NAWSA GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE Women's Trade Union League of America, National Women's Trade Union League of America ENDORSED BY THE AMERICAN FEDERATION OF LABOR AND THE TRADE AND LABOR CONGRESS OF CANADA MRS. RAYMOND ROBINS . . . HONORARY PRESIDENT FINANCE COMMITTEE (CHICAGO WOMEN"S TRADE UNION LEAGUE) MRS. GIFFORD PINCHOT . . . . CHAIRMAN ROSE SCHNEIDERMAN . . . PRESIDENT MRS. JONATHAN BULKLEY MISS AMY G. MAHER (CLOTH HAT AND CAP MAKERS' UNION) MRS. RICHARD S. CHILDS MRS. WALTER MERRIAM MATILDA LINDSAY. . . VICE-PRESIDENT MRS. HERBERT CROLY MRS. JOHN F. MOORS (FEDERAL EMPLOYEES' UNION) MISS MARY E. DREIER MRS. RAYMOND ROBINS ELISABETH CHRISTMAN . . SECRETARY-TREASURER MRS. J. BORDEN HARRIMAN MRS. BOYCE THOMPSON SCHULZE (GLOVE WORKERS' UNION) MRS. HAROLD L. ICKES MISS MARY VAN KLEECK MRS. HELEN T. WOOLLEY EXECUTIVE BOARD MARY E. DREIER (NEW YORK WOMEN'S TRADE UNION LEAGUE) MRS. SARAH LLOYD GREEN (WAITRESSES' UNION) MRS. MARY V. HALAS MACHINISTS BUILDING (WOMAN'S AUXILIARY NAT'L FED'N OF P. O. CLERKS) NINTH STREET AND MT. VERNON PLACE, N. W. AGNES NESTOR (GLOVE WORKERS' UNION) WASHINGTON, D. C. ETHEL M. SMITH (FEDERAL EMPLOYEES' UNION) MRS. MAUD SWARTZ (TYPOGRAPHICAL UNION, NO. 6) CABLE ADDRESS: "LIFELABOR" September 17th 1930 Dear Miss Blackwell; At the moment I am making a very special effort to prevent a "drought" in the National League's treasury, and naturally I must turn to the League's good friends who, in the past, have helped to keep us afloat. Our year's program must go forward without interruptions, and especially the work we are doing in the South. At the moment we have calls from Chattanooga and Knoxville, Tennessee; Columbus, Georgia; and Danville, Virginia. We have been at the latter place for many, many weeks helping to bring about an employer-employee relationship based on the trade-Union agreement, and through peace methods. In Columbus, Georgia, where we recently responded to an urgent call, there are between 8000 and 10,000 cotton mill workers who are asking our assistance to help them win self-government in industry. You would be ever so interested in a lot of pay-envelopes which our representative brought back: $4.00, $3.10, $5.95 and $6.60 is the regular pay for grown men and women in the Columbus mills. One grown man who worked full-time actually got $13.15! The League's main job, as you know, is to help workers to help themselves, and to develop leadership amongst them. I wish I could adequately tell you how much we need your encouragement and tangible support. Please say you will help again by renewing your $5.00 membership and your contribution of $20.00. My deepest thanks to you. Faithfully yours, Elisabeth Christman Secretary-Treasurer Miss Alice Stone Blackwell 3 Monadnock Street, Upham's Corner Boston, Mass. National Trade Union League National Women's Trade Union League of America ENDORSED BY THE AMERICAN FEDERATION OF LABOR AND THE TRADES AND LABOR CONGRESS OF CANADA MRS. RAYMOND ROBINS . . . HONORARY PRESIDENT FINANCE COMMITTEE (CHICAGO WOMEN'S TRADE UNION LEAGUE) MRS. GIFFORD PINCHOT CHAIRMAN ROSE SCHNEIDERMAN . . . PRESIDENT MRS. JONATHAN BULKLEY MISS AMY G. MAHER (CLOTH HAT AND CAP MAKERS' UNION) MRS. RICHARD S. CHILDS MRS. WALTER MERRIAM AGNES NESTOR . . . .VICE-PRESIDENT MRS. HERBERT CROLY MRS. JOHN F. MOORS (GLOVE WORKERS' UNION) MISS MARY E. DREIER MRS. RAYMOND ROBINS ELISABETH CHRISTMAN . . . SECRETARY-TREASURER MRS. J. BORDEN HARRIMAN MRS. THOMPSON SCHUlZE (GLOVE WORKERS' UNION) MRS. HAROLD L. ICKES MISS MARY VAN KLEECK MRS. HELEN T. WOOLLEY EXECUTIVE BOARD MARY E. DREIER (NEW YORK WOMEN'S TRADE UNION LEAGUE) MRS. SARAH GREEN (WAITRESSES' UNION) 311 SOUTH ASHLAND BOULEVARD, CHICAGO MRS. MARY V. HALAS CABLE ADDRESS: "LIFELABOR" (WOMAN'S AUXILIARY NAT'L FED'N OF P. O. CLERKS) MATILDA LINDSAY (FEDERAL EMPLOYEES' UNION) ETHEL M. SMITH (FEDERAL EMPLOYEES' UNION) December 17, MRS. MAUD SWARTZ (TYPOGRAPHICAL UNION, NO. 6) 1929 Dear Miss Blackwell: Finding a job for Mrs. Roberts - a Marion mill worker - and a home for her four small children is but one of the many tasks to be met by those of us charged with the Organization and Educational work in the South. Mrs Roberts' 17-year old boy was one of the six mill workers shot to death on October 2nd. She cannot get her job back in the mill, and when I was in Marion, she was evicted from the Company house. Loss of job and home go together in most of the Southern mill villages. But, the real task must be a constructive effort to bring understanding to these thousands of men and women workers, guiding them as to their fights and responsibilities as workers and American citizens - and to equip them for leadership - so that in time they may be able to help themselves. Organization of the workers represent our effort to secure for wage earners a means of expression of their needs which the complicated organization of modern industry denies to the individual worker. Employers find it necessary to form associations because Organization is the order of the day. Labor also must have its organization if it is to take its responsible part in economic life. It is this responsible place in our industrial life which the textile workers are seeking. I have just spent three weeks in the South conferring with the Textile Workers and in connection with our own program. Our field representative, Miss Lindsay, will be stationed in Elizabethton for the time being where the need for people with knowledge of the functional duties of a union is so great. Our need, of course, is for additional personnel in the South. How I wish funds to carry on this work - and uninterruptedly - were not such a necessity! Hence, my plea for the renewal of your last year's contribution of $25.00. My thanks to you always. ET:AT Faithfully yours, Miss Alice Stone Blackwell Elisabeth Christman 5 Monadnock St. Upham's Corner, Secretary-Treasurer. Boston, Mass. Do help Alice EC Nat Women's Trade Union League 311 S. Ashland Boulevard Miss Alice S. Blackwell 3 Monadnock St. Dorchester Mass. BOSTON WOMEN'S TRADE UNION LEAGUE SPRING MEETINGS at 6 Boylston Place, Boston Friday, March 22, 8 P.M. Lecture. ALFRED M. BINGHAM, Editor, "Common Sense"; Exec. Sec'y Former Political Federation "Learning from Fascism How to Fight It" Saturday March 30, 3 P.M. Informal Reception and Tea. [* * *]MARY VAN KLEECK, Director of Industrial Studies, Russel Sage Foundation, will be guest of honor. Tuesday April 2, 8 P.M. Lecture. JOHN NEVIN SAYRE, Chairman, Fellowship of Reconciliation "Personal Responsibility and Methods of Social Change" Members and Friends of the League are cordially invited. [*74*] [*W T [L] U L needs attention*] HELP THE FEDERAL WOMEN'S BUREAU (Extracts from National women's Trade Union League appeal) Washington--The Senate Appropriations Committee will have before it this week, a proviso in the legislative, executive and judicial appropriation bill which, to affect a total "saving" of $2, 160, will eliminate by reduction of their salaries from the staff of the Women's Bureau of the U. S. Department of Labor 8 women experts, the present industrial supervisor, industrial agents, editor, and chief clerk. The Women's Bureau asked for an appropriation of $150,000 to enable it to expand its work. The House granted $75,000, and limited the salaries as above stated. Yet the Women's and Children's Bureau together received in 1920 but 5 1/2 thousandths of one per cent of the total income of the Federal Government. The Women's Bureau is a policy-making and advisory bureau, as such depending upon its specialists who study working conditions, working hours and wages of women in industry, and recommend legislation or other regulation of such conditions. At the request of the respective state authorities, the Bureau has made such investigations in Indiana, Kansas, Connecticut, Iowa, Georgia, and has undertaken similar work in other states and localities. Will you please write immediately to Senator Francis E. Warren of Wyoming, and Senator Reed Smoot of Utah, Chairman and Ranking Member, respectively of the Senate's Appropriation Committee, also to Senators Henry Cabot Lodge and David I. Walsh, asking them to strike out the above proviso in the Legislative, Executive, and Judicial Appropriation Bill? Will you please write also to Honorable William R. Wood of Indiana, Chairman of the House Appropriations sub-committee in charge of this bill, protesting against the House action on the Women's Bureau appropriation, and telling him that you are asking the Senate to cut out the proviso limiting the salaries of the staff, and that you urge the House conferees to accede to this change if made by the Senate. Will you please send a copy of your letter to Mr. Wood to Honorable Frank W. Mondell of Wyoming, Majority Leader, or to Honorable James W. Good of Iowa, Chairman of the House Appropriations Committee. It will help greatly if you will send a post card here noting the persons to whom you have sent letters. Mary C. Wiggin 4 Joy Street, Boston [*About Packers*] THE GRONNA BILL A MEASURE TO PREVENT FOOD PROFITEERING 66th Congress, Senate 3944, Calendar No. 386: on the calendar For action in the Senate January 24, 1921. Reasons for Legislative Action The report of the Federal Trade Commission followed by proctracted Congressional hearing show that the packers have injured: I. Other STOCK PRODUCERS THROUGH: (a) Controlling interest in the equipment essential to transportation: i.e. cattle care, refrigerator cars, stockyards, cold storage plants, branch railroads, etc. (b) Controlling interest in many banks and hotels. (c) Unfair apportionment of territory and manipulation of buying and selling prices. II. The GROCER'S BUSINESS THROUGH: (a) Large cold storage plants doing business in many local cities. (b) Controlling interest in allied and unrelated with above facilities for buying, transportation, and selling. III. The CONSUMER THROUGH: (a) Control of buying and selling prices. (b) Control of substitutes for animal products, as fish, cotton oil products, dairy and poultry products, canned goods, cereals, etc. Remedies for these Evils under the GRONNA BILL. I. Creation of a Federal Live Stock Commission to administer the Act, making necessary regulations, and taking over the duties of the Federal Trade Commission and the Bureau of Markets on these lines. II. Clearer definition of unlawful practices which tend to out out competition and to gain monopoly in rival or unallied food products. III. Separation of the packers from control of the stockyards, the making of refrigerator and other special equipment cars part of the common carrier transportation system of the country, and the assuring of properly regulated live stock and other food-markets, open alike to producers and consumers. IV. Volunteer registration of packers and stockyards with obligation to refrain from liners of business not covered by license. HELP REGULATE PROFITEERING by writing at once before the final Action on January 24 to: Honorable Asle J. Gronna, Chairman of the Agricultural Committee of the Senate. Honorable Gilbert N. Haugen, Chairman of the Agricultural Committee of the House. Your U. S. Senators, Honorable Henry Cabot Lodge and Honorable David I. Walsh, referring to the Bill as noted above, writing in your own simple language your approval of this regulation for the reasons given above. The interests are sending hundreds of letters. NATIONAL WOMEN'S TRADE UNION LEAGUE THE EIGHT-HOUR DAY. A LIVING WAGE. TO GUARD THE HOME. BOSTON Mrs. Raymond Robins Honorary President Mrs. Rose Schneiderman National President "Life and Labor" Official Bulletin 74 BOSTON WOMEN'S TRADE UNION LEAGUE 6 BOYLSTON PLACE TELEPHONE DEVONSHIRE 8237 President MRS. MARY GORDON THOMPSON Textile Workers' Union First Vice-President MRS. ROSE NORWOOD Telephone Operators' Union Second Vice-President MISS MAY SONGSTER Boston Street Carmen's Union Treasurer MRS. ROLAND M. BAKER Secretary MISS ALICE L. DODGE Stenographers' Union EXECUTIVE BOARD MRS. FLORENCE A. ALLEN MISS AGNES V. BOYLE Waitresses' Union MRS. BRIDIE P. CASEY MRS. ROSE H. COOPER Stenographers' Union MRS. DAVIS R. DEWEY MISS JUDITH FRIEDMAN Int. Ladies' Garment Workers' Union MISS MARY JEAN LITWIN Neckwear Workers' Union MISS FLORENCE H. LUSCOMB Stenographer's Union MRS. JULIA O'CONNOR PARKER Telephone Operators' Union MRS. LOIS B. RANTOUL MRS. WILLIAM Z. RIPLEY MISS BERNICE ROGERS Teachers' Union MISS ROSE SULLIVAN Telephone Operators' Union MRS. MAUD FOLEY VAN VAERENEWYCK Union Workers' Credit Union MRS. HENRY WISE June 14, 1935 To Members and Friends of the Women's Trade Union League: Dear Friends, The enclosed statement from the Alice Stone Blackwell Committee will explain the purpose of our letter. Miss Blackwell has for many years been a member of the League, and her sympathy with our work has been consistent and unfailing. She has had a significant share in the early history of women in the labor movement, as she has in the other pioneer efforts for the freedom of women. For these reasons, as well as for the larger motives which inspire in all of us an affection and gratitude for the humanity, wisdom, and worth of Alice Stone Blackwell, we have agreed to cooperate in the project for her benefit which is set forth in the enclosed circular. In order that the contributions of our members and labor friends may, at this moment of her need, give expression to the continuing loyalty and gratitude of organized labor to its friend and advocate, we ask that such of you as are disposed to give to this fund, and have not contributed through previous appeals, do so through the League. Checks should be made payable to the Alice Stone Blackwell Fund, and may be mailed to Mrs. Roland M. Baker, Treasurer, Women's Trade Union League, 6 Boylston Place, Boston. Money so received will be turned over in a lump sum to the Alice Stone Blackwell Committee. Sincerely yours, MARY GORDON THOMPSON President ALICE L. DODGE Secretary SBAOEU #14965 enc. PRICE 10 CENTS National Women's Trade Union League UNION LABOR ADVOCATE NOVEMBER 1909 Alice Henry EDITOR NATIONAL WOMEN'S TRADE UNION LEAGUE THE EIGHT-HOUR DAY. A LIVING WAGE. TO GUARD THE HOME. 1903 PATENTED JUNE 22, 1909 MRS. RAYMOND ROBINS PRESIDENT NATIONAL WOMEN'S TRADE UNION LEAGUE All Correspondence to be addressed, Room 503, 275 La Salle St., Chicago, Illinois TELEPHONE HARRISON 3677 Convention of the National Women's Trade Union League A BIRD'S EYE VIEW OF THE CONVENTION By Alice Henry. I hope that when this account is printed the make-up man will put somewhere near the beginning a tiny snapshot of the little group who made up the first National Convention of The National Women's Trade Union League held just two years ago in Norfolk, Va., and that you will first give it a long and