The Pensacola journal. (Pensacola, Fla.) 1898-1985, 1915-07-11
WILL GET OLD
JOBS ONCE MORE
RAILRoADMEN WHO ARE
SERVING AT THE FRONT WITH
BRITISH TROOPS HAVE POSI-
TIoN WAITING.
BIZ ASSOCIATED PRESS.

London, July 10.-The British min
istry has promised the National Union
of Railwaymen that at thet end of
hostilities the railwaymen serving
with the armed forces will obtain
jobs equal to those they gave up.
At the same time, ]. H. Thomas,
NJ. p, secretary of the union, says he
is extremely uneasy over the problem
of women railway workers. In a
speech at a meeting of the men in
Nottingham, he said:
81 am profoundly convinced that you
have to face the fact that female la
Dor has come to stay. Therefore we
have got to make up our minds upon
one or two things. First, what grade
would it be dangerous for female la
Dor to be engaged in; second, whatever
grades they work in, they must not
be used as means for reducing the
prices that we have secured for par
ticular grades by years Of agitation.
What we have to say is that no
woman's labor is to be made the
means of reducing the statue of any
grade in the railway service"
According to the speaker, there are
certain classes of railway work which
| women are unable to perform, and
women are not proving satisfactory
in all the positions that have been
opened for them.
In short there were two courses
| open to the unions-either to refuse
TO allow the experiment of women
workers altogether, as has been done
in some places by the streetcar men,
or to devote the unions energies to
insisting upon the maintenance of the
standard of wages. Most of the.
| speakers favored the latter procedure,
urging that while the trade union
/ list cannot, without stultifying his own
/ principles, protest against female la
fbor, he has every right to protest
against female labor, which is mere
/ ly cheap labor under an alias, and it
/ is in the interest of the country that
! he should so protest"
The only government department
which has made any wholesale effort
20 avail itself of the large amount
If female labor at its disposal to
axe the place of men in military ser
vice, is the Postofice. This depart
ment now has 5000 new women en-
!! ployes in the various branches of its
york throughout out the country.
Of the 10000 men employed by
me Postoffice before the war, $1,000
have joined the army. In the rural
| districts women have been employed
in limited way as letter carriers for
some years past; they have now been
introduced into some of the small
towns and cities. Other places which
are being opened to women are those
of the mail sorters and messengers.
Girl telegraph messengers, mounted
on bicycles, are gradually taking the
places of the boy messengers, and a
great deal of the Postoffice's telegraph
work is being done for the first time
in the London General Postofice.
On the authority of a high postal
official, it is stated that the reports
from all quarters are to the effect
that the work of the women who have
DSeH eHBdSSu 70 replace men mas
been extremely we'll done. "They
work quickly and accurately, and they
are very conscientious" says one re-
port.
Women letter carriers will be seen
in the suburban districts of London
within a few weeks. Candidates for
these posts have already been call
ed for from the government labor ex-
change.
Women are as common sight il
, English fields now as in the contin-
] entail countries. Over 10000 male
farm laborers have enlisted in the
army and caused a grave shortage
Farmers complain of the scarcity o.
labor and say that they have suffered
, from recruiting all they can bear. A.
the local food supply was never so i'm
portant as now, they have even asked
for the release of soldiers for farm
! work. This request has been grant
ed by the war office for the harvest
: ing of the grain crops, but for tina
only