Since then a considerable number of
Unions have been formed among match-makers, dressmakers, milliners,
mantle-makers, upholstresses, rope-makers, confectioners, box-makers,
shirt-makers, umbrella-makers, brush-makers and others. Many of these
have been formed to remedy some pressing grievance, or to secure some
definite advance of wage, and in certain cases of skilled factory work
where the women have maintained a steady front, as among the match-
makers and the confectioners, considerable concessions have been won
from employers. But the small scale and tentative character of most of
these organizations do not yet afford any adequate test of what Unionism
can achieve. The workers in a few factories here and there have formed a
Union of, at the most, a few hundred workers. No large women's trade has
yet been organized with anything approaching the size and completeness
of the stronger men's Unions. Women Trade Unionists numbered 120,178 in
1901, and of these no less than 89.9 per cent were textile workers,
whose Unions are mostly organized by and associated with male Unions.
There are several reasons why the growth of effective organization among
women-workers must be slow. In the first place, as we have seen, a large
proportion of their work is "out work" done at home or in small domestic
workshops. Now labour organizations are necessarily strong and
effective, in proportion as the labourers are thrown together constantly
both in their work and in their leisure, have free and frequent
opportunities of meeting and discussion, of educating a sense of
comradeship and mutual confidence, which shall form a moral basis of
unity for common industrial action.
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