careful look and then compare it with the splendid picture of the forces of today, the group of delegates to the Chicago Convention of 1909, massed with a fine idea for effect upon the steps of the Art Institute of Chicago, surely an ideal location for such a gathering. Very typical is the contrast between these pictures of two years' growth of the League and of parallel developments in the working women's movement throughout the country. Of the reality and scope of the work accomplished the National Secretary's report and the reports from the local League are evidence, while no less significant proof of growing strength and consciousness of capacity is to be found in the work planned out for the next two years as outlines in such recommendations as those contained in the reports of the committee on organization and legislation. The Convention opened on Monday morning, September 27th, in the Anna Morgan studio in the Fine Arts Building, Chicago. Delegates were exceptionally fortunate to be housed in such a convenient, restful and beautiful headquarters. Owing to the between season date the cost was extremely moderate, and Miss Morgan and her assistant, Miss De Vore, did all in their power to add to the comfort of delegates by freely helping us in all those little ways which go so far to complete the success of a big and a continued gathering. The owners of the building likewise conferred upon us the additional gift of a spare room. To this committees retired to thrash out reports and discuss details in quietness and undisturbed by the eager flow of life that all the time pervaded the general meeting room. Miss Olive Sullivan presided at the literature and stationery desk, where she handled programmes, post cards, Advocates and leaflets of the League, and stamps, and incidentally dispensed pencils and paper pads to all. Miss Pearce had charge of the Convention work basket and reclaimed and sewed on errant buttons or united parting threads. Representatives of the daily press of Chicago attended every session and their newspapers gave large space to our doings and illustrated their stories freely with pictures of our officers and delegates, both at work and at play. But that outside of Chicago great and widespread interest was taken in the Convention is evident from the news paragraphs, long report and editorial comments which have appeared in the daily and weekly press all over the country, and which as I write still continue to appear in weeklies and are forecasted for some of our largest monthlies. They made up a busy week, those Convention days, but they were likewise happy days, happy with the sense of plans at last being realized, of expectations more than fulfilled, of the deep down knowledge that for every effort expended we were gaining threefold in the store of future energy, in possibilities for enlarged future work. I have been at many Conventions, but (and I write this very deliberately) never have I been at one where, as far as the hours spent at actual sessions and in committee work were concerned, there was such economy of time and of the mental energy of all taking part. For this eminently satisfactory result there may have been several causes. Chief perhaps that many of our union women are trained women, trained not in fancy debate, but in practical discussion. They have met with employers in trade conferences where an error in statement or a hasty word might mean a cut in wages or an increase of hours for two years to come. Or in union meetings where if a girl aspires to lead her fellows she has to show both readiness of wit and good humored patience in differing from the other girls. Next, at the first regular meeting the Rules and Orders Committee (Miss Anna Willard, Chairman) drew up for guidance of the Convention EDWARD KROGH PRINTING CO., CHICAGO. TRADES UNION LABEL COUNCIL ALLIED PRINTING CHICAGO, ILL 92 18 UNION LABOR ADVOCATE tion a set of rules which the delegates readily adopted, restricting every speaker in discussion to five minutes unless by special motion, unanimously carried. More than the five minutes. was rarely asked for, and upon not one single occasion did the President have to call down a speaker for exceeding her alloted time. Only such an arrangement, strictly adhered to, made possible the expressing of such great and valuable variety of individual views. Since no one speaker monopolized attention and time, everyone who had something to contribute to the discussion had time and - opportunity to do so. If every speaker had been alloted fifteen minutes, say, no one would have any more and few would have said it as tersely and well, and the Convention would still be sitting, and a very tired and worn out Convention too. Last, but not least, we had a first class presiding officer. Our fraternal delegates were Miss - Mary R. Macarthur, from the sister, nay rather mother League of Great Britain, and Fraulein Margarete Schweichler, representing the largest union of organized women in Germany, the bookkeepers, stenographers and department store clerks, and Mrs, . Ella S. Stewart, representing the National American Suffrage Association. We hope they thoroughly as we enjoyed being with us, as thoroughly as we enjoyed having them. They assuredly for us added much to our happiness and satisfaction and increased the sense of sisterly solidarity. There were moments even in Convention when the tension was released and the delegates smiled brightly or laughed unrestrainedly, as for instance when the New York delegation exploded their comic bomb and taking advantage of a self-made pause in the serious business brought happy blushes to the face of their National President and delighted a surprise audience by singing a rousing tune their call. Then there was the lighter side, the evening at Miss McDowell's University of Chicago Settlement, where the Chicago League singing birds gave, in costume, "Spinning Wheel Chorus" from "The Flying Dutchman," and where Fraulein Scheweichler gave us Germany's message. On Thursday afternoon, our friends who had automobiles, drove the delegates, marshaled by Miss Grace Abbott, miles and miles through Chicago's parks, winding up at Sherman Park, where Mrs. Dauchy feasted us royally on municipally cooked and served fare, and a group of happy children danced for their enjoyment. There was an evening too at the Chicago Kindergarten Institute in Scott Street, where Mrs. Page and Miss Cronise laid themselves out to entertain the visitors. The delegates were made free of the Art Institute galleries, and many of the out of town folks were able to enjoy a spare hour in that house beautiful. The Chicago Federation of Labor threw open its doors on one special occasion when Mr. Fitzpatrick and Mr. Nockels received in person. But, indeed, the Federation was over-run by delegates all the time the convention lasted and when every one work day, in the demand for social control of wages and hours both through trade organization and legislation, is to guard and protect the home of the people, their own and that of the race? If the young women worker acts as under-bidder before marriage, then her husband must bring home a lesser wage after marriage; let her be willing to work else was out gadding about, the Editor of the Union Labor Advocate was sure to be on hand, and proved himself a veritable city directory about car routes Settlements, Eleanor Clubs and the Y. W. C. A. House and many private friends tendered hospitality for the week, which we here gratefully appreciate. As for the rest, the long months of preparation for the Convention itself by the national officers and the Chicago League are past. We have gathered together from distant states and far off countries, have compared difficulties and asked and answered queries. We have been inspired by one another and go forth to the battle with a stronger sense than we ever had before of co-operation towards a common end. Our Convention was a National Convention, but in it was plainly to be seen a forecast of an International League and future international gatherings. And by In ternational I mean international in the large sense, the sense in which European countries use it to include many different nationalities, and not merely to signify the linking together of the union forces of the United States and Canada. OPENING OF THE CONVENTION. The Convention was called to order Monday morning. September 27th, the vice-president, Mrs. Mary K. O'Sullivan in the chair. The National President, Mrs. Raymond Robins, in her presidential address, opened the proceedings in a lofty key and the note she struck then was maintained by the Convention till its close. Friends and fellow workers: "With great gladness of heart I bid you welcome. It is good indeed that we who are engaged in a great struggle have come together from the east and from the west consider how best we may equip ourselves for the conflict. Let us counsel one with another and take fresh heart of courage , 'for as in water face answereth to face, so the heart of man to man.' And, as the industrial struggle is not only the supreme struggle of our age, but is also the universal struggle, and therefore we know that the workers of no one country can win out alone, we welcome with special rejoicing the fraternal delegates from England and Germany, Miss Mary Macarthur and Fraulein Margarete Schweichler. "We are often told that the reason it is so difficult to organize women is because their interest in the trade is of short duration. Marriage and change of occupation is estimated as limiting the average consecutive trade work of women to seven years, and it is argued therefore that her interest in working conditions is a small and passing concern "No conclusion could be further from the truth, Granted that the average woman works but seven tears in her trade, yet is her interest in the conditions of that trade a life interest. Can we not teach our young women that to lower the wage or increase the hours is to lower the income of their future home, and that to stand together in the demand for equal pay for equal work, in the demand for a shorter work day, in the demand for social control of wages and hours both through trade organization and legislation, is to guard and protect the home of the people, their own and that of the race? If the young woman worker acts as under-bidder before marriage, let her be willing to work longer hours during those seven working years and she must suffer a lower standard of living through all the remaining years of her life. She will have aided in making her husband an industrial slave, thus losing for herself his fellowship, for her children the companionship of a father and for the community the services of a citizen, for time is the fundamental need for growth and exercise of all the mental and spiritual heritage of the home. When are we to have time to think, to dream, to love, to hold communion one with another and with God, unless we so control the hours of the work day? Do you remember the word of the preacher when he wishes to give an explanation of that deep yearning for a fuller, greater, truer life which lies dormant in the heart of every one of us as he says, 'And He--God--hath set the world in their heart.' The world-- does not that mean also beauty, the sunset in the sky, 'green days in forest and blue days at sea;' does it mean that all who are denied her satisfaction and the gladness of living out their whole life are disinherited, and that our task means to bring into their true and just inheritance our six mission sisters?" Mrs. Robins also took up the fight for the eight hour day through legislation as a need of social progress and a help towards gaining economic freedom for all, quoting Mr. Post's wise words of comment: "The working women and their employers do not contract as economic equals. The employer can wait, the workers wait at the peril of starvation. The employers command working opportunities; the workers are cut off by privilege-fostering laws. And inasmuch as this economic inequality is intensified by long hours and modified by short hours, laws limiting hours are in the direction of freedom of labor contracts, while injunctions against the enforcement of such laws are away from freedom of labor contracts." This reference of Mr. Post's is to the extraordinary injunction of Judge Tuthill's in a lower court against the enforcement of the Ten-Hour Law for women enacted by the legislature of Illinois during its last session. In regard to the pressingly important subject of judicial decisions, menacing as these do the most elementary rights of freedom of speech and of the press, the need of accurate and detailed and easily reached information to be at the disposal of all women workers was dwelt on and the hope expressed that the official journal of the League might be made the messenger of court decisions upon labor questions to the working women of the United States and that the Secretary act as a clearing house for such information and all other important matters of interest to the UNION LABOR ADVOCATE 19 widely scattered membership of our National League. Another point taken up was the need for more women inspectors over the world of the factory, into which more and more women are drifting, such a provision to be incorporated into the labor laws of each state, since women inspectors, far better than men, can understand the terrible cost under which women are working today. All present were deeply interested to know that Vice-President Duncan, addressing the Commission on Industrial Education, appointed by the American Federation of Labor, had stated emphatically that he desired to have the organized women workers know that the American Federation of Labor wished to consider and study their needs and wishes and protect their interests as carefully as it did those of the men. The demands of the workers will include provision for industrial education (if established) from public funds and controlled by public officers. That also industrial education must mean, as learning a trade once did mean, complete mastery of the entire craft. The all-round educated workman and work-woman are worth more to the community than the specialized tool of one operation, which is what modern systems of manufacture, unchecked by other considerations, aim at making of the worker. The President asked for the aid of the many leagues for the protection of immigrants in demanding the eight-hour day for women, since public night schools are useless to the tired out worker. The system of international transfer cards is but one of the ways in which the League can serve the welfare of union working women throughout the world. In conclusion, Mrs. Robins said: "Fellow Workers: We are in the industrial