Women in the Printing Trades Part 7

1st girl glues.

2nd girl lays on boards.

Man cuts corners.

3rd girl turns in ends.

4th girl turns in fore-edge.

5th girl (young) puts it through rolling machine."]

We have also to note how very effectively conservative notions about women's sphere and chivalrous prejudices about protecting them, influence certain employers in determining what work they _ought_ to do.

[Sidenote: Technical training.]

We have endeavoured to ascertain how far technical training would increase the pressure of compet.i.tion between men and women, but in the present rudimentary state of such training there are few data to guide us to any very positive conclusion.

It is difficult, however, to see how in these trades the technical training of women would threaten men, except perhaps in the artistic branches. The use of the various mechanical type-setting machines has already led to some displacement of labour, and though the _technique_ of setting and s.p.a.cing might be taught to women in trade cla.s.ses, the greater regularity of the male worker, and his remaining longer at the trade must always, in so skilled an industry as this, give him advantages over his female compet.i.tor. Nor would cla.s.ses for women in bookbinding injure men bookbinders. For in this as in other trades women are not handicapped only by a want of skill, and if they attended cla.s.ses, presumably they would be taught chiefly the arts and crafts side of bookbinding, and thus be led into branches of the trade at present undeveloped.

[Sidenote: "Use and wont."]

Moreover, a curious fact has to be kept in mind. Women workers are so lethargic that they are largely governed by use and wont. No remark is more frequent in the investigators' reports, than one to this effect, "That is men's work. Why? We do not know, but it _is_ men's work, and we do not think about it." In some instances this use and wont is based on experience; in others, as in the backwardness of London employers in putting women to feed lithographic machines, its rational explanation is not obvious.[50] In this respect the women themselves are very "loyal." "Once the employer wanted her," writes an investigator, "to varnish books, and offered her 5_s._ a book: she has a steady hand and could have done it quite well. It meant following a delicate zig-zag pattern with a paint brush. She refused indignantly, and said, 'I know my place and I'm not going to take men's work from them.'" And, again, a rigid sense of propriety, based on a certain amount of good reason, seems to determine many employers to separate male from female departments without further question.[51]

[Footnote 50: Except perhaps, as has been suggested, that the premises where lithographic work is done are generally so unsuitable for the employment of women.]

[Footnote 51: A similar division exists in women's work; certain kinds are done by women of an inferior social grade, _e.g._, machine-feeding, and these are strictly kept at arm's length by women working in different departments in the same factory.]

[Sidenote: Girls _v._ Women.]

So much is heard of women as rivals of men that we forget that women themselves are often preyed upon by still cheaper rivals, and the real value of technical training for women seems to lie in the fact that such training might protect them against these. Owing to the unskilled nature of their work, however, even technical education can afford to them only an unsatisfactory security against younger and cheaper persons. One of the investigators, for instance, reports:--

"It is the regular custom in A.'s now to have little girls at 3_s._ and 4_s._ a week doing work which women at 11_s._ and 12_s._ ought to do.

They put a little girl beside a regular hand, and as soon as the little one masters the work [show-card mounting is being reported upon], they discharge the big one. When the little one asks for a rise, they give her 6_d._ or 1_s._ more, and when she wants still more, she goes."

Figures follow showing that just under one-ninth of the women employed in this department at A.'s are "old hands." Then the report proceeds: "A. discharged about forty hands on the plea of slackness a little while ago, and then put up bills for learners." The investigators found that amongst the employees there was a very widespread opinion that "the learners always get all the best work," and that one of the regular features of the trade is, that it employs a large fluctuating number of learners, whilst a smaller number of skilled hands are kept in tolerably regular work.[52]

[Footnote 52: This, however, is not a problem special to women's work, but is one of general industrial conditions, although it is marked with special distinctness in the case of women.]

The old hands occasionally object to teach the young ones, but nothing comes of their opposition to a system by which they are compelled to train their own executioners.

