Toledo union journal. [volume] (Toledo, Ohio) 1942-current, 1944-12-15
Women
y IOrkers
Problems
BY Eleanor Fowler
Secretary Treasurer,
CIO Auxiliaries

keep pace with the FORWARD
drive of our armies, has focused
attention once more on the
problems of women workers.
There is an urgent need for
thousands of women on war
jobs in a number of areas, and
yet over the country as a whole
just as many women quit as
took jobs in September.
In some war areas the situa-
ton is much worse-with more
women leaving the labor mar
ket than entering it.
Why do they leave? Because
they're tired, because their
household duties pile up, but
most of all because they cannot
make satisfactory provision for
care of their children.
Of course we have made
progress in setting up child care
centers during the war emer-
gency but we haven't come any,
where near meeting the need.
A report of the War Manpower
Commission last September
showed 1873 war production
communities in need of better
facilities to handle problems of
women workers, especially child
care.
Women Discouraged
And of course lack of these
facilities discourages and pre-
vents many women who want
and need jobs from taking
them.
At one of the housing prof.
in Camden, New Jersey, for
Sing ice. as delegate reported
AUre Fourth Annual Auxiliary
Conference, there are at present
five working mothers. There are
others who would like to work
but there is no child care CEN
ter. A large group petitioned
for nursery but they were
told that there must be 20 work
ing mothers eligible to use the
nursery before one could be
opened. Since none of them can
60 to work until the nursery is
opened, they are completely
stymied.
Or take Los Angeles where
there is shortage of several
thousand women workers. War
Manpower studies show a need
for group care of some 2100 in
fants. They remedied opening
at least so infant care centers.
These are needed especially by
wives of servicemen who have
gone to work to supplement
their meager allowances and by
young mothers who are war
widows and must support their
children.
SltuatlOn, Cr1Llcal
The situation is Just as crit
ical in San Diego, with infant
care listed as the number one
child care problem. So far, be-
cause of the opposition of child
care experts who oppose group
care for infants, needed facil-
tiles have not been provided. In
fants continue, thanks to these
experts, to be locked in trailers
and left in motor cars. Their
mothers, who need the work
and are needed on the job, con-
tinue to quit, and war produc-
: ton suffers.
There's another factor that is
causing women to leave war
jobs They know it may be hard
for them to get jobs after the
war. They're looking around
now, just as men are, for jobs
with a peace time future.
Special reconversion and post
war unemployment benefits,
which will give war workers
the same kind of assurance GI's
have that they won't starve
when the war plants close down,
are the only answer.
Recent studies show that
about 500 of our present wom-
en- workers will want, and need
to work after the war. Realiza
tion of the CIO program for full
employment for all Americans
is the only way women can be
sure of a postwar pay check.
They must get out the vote for
that program just as they turn
ed it out for President Roosevelt
in November.
They must also do an educa-
tional job in their communities
to h e d off discrimination
against women in the period of
reconversion unemploy m n t.
People should know the high
proportion of women who work
because they have to support
themselves and their families.
They should know that proper
tion is constantly increasing as
the casualty lists come in. They
should respect the right of a
woman to a job on the same
basis as a mana basis of skill, |