struggle and we will stay in it until we have won. Stripped of many words, what does this really mean? Food, shelter, babies- the founding and building of homes in which and through which strong, free manhood and womanhood and the gladdest childhood shall find expression. This is our purpose. In this we find our faith and our hope-let us hold to it 'like a growing tree.' Can we be defeated? Is that mind that has given us the poet and the prophet, that has mastered the physical world, that is ceaselessly creating and inventing, to fail under the demands of industrial and social justice? We cannot be defeated! We are not alone. We are at one with the great purpose of life, written in the achievements and foretold in the hidden heart of man." LIST OF DELEGATES. Chicago. Mrs. Raymond Robins. Miss Anna E. Nicholes. Mrs. Louis F. Post. Miss Alice Henry. Miss Mary McDowell. Miss Mary Anderson, Boot and Shoe Workers. Miss Hazel McDonald, Post Office Clerks. Miss Elizabeth Christmas, Glove Workers. Miss Agnes Nestor, Glove Workers. Miss Elizabeth Maloney, Waitresses. Miss Josephine Casey, Elevated Railway Clerks. Miss Mary MacEnerney,Bindery Women. Miss Elizabeth Corrigan, Elevated Railway Clerks. Miss Lena Buchweitz, Garment Workers. Miss Mae Nihil, Suspender Workers. Mrs. Carrie Ruther, Garment Workers. Miss Anna Willard, Waitresses. Miss S. M. Franklin, Stenographers and Typists. Miss Agnes Johnson, Boot and Shoe Workers. Mrs. Arnold Dresden. Wisconsin. Miss E. H. Thomas, Milwaukee, Wisconsin State Federation of Labor. Miss Caroline L Hunt, Madison. Mrs. Robert La Follette, Madison. New York. Miss Mary Dreier. Miss Helen Marot. Miss Leonora O'Reilly. Miss Rose Schneidermann, Cloth Hat and Cap Makers. Miss Melinda Scott, Unites Hat Trimmers. Miss Dutcher. Mrs. Julia Alling Watson, Typographical Union. Miss Hilda Svenson, Commercial Telegraphers. Miss Devlin, Hat Trimmers. Mrs. Mary Semerad, Cigar Makers. Miss Agnes Gallivan, Bookbinders. Miss Violet Pike. Miss Murphy, Bookbinders. Miss Mary Corscaden, Gold Leaf Layers. Miss Manus, Cloth Hat and Cap Makers. Boston. Miss Anne Withington. Mrs. Glendover Evans. Miss Margaret Foley. Miss Mabel Gillespie. Mrs. Mary K. O'Sullivan, News Writers. Miss Mary Woodd, Bindery Women's Union. Mrs. Mary Brotherton, Hat Trimmers. Miss Mary Richardson, Laundry Workers. Miss Mahoney, Clerks. Miss Kitty O'Toole, Overall Makers. Mrs. Egers, Boot and Shoe Workers. St. Louis. Mrs. D.W. Knefler. Mrs. Sarah Spraggon, Boot and Shoe Workers. Miss Hannah Hennessy, Garment Workers. Miss Katherine Gleason. Miss Anna Eagan. Miss Kate Hurley. Miss Maggie Meara, Garment Workers. Springfield, I11. Mrs. Geo. Lee. Miss Florence Farris. Rockford, I11. Miss Josie Ostrom, Garment Workers. Rochester, N.Y. Miss A. Lattimore, Rochester Central Trades and Labor Council. Syracuse, N.Y. Mrs. T.M. Hofman, Retail Clerks. San Francisco, Cal. Mrs. La Rue, Waitresses, San Francisco Labor Council. St. Paul, Minn. Miss Katie Ellenbecker, Garment Workers. Miss Helen Hesse, Ladies' Federal Union. Indianapolis, Ind. Mrs. Charity Dunlop, Central Labor Union. International. Miss Mary Macarthur from London, England, representing the British Women's Trade Union League. Miss Margarete Schweichler from Hamburg, Germany, representing the Kaufmannischer Verband für Weiblicher Angestellten. REPORT OF THE OFFICE SECRETARY. The National Women's Trade Union League consists of four local Leagues, twenty members at large, and directly affiliated with the National League are: The U.G.W. of A., Local 171, of St. Paul, Minn.; the U.G.W. of A., Local 73, Paterson, N. J.; U.G.W. of A., Local 64, Rockford, I11.; U.G.W. of A., Local 47, Kansas City, Mo.; Retail Clerks' International Protective Association, Local 1,243, Syracuse, N.Y.; Waitresses' Union, Local 49, San Francisco, Cal.; Boot and Shoe Workers' Union, Local 20, Middlesboro, Mass.; the San Francisco Labor Council, the Rochester Central Trades and Labor Council, the Rochester Central Trades and Labor Council, N.Y., and the Wisconsin State Federation of Labor. The cities represented by the National members are: Denver, Colo.; Springfield, I11.; Kansas City, Mo.; Toledo, O.; Pittsburg, Pa., and Madison, Wis. In reviewing the work of the last two years, the steady progress and growth have been in so many ways that it cannot be adequately tabulated in a report of this order. Some idea of it may be gained in noting that the St. Louis League, the National members and the trade union affiliations have all been added to the forces of the National League since July, 1907. One of the vital purposes of the League has been to arouse interest in the organization of women. The creation of the St Louis League through which the Bindery Women of St. Louis have been able to disseminate reliable inside information on industrial questions to many different groups. INTERSTATE CONFERENCES. During the two years the executive board has met three times- in Boston, Chicago, and New York. The League has called two interstate conferences of considerable significance. The first was held in July, 1907, and the 20 UNION LABOR ADVOCATE second in September, 1908, simultaneously in Boston, New York, and Chicago. The practical benefits accruing from women thus meeting to consider problems of organization and the whole question of women in industry, have been readily apparent. It was owing to the enthusiasm of Miss Hannah Hennessy, a delegate form St. Louis to Chicago in the conference of 1907, that there is such a splendid local League as now exists in St. Louis. It was formed in time to join in the interstate conference of 1908 and the results accomplished by it are exceedingly gratifying and reflect every credit on the officers and members of this League and the affiliated trade unions in their city. MEMBERS AT LARGE. The National organization serves a valuable purpose in permitting the individual membership of trade unionists and allies in cities where no local Women's Trade Union League exists and where the moment is not yet ripe for the formation of one. Thus in Springfield, I11., there is an earnest and energetic group of National members who rendered inestimable assistance to the Chicago League in its recent struggle for the limitation of the hours of women's work in the Illinois legislature, and there is every prospect of a local League being formed in this city before another conference. ORGANIZERS. The League in conference at Norfolk in 1907, meeting at the same time with the A. F. of L., received sixty-one letters from various International Unions pledging their support to the request of the League for a woman organizer, and the A. F. of L. subsequently appointed Miss Annie Fitzgerald. Recently Mr. Anton Johanson, formerly of Chicago, now of the State Building Trades Council of San Francisco, has offered his services to the League free of charges, as our organizer in that part of the country. It is also owing to Mr. Johanson's enthusiasm that the State Building Trades Council and the Labor Council of San Francisco united in a meeting the expense of sending us a delegate to this conference from the Waitress's Union. INTERNATIONAL CONNECTIONS. The great purpose of the League is organization. With the wonderful means of communication enjoyed in modern days the world is growing to be more and more one great community, less and less composed of small states and countries with separate interests, so that the matter of organization is no longer an American or European question, but a world-wide one. Recognizing this, the interstate conferences last year that the officers of the National Women's Trade Union League be instructed to establish the fullest co-operation possible with the women's trades unions in Great Britain and on the continent of Europe. A letter dealing with the possibilities of international union transfer cards was therefore sent out to forty or more unions abroad and met with a cordial response. In return we have heard from Great Britain, Germany, France, Italy, Bohemia, Denmark, Holland, Belgium, Sweden, Finland and Australia. The suggestion of transfer cards by means of which trades union women coming to the United States would be enabled to get in touch with the unions here immediately upon their arrival has met with general approval. The General Confederation of Labor in Paris has twice given the aims of the League lengthy notice in its Bulletin and the chairman of the General Commission of the Guilds of Germany laid our letter before his organization. Following the suggestion of the German-American Socialist League of New York, the Commission expressed its willingness to publish and distribute among the emigrants, without cost, a leaflet of "Advice to Emigrants to the U. S. A." Appended to the "Advice" are the addresses of those industrial organizations which are of the first importance to working men and the General Commission has volunteered to insert also the addresses of the branches of the National Women's Trade Union League and in addition to explain the various mutually useful and desirable activities of the women's unions. Finland and Australis have furnished interesting information on the formation and rules of domestic unions. Two years hence, when the National League convenes again, we may expect quite a big roll call from other countries--intelligent, progressive women unionists bringing us the help and inspiration of their experience and knowledge, and carrying home to the older countries the news of America's struggles and achievements in pressing towards better conditions of life for all those who work. PUBLIC MEETING. At the public meeting held in the Y. M. C. A. Auditorium on Monday evening, September 27th, the National President in the chair, Mrs. Ellen M. Henrotin, first National President, welcomed delegates. The chief speaker was Mary R. Macarthur, Secretary of the British Women's Trade Union League and fraternal delegate to the convention. She dwelt upon the latest achievement of British Industrial legislation. The Trades Boards Act. In the course of her remarks Miss Macarthur said that one of the most significant and certainly the most revolutionary measure enacted by the British Parliament was the Trades Board Act, commonly known as the Anti-Sweating Charter, which finally passed into law in September. The act provides for the establishment of Boards with power to fix and enforce under legal penalties, a minimum wage in certain selected trades notorious for bad sweated conditions. The idea comes from Australia, such Boards having been established in Victoria since 1896, now apply there to over sixty trades. In England only four trades have been chose for the experiment. Wholesale Tailoring, Cardboard Box Making, Lace Finishing and Chain Making. The position of the women chain makers of Cradley Heath in England has long been a national scandal. These women have to work at forces under the most lamentable conditions and often half clad. For a twelve-hour day their wages average about five shillings ($1.25) a week and out of this they have to pay for fuel. For these women this minimum wage act is a ray of hope. Now, immediately the Board of Trade, one of our government departments will compel all the employers in each of these trades in the different districts to hold a series of meetings, and elect representatives to the boards; the workers will do the same. The Board will consist of equal numbers of employers and employed, with an impartial chairman and two Board of Trade officials. They will go into the conditions of their industries and will fix minimum piece rates and minimum times rates. Six months after, any manufacturer who pays less to any worker than the minimum rate, will be liable to a heavy fine, and in default of a fine, to imprisonment. We have taken these trades to begin with, but in the Bill there is provision that the Bill may be extended by provisional orders, to any other similar trade. I don't think England quite realizes what has been done. It is simply a revolution. It means a revolution in our industrial conditions. It is not entirely an experiment because it has been tried much more in detail in Victoria. But I understand that you here in the United States are fighting for the elemental principle of regulating hours of labor, so I feel proud to tell you that we have got so far ahead and are actually interfering with the sacred matter of wages. You know those wise men, the economists, raised a cry against our bill. They said, "You must not interfere with wages, you know the iron law of supply and demand which governs them." They say, "The iron law of wages decrees that wages must alway fall to subsistence level." We replied, "The wages of sweated workers do not rise to subsistence else. When they do you can talk to us about the iron law of wages." Mr. John Fitzpatrick, President of the Chicago Federation of Labor made a rousing appeal for the suffrage for women. He gratefully acknowledged what he personally owed to women, to his four mothers, as he expressed it, who had instilled into him whatever of good there was inspired him now. He gave to the Convention and especially to our foreign sisters the heartiest greeting of organized labor, feeling that the Women's Trade Union League was giving active and valuable help to the cause of labor and to the men who were working for it. Mr. Raymond Robins. Mr. Robins' speech was one long illustration of how badly Illinois' working women needed all the protection that organization and legislation could bestow. It is more than sixty years since England placed a ten hour limit for UNION LABOR ADVOCATE 21 each day upon the power of greed to exploit the mothers of the people. For thirty-five years Massachusetts has not allowed her women to be employed in factory or mill longer than ten hours in each twenty-four. But in Illinois unity the 1st of last July women could be worked until they dropped in their tracks. Early in last April, two working women of Chicago, members of the Waitresses' Union, appeared in the legislative halls at Springfield with a bill limiting the hours of women's work and began to Argie the extraordinary proposition that the women of Illinois were as much entitled to civilized working conditions as the women of England or Finland or Massachusetts or Oregon. Backed by the Women's Trade Union League this proposition became the livest question before the legislature, and the Girls' Bill became law on July 1. Now the W. C. Ritchie Company, who upset such legislation before, are striving to prove a ten-hour limit an interference with the employe's freedom of contract. A poor woman, who has not only given all her labor time during all her productive years for a miserable wage and sacrificed her right of a home and motherhood to the greed of