"In the positions where we have used women on jobs that were essentially men's occupations before the induction of the large number of these men into the service we have found that the female help has been very valuable. The work has covered a great variety and range of occupations, such as woodworking, painting, machine operating, hand sewing, power machine sewing, hand nailing, aeroplane assembly work, time keeping, tracers, inspectors and in fact any other minor occupations where we have previously used men. "As proof of the success that women have been in industry let me point out to you that at the time of the cancellation of our orders due to the signing of the Armistice we laid off a great number of men, but in the final analysis we retained about the same relative proportion of our females to the total number of males employed as was formerly the case. In other words we have had about 25% female employees during the time that we have used them on these various occupations and at the present time our force of women is about 25% of the men employed. This in itself is indicative of the fact that they have performed their work in a very satisfactory and efficient manner, otherwise all of our female employees would have been discharged or laid off long before the general lay-off, which occurred during the past month. "I am very firm in the belief that women have found their place in industry and now that the war is over there is no real reason why they should withdraw and take up pursuits that were followed previous to their induction into industry. It is true that there are many occupations that they might readily be considered not qualified to handle, but these are confined more especially to the heavy and laborious positions that are more manual labor than otherwise. "On machine operating or specialized woodworking jobs, assembling or inspecting or other mechanical operations I believe that women are thoroughly qualified to handle the work and to my mind can see no reason why they will not be retained in the after-war period." "Wherever we have introduced women in departments where the work was formerly done entirely by men, it has in all cases been necessary to re-classify the work, giving the men all the heavy work and special work and the women the light and simple work. For this reason the earnings of the women are less than those of the men. In most departments we have a combination day rate and piece rate, the day rate of the women being less than the men and the piece rate in all cases being the same. "For example, in the wheel shaving department, the men are paid 19¢ per hour and their piece rate in addition; the women are paid 17¢ per hour and the same piece rate in addition. As a result of this the weekly earnings of the men average $31.00 and of the women $25.00 to $26.00. "In the specialty disc department the day rate of the men is 35¢ and the women 22¢ per hour. The weekly earnings average-men $23.00, women $17.00. The men do the heavy pieces and the women do the light pieces. "In the sifting department we have given the women the day shift and the men the night shift. The rate for women is 334; weekly earnings $18.65. The rate for men is 35¢, weekly earnings $22.75.” EXCERPTS FROM LETTERS OF FIRMS IN NEW YORK STATE USING WOMEN COREMAKERS. "These women have been employed within the past two or three months and they are giving entire satisfaction. They average in age from 18 to 40 years, are steady workers, more so than the men, prompt in attendance and efficient on the class of work on which they have been used up to date.' "Believe union control of quite a number of foundries militates against the use of women coremakers. A great many firms would also have to make certain changes in their plants and equipment to permit of their use, which would be done, however, very easily in most cases." "We introduced female coremakers because we were having trouble on account of coremakers (men and boys) continually laying off and being careless in their work. "The girls and women we employed have done efficient work, are most steady and as a rule turn out more work than the men." "We put women workers in our coreroom on our light work primarily on account of the scarcity of boys for the work. "Since we have put women in again their work is thoroughly satisfactory. They are showing a better production than the boys and are putting the work up in better shape. We have kept the rates the same and the women are averaging fifteen to twenty per cent better on their rates than the boys as soon as they become familiar with the work. On our product we use a great number of small cores with light gang core boxes and the girls are thoroughly satisfactory." "Female coremakers are used only on the small, light class of work where the skill of experienced coremakers is not required. "These cores were formerly made by boys and young men, whose lack of attendance was objectionable, and by introducing female help we not only secured more steady attendance, but also more rapid work. "This work is piece work and we pay the female coremakers the same piece price that the boys and young men received." "We put in women coremakers on account of the general inefficiency of boys, whom we largely employed before. The boys were more or less volatile and since putting in the women on the light cores we have not had so much trouble. We employ them only on light cores and on these can make no criticism. We do not make a differential in price between the male and female workers. The production of the females on light cores is equal to the production of the males." "Some 25 years since we introduced female coremakers into our works, making light cores, such as we use in our malleable iron work. Prior to that time most of our light work was done by boys. "Our experience has proven that women are very adaptable for this work, much more efficient than boys or young men, and that their work in general over this period of years has been entirely satisfactory and pleasant work to the women so employed, and has given us greater efficiency and better production than we could have obtained otherwise." |