CHAPTER V.

_INDUSTRIAL TRAINING._

1. THE TRAINING.

[Sidenote: How girls are taught.]

At the present moment such training as is given generally begins in the workshops so soon as the girl has left school.[53] Girls are, in the best houses, employed on the recommendation of workers already there.

Much of the work, such as folding, is merely a matter of mechanical quickness and accuracy, and after a few weeks' practice the girl is as useful as she is ever likely to have an opportunity to be. A great deal of the work women do in stationery factories (such as stamping, black bordering, numbering pages) is of a routine nature, and this work is generally paid by the piece. For such departments, no premium is asked as a rule.[54] Sometimes the beginner is paid a small wage--2_s._ 6_d._ or thereabouts--to encourage her at first. Sometimes she works a few weeks for nothing.[55] Sometimes she has to pay a tuition fee to the woman under whose charge she is put. Sometimes this woman gives her a small sum as a gift in respect of the help she renders. Some firms make the training period fairly long, in order that it may be impossible for the lower cla.s.s of girls to accept the conditions of employment.

By-and-by the learner is paid half of what she earns, and finally she is put on regular piecework, her advancement depending on her nimbleness.

If she is in a large house she is only taught one process, but if quick, and employed in a smaller house, she may be taught several. In almost every instance she is put upon piecework as soon as possible after she begins. In an overwhelming number of cases the beginners are simply placed beside a regular hand, and pick up their skill by watching the old hand and then turning and doing it themselves. The girl who "picked up vellum-sewing and wire-st.i.tching" whilst engaged as a folder, and she who was transferred from tie-making to st.i.tching and folding, are types. The phrase "serving her time" survives, but the apprentices.h.i.+p which is indicated hardly now exists.

[Footnote 53: "A boy learns nothing after fifteen, a girl after fourteen," is the way one employer puts it.]

[Footnote 54: Very few premiums are reported upon. In one case it was said that 10 were asked as a premium in relief stamping, but the informant admitted that the sum varied; in another well-known stationery firm a premium of 2 is asked for, but is returned with 5 per cent.

interest at the end of three years. The premiums of 50 or 100 charged by certain bookbinding teachers are of course quite special.]

[Footnote 55: LEADING LONDON HIGH-CLa.s.s STATIONERY FIRM:--_Paging Department._--Girls come for a few months for nothing, _i.e._ six months, no premium. They go on getting quicker.

_Lithographic Department._

Girls come in and pick it up: show one another how to do it.

_Vellum-binding Department._

Girls come for three years and are paid 5_s._ per week.

LEADING EDUCATIONAL SUPPLY FIRM:

_Copybook and similar Work._

"Has several little girls running about on errands for a few s.h.i.+llings a week, and if any of them seem promising they are helped on. Training nothing like what it used to be; girls learn only one branch."

LARGE LONDON PRINTING FIRM:--_Vellum-sewing Department._

"Regular apprentices.h.i.+p still the system here." Three years given as the period for training and during this time no wages are paid. Girls come straight from school.

_Folding, etc., Department._

"No regular apprentices.h.i.+p. Girls come in and pick it up; if quick they are taught other branches, like numbering, relief stamping, etc."

LONDON STATIONERY FIRM:

_Envelope Folding and Hand-cementing Department._

"Girls are put under an experienced party to whom they pay 10_s._ For six weeks, they receive nothing. For next six weeks they receive half earnings, then they are put on piecework."

_Black Bordering._

"A regular hand teaches and gets any benefit of the work during six months in return for the time she wastes in teaching." This practice is also adopted in some firms in envelope folding by hand.

LONDON PUBLIs.h.i.+NG FIRM:

_Bookbinding Department._

"System of indenture has just been revived because it was found that otherwise the firm had no hold over the girls, so that the quick ones as soon as they had learnt went off elsewhere as full earners." Indenture for two years.