the W.C. Ritchie Company, is now further forced to use the necessities of her disinherited life to help the W.C. Ritchie Company and the Illinois Manufacturers' Association in disinheriting the 250,000 working girls of Illinois. Judge Tuthill has granted an injunction suspending the ten-hour law in the Ritchie factory. Dora Windeguth, 32 years skilled, yet pealing for the right to work thirteen and one-half hours a day in Ritchie's sweat shop! This is prosperity with a vengeance. Is not this essential slavery without any of the compensations of the slave regime? My friends let this question of protecting our working women be discussed wherever two or three are gathered together. Let meetings be called for this purpose in every considerable town in this state. Let the women's clubs and the churches consider why it should be held by Judge Tuthil that the women of Illinois are not worthy of the protection afforded working women in other civilized states and countries of the western world. Let Ritchie's welfare work and Tuthill's law be associated in the public mind as the common enemies of the womanhood and the homes of Illinois. Mr. John Mitchell was unfortunately unable to be present by sent the following sympathetic letter which was read at the meeting: I much regret that circumstances beyond my control make it impossible for me to be present at and address the Convention of the National Women's Trade Union League. I am fully convinced that no question now confronting the American people is so important as is the problem of securing for our women working a larger measure of protection than they have at present. And I am equally convinced that the solution of the problem depends entirely upon the organization of women workers in trade unions. While splendid work in their behalf is being done by various associations, yet permanent relief and and permanent remedies must come from the action of the women themselves. Each year and each generation forces women in ever larger numbers to enter the field of industrial pursuits, and as their numbers increase the struggle for existence and for tolerable conditions of employment becomes more intense. Unless the women workers form themselves into trade unions and this be prepared to defend themselves against injustice and to demand a progressive improvement in their conditions of life and labor, they will inevitably be made the victims of the rapacity and greed of those employers who are every ready to take advantage of their helplessness. And even the many humane employers will be powerless to maintain decent conditions for women workers, because they, too, must meet the competition of the inconsiderate employers. I take this occasion to express the hope that the mission of the National Women's TradeUnion League will be a complete success and that the women workers of our country taking courage from the efforts put forth in their behalf, will respond in large numbers and that at no distant day the organizations of women will be as strong and as powerful as are the organizations of men in skill trades today. I am, Yours truly, John Mitchell. STATE LEAGUE REPORTS. Special Local Activities. Mrs. Knefler, president of the St. Louis League, related how strictly and solely a working-girls' organization was their League, how the girls had sold tickets and got up entertainments to carry on the League. Her story of how they were checkmated after they thought the limitation of hours law safe, is an unfinished story still and a very pathetic one. St. Louis is very proud of its first child, its large Bindery Women's Union. The League has started a Current Topics Club to study labor occurrences and the club will be the first to make application for one of the Chicago League's circulating libraries. Miss Helen Marot, speaking for New York, thought the women of their stronger locals were now realizing the importance of giving their time and strength to the wider trade union movement and especially towards helping their weaker sisters. New York, besides doing much direct organization, has had splendid results through its label work. This brings them into very sympathetic relations with trade-union men. It has an agency which sells collars and cuffs, stockings and shirt waists and this label work has paid for itself. It was generally felt that the New York plan should be followed by the other Leagues. Miss Leonara O'Reilly gave a thrilling account of how effective a new branch of work the street meetings have proved, going out to meet the girls who could never come to them and helping them with sisterly co-operation and support in times of poverty and defeat and danger. Miss Mary Dreier gave an account of the League's new Tip-Not Restaurant. Miss Withington (Boston's representative) also talked about open-air meetings. These were suffrage meetings. The new house of the League at 7 Warrenton Square called for a word. She reported, too, that the League has been interested in recent legislation under which, after January 1, 1910, no woman can be employed in Massachusetts in any of the textile industries after 6 o'clock in the evening, or for more than 56 hours in one week. Miss Agnes Nestor, speaking for Chicago, told of the Eight Hour Fight, of the sick benefit and of the extension of the library; how much interest had been taken in the Gompers-Mitchell-Morrison case and how the girls competed for prizes in answering most difficult questions thereon. Letters and Telegrams. Communications received included greetings, amongst others, from the California State Women's Union Label League Convention, sitting the previous week in San Diego, Cal., from the State Building Trades Council of California. There was also an appeal for and from the Swedish strikers. In response to this last a collection of $25.60 was taken up. A GERMAN WOMEN'S ORGANIZATION Of deep interest was the address of Fraulein Margarete Schweicheler, of Germany, representing the National Union of Stenographers, Bookkeepers and Department Store Clerks, given at the University of Chicago Settlement before the Convention: The organization which I represent was established twenty years ago in Berlin. It embraces all those girls who are occupied as bookkeepers, stenographers, cashiers, correspondents, saleswomen in offices and stores. At present 25,000 women clerks are organized in our union. This organization extends over the whole of the German empire. The headquarters are in Berlin. Branch organizations we have in nine different important towns of Germany. Of one of these organizations, the one in Hamburg, I am the organizer. There are 1,500 members of our union in Hamburg. Besides the Hamburg members of our organization I have to take care of those who live in Bremen, Lubeck, Kiel, Oldenburg and Bremerhaven, in all about 300. We consider it our first duty to see that the commercial education of the young women clerks be as good as possible. For this purpose we try to place the girls in good commercial schools to get at least one full year of training. Closely connected with a good commercial education we think is the question of payment. We are convinced that the better the training of the girls, the sooner dilettantism will pass and the higher wages will become. The second means to get better payment is, we think, a well organized agency for employment. In this re- 22 UNION LABOR ADVOCATE spect we can say that our union has the best organized employment agency for women in the world. In the past year we supplied employers with 6,000 women clerks. As all employers who apply to our agency for women clerks and who are not willing to pay suitable wages are refused by us, we have succeeded in this way in influencing the rate of payment. We also try to influence the conditions of work, as we do not attempt to fill calls for clerks of houses in which we know that they have too long working hours; that they work on Sunday; or that the clerks are not well treated. For this purpose we have a widely extended system of investigation, as we make inquiries about every firm who uses our agency. To further strengthen our efforts in this direction and prevent oppression on the part of employers we asked from the government the prohibition of Sunday work and the shortening of the working hours by law. After much trouble and expense we succeeded in bringing this about in many cities and towns in Germany as far as such objects can be attained by municipal decrees and ordinances. Apart from the above mentioned efforts and the substantial results obtained, we take care of the education and entertaining of our girls. Bi-monthly meetings are arranged, musical and literary evenings and entertainments for one fortnightly meeting and lectures on professional subjects of general interest at the next. Besides this, dances and concert or theatre parties are arranged on Sunday afternoons during the winter months. In the summer months, excursions by boats or railroads, or picnics, take their place. A library containing books in the three leading languages- German, English and French- is at the disposal of our members, who are also furnished with their trade paper without cost. Legal advice is given free by us, and this in difficult cases is supplemented by the advice of experienced lawyers at our cost. A relief fund is established for those out of work or members in distress; loans are granted in deserving and needful cases. THE WORK ACCOMPLISHED. As will be seen, the convention considered in fullest detail several matters of national concern indicated in the President's address and arrived at very significant conclusions. The Constitution. The constitution was thoroughly gone over in committee under the able chairmanship of Mrs. Post. The suggestions of the committee were, on the whole, considered as genuine improvements. The most significant of those was the change of name from "The National Women's Trade Union League" to "The National Women's Trade Union League of America". This outer change surely typifies an inner one, not indeed a "change of heart" in the old sense, but the advance from the indefiniteness of plan with which the pioneers were compelled to begin to the comparative clarity of ideas and definiteness of purpose which the League has attained today. Organization. The report of the organization committee was referred to the executive board for further consideration. It suggested that the League petition international unions having women in their trade to give assistance by paying a woman district organizer for the year 1910 and that an effort should be made to establish such a composite union out of the members of different crafts where there are not enough members of one craft to form a good live active union, as Miss Macarthur had described doing such important service to unionism in Great Britain. Miss Steghagen put the matter very tellingly when she said that such a union composed of women and girls of different trades was only of use to them till they were strong enough to form one for their own special trade. As soon as that happened, out they would go, to give place to fresh recruits for unionism. But until then, the federated union might serve as a temporary home, in which they could meet and talk over their common difficulties in a way impossible at the large public meetings of the Women's Trade Union League. Legislation. From the report of the committee on legislation, adopted unanimously, we make extracts. There was also a resolution passed in favor of the establishment of a uniform eight-hour day among women workers in all the states. We must bear in mind that we face a situation without precedent. It is a large problem that confronts us, not only because the number of those gainfully employed is great, nearly 6,000,000, and is increasing rapidly; but because it is evident that the enduring remedy for present ills is larger liberty to enter new vocations, to acquire training, to be freed from customary limitations shutting them into a small number of ill-paid employments, while the immediate remedy appears to be a legislative control intended to prevent the exploitation of them in their weakness by the occasionally powerful employer in behalf of an intelligent and unthinking committee. Until the advent of the factory system the women were at home in the industrial world. They probably worked as much and as intently as they do now. But they so worked as to adjust their industrial activities to their maternal privileges and their social and family life. The rigidity of factory life prevents this, and the problem is really one of controlling the factory system so as to benefit by its economics, allow women to share in the productive activity of society as they have always done, and at the same time save them and their children alive. It is another phase of the difficult task of mastering, instead of being mastered by the machine. Today the machine holds us in bonds and we yield up to it its thousands and thousands of victims - girl lives, sacrificed to the speed it sets or demands; woman lives, crushed by the conditions of noise, vibration, unwholesome fumes, long hours, and work during the night which kindly nature meant for human rest; and infant life given up before it comes to night, not because the mother works, but because she is and has been worked in so cruel a fashion that there is no surplus life upon which the child can draw. As Miss Breckinridge has said in an article on legislative control, it has been declared a matter of public concern that no group of women workers should be allowed to unfit themselves by excessive hours of work, by long standing, or by other physical strain for the burden of motherhood which each of htem should be able to assume. We offer the following program of legislative measures and would recommend that in the preparation of bills they be introduced as a measure "In order to safeguard the health of female employees:" 1. The eight-hour day. 2. Elimination of night work. 3. Protected machinery. 4. Sanitary workshops. 5. Separate toilet rooms. 6. Seats for women and permission for their use when the work allows. 7. Prohibition of the employment of pregnant women two months before and after child-birth. 8. Pensions for working mothers during the lying-in period. 9. That we ask for an increased number of women factory inspectors, based on the percentage of women workers in the State. 10. That the State Department of Health be urged to appoint women physicians as health inspectors, whose duty it shall be to visit all workshops where women and children are employed, to examine into the physical condition of the workers. 