arrangement, followed in a few months by “complete” or “direct” substitution, as the women gained in experience and efficiency and became able to do as much work as the men. The so-called “indirect” form of replacement was common in the metal trades, especially when additional women were first being added to the force. An unskilled man or a boy was promoted to skilled work, whose place, in turn, was taken by a woman. This form of substitution was of course particularly easy to overlook.

The equal pay situation becomes most complicated under the form of substitution most frequent in the skilled trades, namely, substitution by rearrangement. In this case the trade processes themselves are changed on the introduction of women workers. Excellent illustrations of this form of substitution may be drawn from the munition branch of the engineering trade, which was revolutionized by such methods since the beginning of the war. The purpose of the reorganization is to simplify skilled processes so as to bring them within the capacity of less expert workers, all the changes tending toward greater specialization and greater repetition.

A skilled man’s work was sometimes analyzed into its various parts and a woman put on each separate part. Or simpler parts of a piece of highly skilled work were set off for women to do, while a man spent his time exclusively on skilled operations. Thus in many munition factories, where formerly each machine was “set up,” operated and repaired by a skilled man, each was operated by a woman, while half a dozen were supervised and repaired by a single skilled man. Another very common method of “substitution by rearrangement” consisted of the introduction of automatic or semi-automatic machinery, in place of hand work or machines requiring considerable attention and initiative on the part of the operator. Thus a machine for cloth cutting is advertised, which, according to the testimonial of an employer, “does the work of four hand cutters and is operated by a girl with the greatest ease. Until its introduction it was impossible to employ women at the actual work of cutting, but where this machine is in use it is now done. It has helped us to carry on six government contracts and has reduced cutting costs by more than 50 per cent.”[157]

From one point of view it would not seem essential that women should receive men’s rates if “substitution by rearrangement” has taken place. From another viewpoint, however, if the lower rates decrease the total labor cost of the job, as is almost always the case, the danger remains that lower rates for women will pull down the men’s wage standards. More obvious is the menace to the men’s rates if women are not generally inferior as workers, and if they are employed at a lower wage scale under the other forms of substitution.

The evidence obtainable on the relative wages received by men workers and by the women who replaced them shows that just that danger exists. While most of the women substitutes have gained an improved financial position, they have not, on the whole, reached a plane of economic equality with the men whom they have replaced. In January, 1916, the Labour Gazette, looking back over 1915, said that, “the extensive substitution of women and young persons for men has tended to lower wages per head for those employed.”[158] The nearest approaches to the men’s level seem to have been attained in occupations covered by trade union agreements which require the payment of the men’s wage scale to the women. But even in some of these occupations, as in transport, the women did not receive all the bonuses of the men. In the munitions industry, the government seemed at first to go on record in favor of the equal pay principle, but, in practice, unskilled and semi-skilled time work were excluded, and the women failed to receive the same cost of living bonuses as the men, though unquestionably the wages of women substitutes in munitions work were much higher than the former level of women’s wages.

In wage disputes involving the question of “equal pay,” the tendency of conciliation boards such as the Special Arbitration Tribunal was to grant some wage increases, but to avoid any declaration on the principle. In the summer of 1918 such action caused a strike of women bus conductors which attracted much public attention. In July both men and women asked for a revision of a previous award on an equal pay basis. The Committee on Production, which handled the case, gave the men a bonus, but refused it to the women on the ground of the precedents set by the Ministry of Munitions in granting similar bonuses only to males. The women struck in protest on August 17, and were supported by most of the men, who feared a future double standard of wages. The committee then reconsidered its decision and on August 30 granted the women the same bonus as the men. The decision recognized the equal pay principle and also that the receipt of separation allowances by soldiers’ wives should not be considered, in fixing wages.

In trades covered neither by union agreement nor legal regulation, women generally received what is high pay according to their previous wage scale, but investigators believe that the men’s level was not even approximately reached.