Denver labor bulletin., 1918-07-20
MARY ANDERSON.
TRADES UlIONIST.
GETS u. S. OFFICE
MADE ASSISTANT CHIEF OF
NEW WOMAN'S BUREAU
AT WASHINGTON.
Former President Chicago Boot
and Shoe Workers Local, and
Knows the Labor Story
Because She Has
Lived 1t.

The assistant chief of the new wom-
ans bureau in the United States de-
partment of labor, Miss Mary Ander-
son, whose appointment has just been
announced, is the first trade union
woman appointed to an administra-
tive Office in national executive de-
partment. She is a member of the
executive board of the international
Boot and Shoe Workers Union, and
has been for seven years organizer
for the National Women's Trade
Union League, with headquarters in
Chicago. At present she is also vice
chairman Of the Washington commit
tee Of the National Women's Trade
Union League
For eighteen years Miss Anderson,
who is of Swedish birth, worked as q
stitcher in Chicago shoe factories.
During much of that time she was
president Of the Chicago Boot and
Shoe Workers local, and for a year
when she was working in a factory at
lynn, Mass, she was president of the
women's local there.
Knows the Labor Story.
Miss Anderson enters her new po-
sition from the ordnance bureau of the
war department, where she has been
supervisor in the woman's branch of
the industrial service section. In this
capacity her work consisted chiefly
of conferences with workers and en-
ployers in connection with the en-
forcement of the governments labor
policy in munition factories.
Mary Anderson knows the labor
story because she has lived it. Neces-
sarily does she know the labor wom-
ans problems.
1.-THE need for the woman's bureau,
- L - ,l...A
do" says Miss Anderson, "grow out of
the fact that the peculiar problems
surrounding women in industry have
never received enough attention. The
reason they have not received enough
attention is, think, that the woman's
point of view has never been repre-
scented in the policy-making boards.
Member Policy Board
"Until traditions are broken, and
men acquire the habit of putting wom-
en- in administrative and consultative
positions as readily and as frequently
| as they put men in such places, the
woman's bureau has a big work cut
out for it. Women have been left
out of labor councils heretofore. Not
even in the executive council of the
American Federation of Labor are
women represented. There is no wom-
en- on the national war labor board.
The greatest thing in the future of
the woman's bureau will be the fact
that its chief, a woman, will be
member of the war labor policies
board. This means that she will have
equal authority with any man on the
board, not only with regard to women,
but with regard to men Absorbing
ing to bear on the government for
the first time in the history of this
country the woman's point of view on
labor questions"
Equal Pay for Women.
Miss Anderson expresses herself
strongly in favor of writing the gov
ernment's labor standards into all
government contracts. The greatest
problem of all the. new bureau will
have to deal with, she says, is the
problem of securing equal pay for
equal work by women and men. In
| scores of factories, according to her
observations, women are now doing
mems work for less than men are paid.
eve must focus attention on such
things as this, and on the ten-hour
shift that prevails for women in some
factories, both day aid night. Women
know what such conditions mean to
women, the mothers of the race. On
these and all other labor questions
| we hope to make the woman's bureau
/ the expression of the labor woman's
point of view in the governments la