11. A legal minimum wage in the sweated trades. A Woman Labor Commissioner. The convention resolved to request the Honorable Charles Nagel, Secretary of the Department of Commerce and Labor, and the Honorable Charles P. Neill, Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor, to create in the Bureau a specific department to investigate and from time to time report upon the condition of working women in the United States, with special reference to protective legislation directed to the preservation of the health, safety and morals of the motherhood of our people, and to respectively urge upon said Secretary and Commissioner the wisdom, propriety and justice of appointing a woman as the head of such department. The convention further expressed the deep appreciation of the union working women of the United States for the able, courageous and helpful services of the Honorable Charles P. Neill as Labor Commissioner. Education. Regarding education the convention approved the report of the committee, in which it was suggested that trade schools, wherever established, shall be placed under the control of the Public School System, and that such schools shall be administered so as not to be detrimental to labor, equal opportunity for hand work being given to public school children irrespective of sex. Also the various Leagues establish classes to inform women on the subject of judicial decisions affecting labor. UNION LABOR ADVOCATE 23 Judicial Decisions. In this connection the National Secretary was instructed to organize and maintain a bureau of information and advice for the union women of the United States in regard to the industrial decisions rendered by the Federal and State courts; and it was resolved that upon instructions form the National Executive Committee a campaign of publicity shall be begun and carried on whenever and wherever the welfare of working women may demand, and that a bulletin be prepared and such a publicity campaign be begun as soon as may be, upon the decision of Judge Richard Tuthill of the Circuit Court of Cook County, declaring unconstitutional the Illinois Ten-Hour Law, and that the co-operation of all the women of this country be sought, to the end that the principle of legislation for the working motherhood of Illinois be maintained by the Supreme Court of that State. A Labor Party. The Boston delegation introduced, and the convention passed, a resolution urging the American Federation of Labor to take action toward the formation of a Labor Party, which party shall be pledged to forward the higher interests of the toiling millions as against the selfish interests of a privileged minority, and which shall welcome to its membership all persons of whatever other affiliations who shall subscribe to the above line of action. A resolution drafted on definitely Socialist lines was not concurred in by the resolution committee, whose action was sustained by the convention. Many of the delegates who are themselves Socialists preferred the proposal of a Labor Party and spoke in favor of it. Exclusion of Asiatic Races. Among the resolutions presented, but not adopted, none was more thoroughly thrashed out than the one presented by Mrs. Louise La Rue of San Francisco, in favor of obtaining exclusion laws against all Asiatics. The resolution did not carry, but it was evident that those for it were so from a very keen and real sense of the danger involved in an unlimited supply of cheap, low standard labor always read to be exploited, while those who opposed it showed nothing like the same intimate knowledge of the subject. The Marshall Field Invitation. The out-of-town delegates played their own hand occasionally. They it was in a body who asked the Convention to refuse on their behalf the invitation of Marshall Field & Co. to visit the largest department store in the world. That invitation, alone of all invitations extended to the delegates by Chicago citizens, was unanimously and respectfully declined because of the known opposition of this firm to the organization of women workers and to efforts to raise the industrial status of women. Votes for Women. It was a statesmanlike move the convention made here. No mere endorsing of woman suffrage for them. Nothing so superfluously futile as that would suit an organization which has full citizenship for women as one of the planks of its platform. The Convention takes bolder ground than that and asks for the League the active co-operation of the National American Suffrage Association in furthering the organization of women's unions and in forwarding such legislation for prosecuting the health and safety of women workers as is outlined in the legislative program of the National Women's Trade Union League. Peace. In response to a letter received from the American Peace Society, asking for an expression of opinion by the Convention, the delegates had great pleasure in passing a resolution to the effect that since the interests of working women, as women, as workers and as mothers, are peculiarly bound up in the maintenance of peace, and in the convention urge the establishment of the Court of Arbitral Justice, provided for by the Second Hague Conference and awaiting only the appointment of its pledges under some form of international agreement, and that they a lso protest against further increase of the United States Navy as unnecessary for our protection and as tending to aggravate the rivalry of the nations in building costly armaments. The Official Journal. The Woman's Department of the Union Labor Advocate, the official journal of the League, was reported upon by the Editor, Miss Alice Henry. The Convention, on taking up the question of the extension o fthe League's work by means of the official organ, noted that therein is regularly recorded as fully as possible the various activities of all the local leagues, and the news, less frequent but no less important, which the National officers are able to report. Thus, too, are covered all public meetings and all news, official and otherwise, which the various local leagues wish to bring before the membership, the labor world, or the public generally, and a great deal of information on labor matters not obtainable in any books, because it is the history of what is happening today, of much of which there is no record in books. The Convention therefore desires that each league and the member at large - in fact, each member of the Women's Trade Union League, whether national or local - should do everything possible towards making self-supporting the official journal of the National Women's Trade Union League by sending both subscriptions and advertisements from their own part of the country. That they aid in making it of national interest by sending in news, letters and stores, and that in order to successfully accomplish these ends each league appoint a Publicity Committee to take in hand the journal work of its league. Election of Officers. The election of the national officers took place on Friday, October 1, just before the close of the Convention. The officers are: President, Mrs. Raymond Robins, Chicago; Vice Presidents, Mrs. Mary Kenney O'Sullivan, Boston, and Miss Melinda Scott, New York; Secretary-Treasurer, Mrs. D. W. Knefler, St. Louis. The next Convention will be held in Boston in June, 1911. THE CONVENTION HANDBOOK. A tale of the hard and curious labors of women, their narrow wages, and what unionism has done for the trades which have been organized, is told in the hand-book of the Women's Trade Union League, prepared for the National Convention held in Chicago last week. (Women's Trade Union League, 275 La Salle street, price ten cents.) The hand-book is a handsome, large pamphlet of beautiful typography, containing the program of the meetings, a word for unionism by Agnes Nestor, and a word for the League - its purposes and function - by Mrs. Raymond Robins, its President. Then follow the little vivid stories of conditions in thirty-two of the women's trades, with William Morris's "March of the Workers," and a bibliography of current labor literature. In connection with the trade stories, where possible, union labels are given. And these trade stories - don't you want to know how may stitches a minute the girl watches who makes tucks in a shirt waist - and under what conditions "switches" and "rats" are made? Do you know that three-fourths of the workers in a horseshoe nail factory are women? Do you know that during the busiest hour of the day the young woman at the ticket window on the "Loop" does hour of the day the young woman at the ticket window on the "Loop does business with 1,400 persons - and in the whole day of twelve hours, with 4,000 persons? This hand-book will tell you these and ever so many more things about the service you are constantly receiving from the women who toil. The books is thus dedicated: "To you, our brethren out in the world - your world and our world - for whom we labor: We have carefully gathered the facts for this little book, and have tried to set them down simply and truly, that you may better understand how hard and often full of suffering is the labor that clothes and feeds and serves you - to the end that you as well as we may more strongly desire to work for the establishment of such just conditions that there shall by and by come a time when mutual service, measured by a just wage, shall bring, without strain or pain, warmth and food and happy life for all. Then shall our mouths be filled with laughter, and our tongues with singing." A.T.P. 24| Union Labor Advocate Sidelights on the convention. [Contributed.] "What's this Convention for, anyway?" inquired a mere man meandering around the eight floor of the Fine Arts Building on the morning of Sept. 27th. The newspaper artists evidently imagined it was to provide copy for them, as their "interviewing" completely obstructed proceedings, and press cameras, as numerous as the cannon at Balaklava, pointed from all corners of Miss Morgan's beautiful studio. This, however, had its advantages in giving all a chance to hear the sweet music discoursed by a women's orchestra of pretty young union musicians enthroned on the stage behind a huge bowl of roses and the League banners. Did it just happen that way or was it managed with that artistic skill and capability which characterized the whole "lay-out" that the stage of the public meeting at the Y. M. C. A. presented such a well arranged tableau? To the right sat President Fitzpatrick and Raymond Robins, fin, substantial unionists as like as a pair of vaudeville twins with no less than a chorus of fifty attractive girls, all in white, as a background. The other members of the company were Mrs. Henrotin, always a gracious figure, and the Vice-President in dignified black. The two leading ladies were as direct a contrast as though chose by a careful management as a foil to each other's beauty. The President was a radiant exposition of how green silk and cream lace can become a brilliant brunette and Miss Macarthur, the most British and equally radiant of the blondes, with a pink rose with a two foot stem at her waist, was an irresistible figure in the very identical soft white clinging material such as the heroines in gentlemen's novels invariably wear, even when they (the heroines) are lost in a desert or reduced to working at one of the sweated trades in the slums. The German delegate, described by all as "perfectly darling," was also on the platform. She also seemed to be perfectly modest and instinctively withdrew at the approach of any notoriety. When tendered a special vote of thanks she was out discovering if the American moon were the same as that of the dear Fatherland, and when she and Miss Macarthur were made honorary members of the League, again there was a hue and cry for the German delegate. She certainly was perfectly surprised at the strenuosity of the Chicago newspaper men and exclaimed incredulously, "What, again?" when for the twenty-sixth time in one hour (more or less) she was called upon to sit for her picture. For the reconstruction of any lady who might fall to pieces in the arduosity of reconstructing "the sorry scheme of things entire" was provided a comprehensive work basket and it was a Boston delegate, who with true New England housewife-lines and exactitude, halted the President in the middle of a sentence on a serious question to warn her, the President, that she had put the toe of her union shoe between the braid and the hem of her rose-red union skirt. "The Work-Basket," said the President, motioning to the director of it with her union label gavel, and the Secretary attacked the most immediate question in unionism with an Eight-Hour-Mending-Circle calm and competence. Some conventions can be sodden with heaviness and others full of nothing but gas. This was neither. The serious work of it crystallized in a series of able resolutions and any one who imagines that the strength of these is to be wasted on the desert air had never been around the business quarters of the National Women's Trade Union League on its busy days. When seriousness grew like to obscure that joy and camaraderie which was the characteristic spirit of the congress, the New York delegation came to the relief with a "stunt" illustrative of their good humor and ability for team work. "Sister Robin's a corker, She's a New Yorker; She, left us lonely, some time ago-o-o! Plucky St. Louis, the youngest of the sister Leagues, gave an excellent account of itself and betrayed a very natural pride in its A1 president. Good old Boston with a heart full of hospitality and a reckless disregard of the work it is bringing upon its head, spoke up for the great biennial of 1911. And all the way from the blue Pacific, with glints of the Golden West in her pretty hair and the blue of Californian heavens in her sparkling eyes, came a stunning little lady, who kept her end of the stick up in fine fashion. In fact, on inventorying the dimensions of such favorites as the dimensions of suck favorites as Mrs. Post, Mrs. Lee, Misses Marot, Dreier, Scott, Thomas, Nestor, Schneidermann and Ellenbacker, one could have used the old saw the many of the convention's good things were contained in small packages. That some of the best were presented to a callous world in sizeable dimensions was evidenced by the presence of a trio of eastern delegates and as many from Chicago that did one good to look at. I should like to tell something about "Sister Alice Henry" and her swarm of newspaper friends, but she is the editor and would be sure to cut it out. Conventions can be weariness of the flesh, but I wish to here set down that this one proved one of the greatest revelations of earnestness, of inspiration and of high and true ideals put into every day practice and brought to the practical assistance of the welfare of mankind that has ever fallen athwart the experience of this MERE