The wageworker., 1907-08-23

as workers by the 1eel1ng CnaL Lne1l
employment was but temporary ex
pedient, from which they would be re-
leased by marriage. While this
must continue to be true of large
number of women workers, still as
class there can be no question of the
permanence of their position in the
industrial world or of the necessity
of developing the higher altruism
which shall prompt temporary work
ers to guard the interests of less for
tunate sisters, whose lives depend en-
tirely on their conditions of work.
Notwithstanding these drawbacks to
organization on the part of the women,
their influence has not been entirely
wanting in the organizations of the
past. They were admitted on equal
terms with the men in the old English
crafts guilds, and seem to have re-
ceived full recognition, both in the con-
troll of the affairs of the guild and in
the consumption of ale.
Women's unions were not unknown
in the early annals of the English
trades unionism We hear of them as
early as 1888. To quote from history
by Sydney and Beatrice Webb: Nor
were the women neglected. The grand
lodge of Operative Bonnet Makers vies
in activity with the miscellaneous
grand lodge of the Women of Great
Britain and Ireland, and the Lodge of
Female Tailors asks Indignantly
whether the Tailors' order is really 60
ing to prohibit women from making
waistcoats. Whether the Grand Ma
Trad wa
responsible for the lodges of Female
Gardeners and Ancient Virgins, who
afterward distinguished themselves in
the riotous demand for an eight-hour
| day at Oldham, is not clear"
| While women have been admitted
| to membership in the older, more con-
| servative mems unions for over 20
years, their greatest advance in num-
bers and influence has been during
the last ten years. To-day women not
only sit as members in the central
labor unions of the great cities, but
also exercise the full rights of dele
gates in the American Federation of
Labor They have not received such
recognition in any other national or
! ganiZation of men.
/
complete faith in wise use of what
ever power they may help put into
the hands of women is proven by the
adoption of the following resolution
in favor of woman suffrage, which
was introduced by Vice President
Duncan at the 1908 meeting:
Resolved, That the best interests
of labor require the admission of
women to full citizenship as a matter
of justice to them and as a necessary
step toward insuring and raising the
scale of wages for ALL"
The labor organizations have dis
covered that the principles of union
ism are as applicable to consumption
as to production; they are trying to
influence the demand for the finished
product, as well as the condition un-
der which it is made. They hope to
do this by means of the union label.
In the recently published prize essay
on the subject Macarthur says: "The
union label enlists and arms in labor S
cause those elements which determine
the issue of every cause in civilized
society, namely, the women and chill
dren.
In many places there are women's
union label leagues organized to pro-
mote the demand for union-made
goods.
The instincts of woman and the
interests of labor are conjoined in the
union label. Both stand for clean1i
ness, morality, the care of the young
the sanctity of the home; both stand
against strife and force. The union
label makes woman the strongest, as
she is the gentlest of Gods creatures.
One has only to look over the rec
ords of the American Federation OF
|, Labor to realize that the labor organi
cations are unqualified in their con
demnation of child labor Over ter
years ago President Gompers declared
1.-The damnable system which permits
, young and innocent children to have
their very lives worked out of then
in factories, mills, workshops anC
stores is one of the very worst of labor
grievances, one which the trade unions
have protested against for years, ant
in the reformation of which we shall
never cease our agitation until We
have rescued them and placed then
where they should be, in the school
room and the playground" Since
then the president and delegates have
4 repeated and indorsed these 3enti
ments so often that they are nov
$ looked upon as automatic, the las
e committee on the presidents repor
: remarking, that the child belongs ii
the school and on the playground in
r stead of in the workshop and factor!
: is as well known and recognized b!
: those not blinded by personal inter
n ests as is the multiplication table,"