Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1916-04-06
LABOR PROBLEMS
PUZZLE GERMANY
Question Of Strengthening Out Tangle
In Conditions Caused by War
Brings Worry.

Berlin, March Corresponding
| of the Associated Press Nearly 90O,-
| 900 women are now at one kind OF
| work or another in Berlin. They have
warmed into almost every field Of &C
| tivity, no matter how difficult; they
are earning more money than they
ever had before; many have lost their
own bread winners and are for all
time dependent upon their own eff
| forts. The probable unwillingness OF
| the women to go back to their homes
after the war is being more and more
anticipated by the labor leaders who
say the women must go in favor OF
tie men when the time comes.
By far the largest proportion of the
women now employed in Berlin are
unskilled workers-perhaps 100000 OF
the 100000 OF the remaining 100000
skilled workers, only a small part are
customarily so employed. They have
done wonderfully well, even in such
difficult and strenuous occupations as
metal worker, but they are not, be-
cause of physical handicaps, the equal
of their male predecessors.
Just how large will be the number
of widows, or of women left with Grip
pied husbands, after the war, the la
Dor leaders do not attempt as yet to
| FTbocn hand
constitute, however, but part Of the
problem. Fully as puzzling is the
question of what to do with those
women who, though they later will
have other means of support, are eX-
pected deliberately to balk at retiring
to a productive life again.
The employer who is able to hire
women more Cheaply than men, will
be lOath to change to the old method.
and for time is not going to be able
to afford it. A not inconsiderable de-
gree of diplomacy combined with a
judicious use of compulsion is going
to be necessary, labor leaders feel,
before the problem can be adjusted.
There is hardly an occupation into
which women have not crowded dur
ing the past year. The employment
of women as street car conductors is
already an old and familiar condi-
ton, and women "motormen" have be-
come more or less familiar sights even
in the busy downtown streets of Ber-
lin.
The first woman taxicab chauffeur
was noted early last summer, and
she has multiplied somewhat since
then. The construction company
building the new tube under the
:, Friedrich Strasse connecting the
northern and southern sections of the
city has for months employed femi-
nine 'huskies," young and old, in
shoveling out the sandy underpinning
Of the street.
Two years ago the streets of the
capital were cleaned by men of mill
tary age and enter the army. 1t is a
common sight on any street to see
coal being carried into residences
from teams by women instead of men.
= The underground railway COM
, panies of Berlin months ago installed
women as ticket choppers, and then
introduced them as guards. When it
was found that their dresses frequent
ly got caught in doors, the companies
did not go back to male help but or
dered the women to don boomers, and
today there are more of them to be
seen than men.
Even Germans, accustomed to see
ing women performing heavy duties,
, gasped little when they heard that
the steam railroads, in addition to in
stalling women at the stations for
minor duties, had put them in as track
walkers, switch tenders and track
layers. Yet the Prussian RAILWAYS to-
day have a large number of women
now in their employ.
1t is almost universally admitted
that the women do not adequately sub
stitute for the men. Women conduc-
tors, for instance, are said to be about
80 per cent as efficient as their male
predecessors, and only about half of
those who go to work as conductors
are able to stand the strain. There
has been notable increase in certain
: women's diseases resulting directly
from this work.
Few Of the trades are harder or
more strenuous than metal work,
which Just now, Of course, is booming
because of the need of ammunition.
Yet there are thousands of women
, thus employed today, who do not seem
to mind the heavy work, and who are
earning, relatively, great deal of