ONLOOKER. DELEGATES FIRST BIENNIAL CONVENTION, NORFOLK, VA., 1907. THE CONVENTION PROCEEDINGS. The proceedings will be published in full and will bout very shortly, and by special request, the National President's address will also be published separately. Miss Macathur's very striking speech before the convention will be printed in the December number. SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT. The December number will contain a story by Ernest Poole, the popular authors written especially for the Advocate, entitled "The Shadow of a Christmas." LEST WE FORGET. It is well to be reminded in these stirring times that we are making no very novel demands, but only adhere to the charter of our liberties as drawn up by our forefathers. The Constitution of the State of Massachusetts, in Part First, Section V of the Preamble, contains the following emphatic statement of the right of the common people" "All power residing originally in the people, and being derived from them the several magistrates and officers of government, vested with authority, whether legislative, executive or judicial, are their substitutes and agents, and are at all times accountable to them." Margaret G. Bondfield W Trady Union League National Women's Trade Union League of America Life and Labor Bulletin 307 Machinists Bldg. Washington, D.C. No. 16 November 1940 Margaret G. Bondfield. Published by I.L.P. 23, Bride Lane E.C. W Trade Union League Post Card A basic "defense" need The National Defense Program has brought in its wake a realization that "defense" is not only a matter of enough guns and tanks and airplanes and rounds of ammunition. We are realizing that we must have butter as well as guns — that people who live below the "safety line" are not in the condition to protect our democracy and our freedom, either spiritually or physically. To build strong, healthy citizens, required three basic things: plenty of good food, decent and adequate shelter, proper clothing. We want to call to attention the second of these basic necessities, "shelter", because at the time there hangs in the balance the fate of the program of the United States Housing Authority which is designed to provide better housing for the section of the population which cannot afford it. The USHA which was created by Congress in 1937 administers the United States Housing Act which authorized the lending of $800,000,000 to local communities. This was enough money to build 160,000 homes for families living in houses unfit for human habitation. BUT THERE ARE APPROXIMATELY 11,000,000 FAMILIES IN THIS COUNTRY LIVING UNDER SUCH CONDITIONS. Therefore it is clear that the re-housing program cannot stop with the building of 160,000 homes. Realizing this, the Senate in 1939 passed a new bill (S-591) authorizing an additional $800,000,000 to be loaned to local communities which wanted to clear out their slums and build new housing. But the House Rules Committee has balked at passing this bill, and for more than a year it has refused to report it out on the floor where it would have been passed, since it has the support of Democrats and Republicans. The basic facts about the public housing program were reviewed in our April, 1940 issue, but they are worth repeating: There is an acute shortage of decent, safe and sanitary dwellings for families of low income. Private builders are not building for this group because they cannot afford to pay rents which would make such buildings profitable. (It is important to note that co competition with private industry is therefore involved.) Therefore, government has a duty to step in and correct the situation. The National Women's Trade Union League, as far back as 1936, resolved in its convention in Washington that the "improvement of housing conditions should logically be a major concern of all progressive and truly liberal women's organizations;" and we went on to urge enactment of the housing bill then before Congress. The delegates at that convention, speaking for those whom they represented, said that "the homes of the majority of wage earners and their families in this country constitute a mockery of our vast resources of land, labor and technical skill; and public aid and initiative are necessary on a permanent basis, if this housing problem is to be solved. The USHA constitutes that "permanent basis." Its work must not be allowed to die. Let's act NOW. Make known to your Congressman and to the President your desire that Senate Bill 591 should be passed by the House. We must not forget the thousands of our fellows whose health and welfare are jeopardized by bad housing conditions - whose children are not getting a fair chance to survive in damp, dark and overcrowded houses. Every fair-minded citizen is against slums. Every fair-minded citizen is for decent housing. That seedier is a part of the very air we breathe. And let us emphasize that the program of national defense is in jeopardy as long as a section of the population is improperly housed. It is a challenge and a call to arms. CONSTRUCTIVE ACHIEVEMENTS During these past years of widespread unemployment the members of the International Printing Pressmen and Assistants Union of North America have been able to sustain themselves and to care for their unemployed members. There has been no federal project especially designated to take care of those out of work in the printing trades unions. To the best knowledge of the International Union not one of its members was or is on the relief rolls. Its members have shared their work with their Fellowes to the extent of reducing their budgets fifty per cent in order to make a more suitable allocation of employment opportunities. The International Union has spent approximately 8 million dollars to care for those who could not come within the plan of suitable division of work opportunities. At the same time, the Union has not curtailed the opportunities of worthy apprentices to learn the trade. It cares for its apprentices by educational methods and practical demonstrations; pays pensions and mortuary benefits; operates a hospital and a home for the aged. It operates the largest technical trade school in printing in the world, dedicated to the improvement of craftsmanship and in the promotion of efficiency in the printing industry. "An organization of men which has endured for a period of fifty years", according to a statement by President Berry of the International Union, "has by that very fact sustained its right to existence. It is proof, too, that the men making up such an organization have been motivated not only by idealistic but practical concepts. No organization can disregard these two elements....because they cannot endure without the support of each other." FROM LOCAL LEAGUE REPORTS "If failure to realize prompt results in organizing campaigns had ever permanently discouraged the league, years ago." So wrote the organizer of one local league when submitting the report of her work in ten woman-implying industries. While the reports of our local units show that the gains made tipped the scales, they are not minus discouragements. There is the case of the bag makers - "wages in this industry are about the lowest of which I know. Workers have been lucky to get even the minimum of $12 a week. Here there is still much work to be done......." But - "the Candy and Confectioners Union has made great progress........This Union can now rightfully boast of 6,000 members in good standing. A more grateful and devoted membership I have yet to see. The same candy workers whom we used to pity, now proudly hold their heads up!" The secretary of one league gave major attention to the problems of household workers, that vast group of more than two million women whose days' work has no standard compensation or no limit as to hours, and who are thus far denied legislative industrial safeguards both state and federal. Organization work and strike assistance, at the request of unions and workers, and frequently through our own initiative, has been given to workers in 25 trades, such as Playthings and Novelties, Insurance Salesmen, Curtain Makers, Rubber, -2- Textiles, Watch Case Workers, Coffee Roasters, Brush Workers and Dairy Workers. Cooperation with organized farm women, both local and national, is being given increased attention. Discussion of current events of labor and civic problems are more and more becoming a part of local league meetings. Educational programs are under way. One league is arranging educational extension programs for the Women's Auxiliary to the Sleeping Car Porters Union, and United Transport Service Employees (Red Caps). The record of one league during the last class term was 147 class sessions, with a total enrollment of 360 students, coming from 35 different unions. ANNUAL INTERSTATE CONFERENCE Local leagues from four midwestern states - Illinois, Iowa, Missouri and Wisconsin - were represented at the Annual Interstate Conference which was held in Chicago, September 27, 28, 29. In my opinion, the outstanding question after any conference is, "Was it an improvement over last year?" We are proud to say that this conference was! With 124 registered delegates representing 35 trade unions, ten auxiliaries, one state federation, six central labor bodies, one trade union label league, and six women's trade union leagues, we reached out this year to one farm union. This is an important addition, because one group cannot successfully forge ahead by leaving any other related group behind. In an industrial city such as we live in we fully realize how unfair employers stir up antagonism between farm and labor groups, and only by getting together on a common meeting ground and discussing their problems can these two groups overcome this antagonism. The reports of delegates are always inspiring, especially reports from those delegates who are attending a conference for the first time, and the new delegates were given an opportunity they do not usually get through work in their own unions. Mrs. Laura Lunde, Secretary, Illinois Women's Conference on Legislation, spoke on "Why We Oppose the Equal Rights Amendment", which was followed by a discussion led by Mrs. Frank R. Halas, President, Illinois State League. When Mrs. Lunde finished her talk we felt as if we had been completely informed and wondered why anyone should ever be for "Equal Rights." An equally fine job was done by Mrs. Harriet S. Platt, President, Pan American Council, who talked on "The United States and Latin America." After hearing Mrs. Platt, we all felt we had just met our Latin-American friends, and had a definite responsibility toward them. Following Mrs. Platt's talk, a discussion was led by Lydia M. Schmidt, Chairman, Foreign Relations Committee of the Chicago League. There were two interesting panels; one on "Organization of Women Workers", which was led by Mary V. White, President, Bloomington-Normal National Committee, and the other on "Auxiliary Organizations", led by Mrs. John J. Lange, Secretary, Racine National Committee. The Saturday session closed with the annual conference dinner which was very well attended and furnished a pleasant social period after two days of strenuous meetings. The three-day conference closed with a review of "Five Years Under The National Labor Relations Act." G. L. Paterson, Regional Director, National Labor Relations Board, and Victor A. Olander, Secretary-Treasurer, Illinois State Federation of Labor, were the speakers. In the opinion of the delegates, the subjects on the Conference Program were well presented, and a vote of thanks was given to the hostess-city, Chicago. - By Mrs. John J. Lange, Conference Secretary. CAUSE AND CURE OF WAR OMITS ANNUAL CONFERENCE No doubt many of our members have been wondering why they have not received a "Call to the Sixteenth Conference on the Cause and Cure of War." Because of the financial situation, not only in the Committee on the Cause and Cure of War itself but in its member organizations, it was decided at the fall meeting of the Committee in New York to omit the Annual Conference this year, and thus to relieve member organizations of the responsibility of having a definite number of delegates present. There -3- will be meetings in Kansas City, Missouri, January 27-30 as planned, but these will take the form of a Regional Conference rather than a national one. The members of the Committee have felt for some time the need of regional meetings, to bring to members unable to come to Washington the guidance and inspiration to action which the Washington conferences have given those privileged to attend them. A generous gift by Mrs. Catt for this specific purpose makes it possible to hold eight such conferences through the Middle West this year. THE INTER-AMERICAN COMMISSION OF WOMEN is holding its first meeting in Washington at the Pan-American Union on November 11, 12 and 13. The result of this meeting, the program they adopt and the methods by which they will put this plan into effect is of enormous importance to all the women of the Americas. The National Women's Trade Union League extends to the members of the Commission their sympathetic interest, and desire for cooperation, and best wishes for the success of their meeting. LILLIAN D. WALD; FRIEND OF HUMANITY The passing of Lillian Wald withdraws from our world another great pioneer among the women of America in the older generation. It is a loss with that of Jane Addams, Florence Kelly and others not to be replaced. There was no momentous question during the long years of Lillian Wald's service in which she did not take part - always for progressive and enlightened advance; education, race relations, social justice, greater opportunities for women, suffrage, industrial betterment. She worked through organizations, by herself and through local, state and national governments as well. She fought valiantly for the oppressed in all lands and with utter devotion for the peace of the world. With all her wide interests and activities her unique contribution was the creation of the Visiting Nurse Service which spread from New York City through our states and into nearly every country of the world. It was service to the poor sick in tenements, basements or subcellars or on the top floors; anywhere where sickness caught up with folk who had nothing or little she sent the nurses in their blue uniforms who gave glad and heroic service. In the early years of the Women's Trade Union League she gave generously of her time, advice and help; this when trade unions were very unpopular. Her humor, her loving and all-embracing sympathy and tenderness, her resourcefulness and her great administrative ability combined to give her a special and permanent place as a great person in our country. But