The labor journal. [volume] (Everett, Wash.) 1909-1976, 1914-11-06
WOMEN Who WORK
What Organization Has Done to
Improve Their Condition.
THE TRADE UNION LEAGUE.


to Upift the Worker-A Campaign
Of Education and Lesislaton-Many
Victories Won.
In November, 1903, in Faneuil hall,
Boston, the American Federation of
Labor organized the National Women's
Trnde Union league. Early in its his
tory the American Federation of La
Dor declared in favor of political equal
ity for women, and the first presiden
tial report urged the Importance and
necessity of their industrial organiza-
ton. The labor leaders of the United
States were among the first to recog-
nize the share of women in industrial
democracy and called the working wo
men of America to the double task of
working for civic and industrial free
dom. In 1908 they decided that these
results could best be attained by an
organization of women working in CO.
operation with the American Fedora
ton of Labor for these specific pur-
poses The organization of the Ma
tional Women's Trade Union league
was quickly followed by the establish
ment of local leagues in Boston, New
York and Chicago, and today there are
in addition local leagues in st. Louis
and Kansas City, Mo-; Springfield, Ill;
Denver and Baltimore. Each local
league becomes a center of effort for
the improvement of the condition of
working women through organization
and legislation.
For centuries women have looked
upon their problems as personal, to be
met and solved only by each as an in
dividual. But when the introduction
of machinery carried her work from
the home to. the mill woman learned
that her problem was a social one, to
be mastered only by collective action.
When in the further development of
machinery the work of skilled artisan
could be replaced by an unframed wo-
man or girl plus the machine. and in
dividual bargaining became a menace
to the social order by her inability to
secure a fair wage and need forced her
to become an underbidder in the labor
market-then education and equipment
in organization and citizenship for
working women became a social ne
ceSsity. While the need of organiZa-
tion is imperative with an army of
100000 women workers, of whom
100000 are under twcnty-one years
of age. education is also essential. To
teach girls of fourteen receiving cents
an hour and women working for So a
week the true value of their labor
power; to show and interpret to them
the ira gedy of the underbidder and the
certainty with which low wages react
in injury to women and the ruin of the
home: to develop a sense of group fell
lowship and responsibility for work
ing conditions in their factory and
trade; to help the average working
girl to feel that upon her knowledge
courage and cooperation depend her
personal welfare and the welfare of
her fellow workers-such was the work
of the Womens Trade Union league in
its early years.
The first answer of the rank and file
of the working girls to this call for
larger life of freedom, opportunity and
self government was the epoch making
strikes. beginning with the shirt waist
workers in New York and Philadelphia
and sweeping nearly every industrial
center. Grim and terrible as strike
may be as an expression of protest, it
is nevertheless the outward and visible
sign of miracle in the human soul.
To strike against anti-social working
conditions when all other means fail,
to suffer if need be from hunger and
cold and to keep faith with ones fell
lows in this struggle after better hui
man life which all shall share, is a
final expression of courage and char
acter in the world of labor. The vic
tories won in these struggles have not
only wiped out sweating conditions in
many trades and helped to standardize
labor in important industries. but from
the heat of these conflicts has been
forged new and able leadership
among the working women of Ameri-
ca.-Margaret Dreier Robins, President
Women's Trade Union League, in
American Federationist.