Admission to American Trade Unions Volume 30 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1912 edition. Excerpt: ...itself with a large membership for a considerable number of years without the aid of dances, card parties and social gatherings of other kinds. The greater care with which social bonds are developed in small towns and cities accounts largely for the greater activity of the unions located in small places" (p. 195). Another difficulty in the way of maintaining successful organizations of working women arises from the inevitable tendency toward a disparity in the wages of men and of women. Ordinarily a woman does not enter a trade to master its branches, but is likely to become efficient at only one or two of its parts. Lack of physical strength to perform heavy work, the shorter period of industrial life, and the weaker bargaining power of women combine to keep women's wages low. This fact constitutes a persistent problem to unionists after women have been organized. Thus, for example, members of the New York " Women's Typographical Union," chartered in 1868, were unable to secure employment at the standard rate of wages. The Printers soon ceased to provide for chartering women's unions in order to avoid the danger to the wage scale. They have continued to favor the admission of women into men's unions, where one scale of wages may be enforced.1 In 1903 the Travellers' Goods and Leather Novelty Workers provided that women should receive journeymen's pay for journeymen's work.2 The unions insist upon the doctrine of " equal pay," and endeavor consistently to enforce rules to that effect. While the national unions have thus promoted organization by urging the admission of women, by granting separate charters, by offering special inducements, by reducing fees and dues, and by demanding equal wages and conditions for women, the local unions ordinarily...