beyond this she will be loved and cherished in the hearts not only of her countrymen, not only in the hearts of those who had the privilege of knowing her as a friend, but in the heart of the world. - By Mary E. Dreier. "DO YOU KNOW LABOR?" by James Myers. Published by National Home Library Foundation, Washington, D. C., 1940, 50 cents. Reviewed by Alice B. Duffield. Dr. Myers, who is a Presbyterian minister and the Industrial Secretary of the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America, has attempted the difficult task of telling the story of labor in 126 pages of print. His use of the text book style of writing, questions on the subject matter of each chapter, and an extensive bibliography makes the book valuable as an outline of study. The reading is enlivened and clarified by the telling of incidents which Dr. Myers experienced in his fifteen years as labor manager and investigator of labor relations in many industries. - 4 - The Women's Trade Union League It is not a philanthropy; it is not a social service agency. Important as such organizations are in our social economy, they deal with economic effects. The purpose of the Women's Trade Union League is to deal with first cause, with wages, hours, conditions of work. It prescribes as an essential to the democratic and equitable functioning of industry the organization of workers into trade unions. Its province is particularly with women workers, and it has a long history of service and accomplishment in this field. Do these industrial problems and their just solution interest you? That of the waitress who carries her tray four miles every day she works? That of the telephone operator who nearly accomplishes perpetual motion in the speed and continuity at which she works? That of the girl at her power-machine in the clothing factory? That of the weaver tending her loom? You eat, you telephone, you wear the product of the loom and the machines. Would you help these women workers to the dignity and economic security of organization? Boston Women's Trade Union League A pioneer organization whose purposes are the organization of women into trade unions, the limitation of child labor, the protection of women and children in industry, and the general objectives of the American labor movement. Affiliation and support solicited from individuals and organizations interested in the growth of the labor movement and the promotion of the economic interest of wage-earning women. The graded contributions are planned to allow members to share as they are able in the financial responsibilities of the League's work. Annual membership..................$2.00 Associate membership..............5.00 Contributing membership.........10.00 Sustaining membership............25.00 Supporting membership...........100.00 Check type of membership consistent with you contribution Name........................................... Address....................................... Make checks payable to Mrs. Roland M. Baker, Treasurer BOSTON WOMEN'S TRADE UNION LEAGUE 5 BOYLSTON PLACE Affiliated with the National Women's Trade Union League of America Endorsed by The American Federation of Labor BOSTON WOMEN'S TRADE UNION LEAGUE cordially invites you to attend the Saturday Afternoon Forums 3 PM 5 BOYLSTON PLACE, (near 125 Boylston St.) BOSTON MAR. 7. "GERMAN LABOR MOVEMENT" Speaker, Mr. HORST C. EINSIEDEL, Harvard College MAR. 14 "WAGES IN THE NEW INDUSTRY" Speaker, Mr. ROBERT WATT, V. P. of American Federation of Labor "FRENCH LABOR MOVEMENT" Speaker, AUGUSTINE MARECAUX MAR. 21 "DO WE NEED UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE" Speakers: JULIA O'CONNOR PARKER, Pres. Tel. Operator's Dept ROBERT FECHNER, V. P. International Machinists Union MAR. 28 "CIVIL LIBERTIES AND THE WORKERS" Speaker, ROBERT BATEMAN, Executive Sec. of the Mass. Civil Liberty Comm. "FREE SPEECH BILL" Speaker, MILDRED GUTTERSON, Legislative Sec'y APR. 4 "CAUSES OF UNEMPLOYMENT IN THE UNITED STATES" Speaker, MORRIS FREIDBERG, Prof. of Economics at Simmons College APR. 11 "IRISH FOLKLORE AND FAIRIES" Mrs. ROLAND M. BAKER APR. 18 "PUBLIC UTILITIES" Speaker, JOHN F. GATLEY, Pres. Springfield Central Labor Union TEA SERVED MRS. H. NORWOOD, Chairman 41 ANNUAL REPORT of the Boston Women's Trade Union League for the Year 1930 Office: 5 BOYLSTON PLACE BOSTON MASSACHUSETTS OFFICERS President MRS. MARY GORDON THOMPSON Textile Workers' Union First Vice-President Second Vice-President MISS BESSIE IRVING MISS MAY SONGSTER Waitresses' Union Boston Street Carmen's Union Secretary Treasurer MISS SALLY PEARLSTEIN MRS. ROLAND M. BAKER Telephone Operators' Union EXECUTIVE BOARD MISS AGNES V. BOYLE MRS. JULIA O'CONNOR PARKER Waitresses' Union Telephone Operators' Union MRS. WILLIAN Z. RIPLEY MRS. MARGARET G. PHOUTRIDES MISS BERNICE ROGERS MISS JUDITH FRIEDMAN Teachers' Union Int. Ladies' Garment Workers' Union MRS DAVIS R. DEWEY MISS LILLIAN J. HALEY MISS ROSE SULLIVAN MISS MILDRED G. GUTTERSON Telephone Operators' Union MRS. ROSE NORWOOD DR. ALICE HAMILTON Telephone Operators' Union MRS. ROSE COOPER MRS. PEARL K. WISE Stenographers' Union Stenographers' Union MRS. MAUD F. VAN VAERENEWYCK REPORT FOR 1930 The officers of the BOSTON WOMEN'S TRADE UNION LEAGUE submit the following report for the year 1930: ORGANIZATION WORK AND STRIKES THE WORK of trade union organization has, of course, been seriously impeded this year. No new organization opportunities have been available and most of our energy has gone into efforts to keep existing organizations during these difficult times. We have attended meetings, visited workers, assisted at shop meetings and cooperated generally with the general organization and educational routine of practically all of the women's unions in the city. Despite the general industrial situation, the Neckwear Workers' Union has had a very successful year. About 60 per cent of the industry is under union contract; wages and conditions in the union shops have been well preserved. The teachers, the waitresses and the stenographers are among the groups who have made small membership gains this year, and in a few instances have made minor economic gains as well. It has been at best a year of marking time, of striving to hold one's own, rather than one of progress and achievement. Strikes have been few, only three which called for the assistance of the League - the raincoat strike, a shop strike in the garment trade, and a waitresses' strike of small proportions, only one restaurant being affected. This latter was effectively muzzled by an injunction, the raincoat strike was lost and resulted in the lock-out of a number of workers, and the garment strike was won on its main issues. 3 ANNIVERSARY PAGEANT We held a pageant in celebration of our 25th birthday as a local League in March which won much interest and favor. It depicted in tableau the history and development of women's part in industry from pioneer days in America down to the present time. It was staged at our anniversary dinner at the Bradford Hotel at which many of our members and friends were present, and at which National President Rose Schneiderman was guest. EDUCATIONAL WORK Probably in times like these when organization work must necessarily falter, when strikes or revolts of any character are impossible, where desperate acceptance of industrial fate, no matter how unjust, is the only alternative to hunger, the educational work of the League ought to take on added importance. This depression has been distinguished, as have none before it, for the degree in which the public conscience has been challenged by our industrial situation. This was strongly evidenced in our case by a greatly increased demand for what we call variously our educational or our interpretive work. In contrast to the diminished list of our organization achievements, our educational work has lengthened. Over one hundred meetings have been addressed, usually by invitation, and covering a wide range of audience interests. Colleges, church organizations, women's clubs, political groups, liberal and labor movements have been included in this scope. We have participated in the general activities of the labor movement, sent delegates to all conferences and conventions, were represented at the Regional Conference of the National League at New York, and responded to the usual and numerous requests to furnish women speakers at labor gatherings of all kinds. The Building Trades, although of course they 4 number no women in their membership or possible membership, have always been very generous and sympathetic toward the work of the League, and this year have been kind enough to invite us to attend their district meetings throughout the State for the purpose of further acquainting their delegates with the work of the Women's Trade Union League. This year also for the first time State Federations of the other New England states have invited us to participate in their conventions. We have made frequent visits of encouragement and help to the New Bedford Trade Union League and to the Women's Economic Council of Springfield. Our Saturday afternoon forums, held at intervals through the year, were popular. We have been exceptionally fortunate in our speakers for these occasions, securing several times some notable and interesting foreign visitor well acquainted with labor affairs in his own country, and in every case providing a stimulation and worth-while discussion of some current economic topic. We serve tea and the affairs are well attended and much enjoyed by the young working women on their weekly half holiday. LEGISLATION The measures which we have been supporting for the last few years continued to have our attention, notably the bill to raise the school age, old age pensions, the various amendments designed to strengthen workmen's compensation, and the safeguarding of the 48-hour week. UNEMPLOYMENT CENTRE We do not as a rule concern ourselves with remedial and palliative measures. Our social economy deal with first causes, with wages, hours, conditions of work, to be achieved through trade union organization. We leave charity to those excellent agencies whose mission it is to provide temporary relief, but so 5 evident and omnipresent are the primal needs of food and shelter this year that we have yielded to the inescapable human impulse to do what we can about it. We have, therefore, with the corporation of Ford Hall Folks and the United Building Trades Council, opened a section of our headquarters for the use of unemployed women and girls. Ford Hall Folks contributed the cost of material, the Building Trades Council furnished the labor, and a comfortably furnished and heated room is available for the legion of women and girls who troop from shop to shop and agency to agency looking for work. Here they may rest and read, overcome their discouragement a little, have coffee or tea and light lunch and go forth on their quest again. It is a humble and a halting effort adopted as an expediency—it will solve no unemployment problem, blue-print no reform in our social order, but we offer it for what it is worth to that group which seems to have been entirely forgotten in all programs for alleviation— industrial women workers. We opened in December and it has been a useful and constructive venture. An average of about one hundred women a day have used its facilities. Work has been found in a few cases, other individuals who needed specialized assistance have been directed to the proper agencies. For the most part of course we have contended ourselves with providing a simple meal, an opportunity to rest and talk, and the encouragement of interest and sympathy. The occupations represented by the thousands of women who have visited the centre have had a surprisingly large range—domestic workers in great numbers, industrial and factory workers, teachers, actresses, stenographers, nurses, telephone operators—vivid testimony of the penetration of unemployment into every phase of our community life. The contribution of time and money and other essentials from the organizations associated with us in this work, Ford 6 Hall Folks and the Consumers League have been generous, and we are glad to indicate our appreciation in a like degree. FINANCES Like all other women's organizations, we do not disdain to raise money for our work by sales and other such devices, Since we sell union-made goods, we feel that these projects are not entirely commercial—in addition to helping out our slender financial resources, we popularize the label and expound the social theory of patronizing goods produced under wholesome conditions. However, depression tells it tale there, too, and our income from these sources was much less this year than formerly. We record one bright spot—$500. worth of union-made ties sold to delegates to the American Federation of Labor Convention. We submit the following financial report. INCOME Dues.............................$ 128.00 Union...............................331.00 Allies..............................1204.16 Net Dress profit.............304.10 Net Tie profit..................297.45 Net Jewelry profit.............93.25 Miscellaneous.....................6.50 Rent, Light and Tel. .......464.67 ----------- $2829.13 OUTGO Salaries.......................$ 1915.00 Printing and Postage ....207.75 Rent and Light................757.26 Telephone.........................49.15 Officers Expense............108.48 Miscellaneous...................17.00 ----------- $3054.64 $3054.64 2829.13 -------------- $ 225.51 Deficit 7 The Century Press Boston, Mass. Boston Women's Trade Union League 5 Boylston Place Telephone Devonshire 8237 President Mrs. Mary Gordon Thompson Textile Workers' Union First Vice-President Miss Bessie Irving Waitresses' Union Second Vice-President Miss May Songster Boston Street Carmen's Union Treasurer Mrs. Roland M. Baker Secretary Miss Sally Pearlstein Executive Board Miss Agnes V. Boyle Waitresses' Union Mrs. Rose Cooper Stenographers' Union Mrs. Davis R. Dewey Miss Judith Friedman Int. Ladies' Garment Workers' Union Miss Mildred D. Gutterson Miss Lillian J. Haley Dr. Alice Hamilton Mrs. Rose Norwood Telephone Operators' Union Mrs. Julia O'Connor Parker Telephone Operators' Union Mrs. William Z. Ripley Miss Bernice Rogers Teachers' Union Miss Rose Sullivan Telephone Operators' Union Mrs. Maud Foley Van Vaerenewyck Mrs. Pearl K. Wise Stenographers' Union Mrs. Raymond Robins Honorary President Mrs. Rose Schneiderman National President "Life and Labor" Official Bulletin Dear Member: We know every organization is making more urgent appeals this year than ever before and the Women's Trade Union League is no exception. Our service is a direct one for working women. They need all the help we can give them for they are the first to be exploited. As you can see by our report we are using our rooms as rest rooms for unemployed women who are wearily tramping from place to place looking for jobs. We are also giving them free coffee and sandwiches and giving them courage, or trying to. In some instances the food we give them is the only food they get in the twenty-four hours. We hope that you will give us the same amount as you did last year and if you can that you will squeeze out an extra dollar or two. The times are hard for those who have not the security of a bank account. Sincerely yours, Mary Gordon Thompson, President Sally Pearlstein, Secretary SBA&OEU 14965 enc [*WTUL*] 1905] The Commons 153 home state was not to the public mind so clean of all taint of unfair dealing as to avoid awakening some suspicion here. But when Baldwin gave assurance that rather would the company which he represented go without any franchise than contribute one cent to securing such concession by unworthy methods, we who knew him believed absolutely what he said. I cannot think of him, and I rejoice that I cannot think of him, save as I last saw him some weeks before his fatal illness declared itself. The ring of his voice, the clasp of his hand, the glance of his eye, were those of a strong, true, straightforward man and friend. We bade each other good bye for the summer, each expecting to continue the work given him to do, and I rejoicing for him in that strength and success over which as yet no cloud had fallen. Such he remains and will remain to me—a man, strong, sincere, loyal to his ideals; one whose very existence and work are eternal proof that not through class strike but through the union of all good men, America's problem is to be solved. Fall River: Its Industrial Battle and Intolerable Peace By Gertrude Barnum Secretary Women's Trade Union League Another battle in the Industrial Revolution has just ended: the battle in Fall River,—one of the largest cotton manufacturing centres in the world. A city of 114,000 population has been paralyzed for nearly a half year. Seventy thousand men, women and children, dependent upon the mill wage have been without income, and workers' savings, trade union funds, city, state and private charities have been drawn upon to the extent of at least $100,000 a week, to keep together the souls and bodies of the mill operatives' families. The significance of the battle has been its bearing upon the policy of Northern mills in their competition with the South. In dedicating the great Lowell Textile School, a few years ago, Governor Bates declared that it seemed inevitable that Southern mills would take the lead in the manufacture of coarser grades of cotton cloth; and that the Northern mills must specialize on finer and more varied styles, which could not be turned out in the South. He stated his belief that the very life of the Northern mills depended upon the use of the best business methods and modern machinery and upon the maintenance of a high standard of living for mill operatives, who now rank first in the world efficiency. So lately as September last, Mr. Herbert E. Walmsley, president of the New England Manufacturers' Association, in a speech at the New England Manufacturers' Convention, reiterated these important points. In regard to wages Mr. Walmsley said: "I do not hesitate to say in the most emphatic manner that, in my judgment, any such reduction or leveling down of wages is neither desirable nor necessary. Rather should we aim for higher standards, in the interests of the general well-being, advancement and prosperity of the entire community, regarded from any and every point of view. The real and true self-interest of the employer will not permit of any forced and continued attempt to reduce wages below a normal or legitimate standard."...... "Good wages are not incompatible with our 154| The Commons | [March position in the world's market-such at least is my deliberate judgment of this delicate and vexed question." Wages and conditions in Fall River have been for years the criterion for the other Northern centers. Therefore the United Textile Workers believe they are fighting their battle, not only for the welfare of two-thirds of all the workers of New England, but also for the establishment of a policy which is the only hope for the industry in the North. THE WAGE CUTS. The direct occasion ( though not the sole reason ) for the strike of the 26,000 union and non-union operatives July 25th was the posting of notices announcing a reduction of 12 1/2 per cent in wages in the 72 mills of 34 corporations. This amounted to a cut-down, admitted by manufacturers to be 32 per cent since November, 1903, and claimed by workers to amount, in some cases, to 44 per cent. The weavers had special grievances in the increased strain of work, where four or six and more extra looms had been forced upon them,-in some cases with no pretense of improved machinery to facilitate work. The manufacturers claimed that economy, through reduction of wages and increase of output per individual, was made necessary by loss of markets, especially through the closing of Manchurian ports; by the uncertainty of prices of raw cotton; by the strain of increased competition, especially competition with Southern mills, where wages and materials are cheap; and by other causes. They cited the low dividends the past two years in many mills, the necessary recapitalization of others, and the actual failure of one. They declared they were protecting the interests of stockholders, many of whom are widows and orphans entirely dependent upon dividends for their living. The claim of the union leaders was that the burden of the depression in the industry has been unfairly and unnecessarily laid upon the weakest.* Trade union funds, representing savings from hard-earned wages, have been drawn upon for year to support union members during "shut-down" of mills, and during illness, too often caused by hard conditions of work. Operatives, they said, have submitted to one direct or indirect cut-down after another since Nov., 1903, and only after the final reduction of 12 1/2 per cent have they protested that they are bearing more than their share of the burden of depressed business conditions. They, in their turn, cited the immense fortunes made in Fall River in the past, the high dividends of very recent years, the substantial surplus funds still reserved in many mills, the large earning which have been used to pay off heavy indebtedness, to introduce new machinery and improvements, to capitalize several mills,-all without calling upon the stockholders. The union leaders lay part of the blame for present depression upon bad management, where the blood tie rather than efficiency controls offices. They declare moreover, that in only three mills are the Northrop looms in use, while many of the mills are ridiculously obsolete in equipment. Widows and orphans among operatives, they add, have no income of interest upon money invested, as among stock-holders; but are reduced to a position where even by the hardest daily toil they cannot earn a living. IS THIS AN "AMERICAN STANDARD OF LIVING"? The life of working people is in their work. Conditions of work are conditions of life. Has the standard of living in Fall River been higher than the normal standard declared by Gov. Bates and Prep. Walmsley necessary to maintain the health and efficiency of New England workers? Let us see. In Fall River almost the entire family goes into the mill when the wheels begin to roar at 6.30 in the morning. Many go in long before to correct and ------------------------ *Fourteen thousand of the workers are women, and children under 16. 1905]| The Commons |155 prepare work, and to clean machines. They have snatched a hasty breakfast and hurried in the gray morning though good or bad weather to their alley in the factory. Old men and women are sweepers or helpers; the wife works beside her husband in the intervals of child-birth; the sixteen year old girl strains every nerve at the looms; and it is the custom for every child to enter the mills on the stroke of fourteen years. ( The younger children are often "boarded out" or left at home with those too decrepit to work. ) Cotton flies about the mill in the steamy air, in some departments falling like heavy snow upon workers, and resulting in an unusual prevalence of consumption and throat trouble. The public shuttles are threaded with the lips and tongue and consumption is passed from one to another. Accidents from flying bobbins are common in the life of weavers. The noise of machinery is so great one cannot be heard even when shouting, and results of course in frequent cases of deafness of all degrees. The strain upon the eyes is serious and the strain upon nerves brings prostration, paralysis, etc. to an an abnormal extent. The main meal of the day is a hot dinner, usually served in pails on the mill floor. In Winter evenings workers emerge suddenly from the steam-laden air into the cold and snow and walk the distance, long or short, to their homes. Supper is not much of a meal as the women are too spent to cook, and the rest are often too tired to eat. On Saturday afternoons and Sunday, are caught up all the chores, cleaning, washing, sewing, resting for the week. SAVINGS AND SPENDINGS In their few free hours the families of operatives live sometimes in small separate wooden houses, more often in cottages shared by two families, and most often in tenements shared by four or more families. Where all the members of a family have worked, "such together, and saved" they often own their homes, with or without mortgages, (in many cases the parents have worked from the age of eight or nine years). Most of the homes show a certain degree of comfort, and many contain large showy stoves and cheap pianos, besides necessary furniture. The bulk of the population, however, is denied the privacy of separate homes, and many hundreds of families are crowded into shocking tenements. One sees the usual signs of the factory girl's "extravagance" in clothes; but the $1.49 picture hat, 98 cent feather boa, and $2.48 silk waist see many seasons of wear, and are often bought when such necessaries as warm underclothing and food shoes are sacrificed. What women, we might ask, is entitled to good clothes if not the woman who works year in and year out, and pays for her finery out of her earnings? The waste of money in drink is the chief charge of extravagance against the men. It is not rather the consequence than the cause of conditions? The lack of proper care and training for children, the strain of work after fourteen, the hopelessness for the future, -are to be considered in this connection. These workers have not been cultivated to enjoy Browning, Wagner, Donatello, and Rossetti. What wonder that we find them, like Tam o' Shanter, turning to the cup,-"o'er all the ills of life victorious." The other chief "extravagance" is the 10-20-30 show at the cheap theaters, or the dance halls. SIX MONTHS OF PROTEST AND PATIENCE. When on July 25th notices were suddenly posted in the mills announcing the 12 1/2 per cent cut-down in wages, the Textile Workers formally asked for a two weeks' delay in the enforcement of the order, hoping that a compromise might be reached, or at least that conferences might result in a better understanding between mill owners and operatives. The manufacturers (tho' by a bare majority, as has since leaked out) voted against this conciliatory policy. Twenty-six thousand men, women and children agreed that they would not consent to the reduction of 12 1/2 per cent 156| The Commons |[MARCH on their meagre wages. For six months they maintained a peaceful, rational, and dignified protest in the face of the loss of all their savings, the piling up of debt, the humiliation of public charity, the actual privation,-including could and hunger.* Public sympathy in Fall River has been with them. There have been no evictions and groceries and markets have patiently given credit. The corporations controlling the mills are closely connected by business and by blood ties. The poorer, old-fashioned mills are protected by those better capitalized and equipped. All are said to carry the strike insurance which will be sacrificed in case of concessions regarding the 12 1/2 per cent reduction. Operatives from the first continued to offer compromise, conciliation and arbitration. But they determined not to capitulate, and they turned everything to account, to sustain life. During the seasons berrying and fishing parties were common, produce from gardens and farms proved a boon, and relief stations were set up at every ward by the Trade Unions for the benefit of non-union workers. As Winter set in, however, more and more among the non-unionists, driven by the needs of their children, drifted back to work. HUNGER AND COLD AS "ARGUMENTS." "Why should we arbitrate?" asked a manufacturer, "a little more of this Winter weather will settle the strike." But he was mistaken. The American Federation of Labor at the convention in California voted $75,000 to the strikers. Throughout the country sympathy and support were stimulated, and after six months' struggle the union workers were still voting solidly to hold out, (tho' they tacitly consented to the return to work of the weakest and most sorely pressed non-unionists who went back by the thousands.) The Mayor and influential citizens tried in vain to break the deadlock. A republican senator proposed public hearings before the State Board of Conciliation and Arbitration. The mill owners still declined. "I will say that the manufacturers have learned lessons from the strike," said Mr. Richard Borden, counsel for the Manufacturers Association, "They have learned that it is policy not to be hasty in refusing to consult with operatives when alleged grievances arise." But despite these admissions, Mr. Borden declared that the manufacturers meant to "fight the strike to a finish." Cold, hunger and public apathy fought with the Manufacturers' Association; and strikers grew more desperate. One weaver cut his throat, then idle "slasher-tenders" were found in their beds, part asphyxiated with gas. At last "out of respect for the Governor," the manufacturers graciously consented to his plan for a conference of Mill Owners and Operatives at the State House in Boston, though they gave fair warning that they meant no compromise. AN INTOLERABLE "PEACE SETTLEMENT." This conference resulted in the "Settlement," consisted in the surrender of the United Textile Workers, upon the assurance of the Governor that "after the resumption of work," he would investigate the matter of "margins" and submit his conclusions as to what average margin should pay a dividend of five per cent on wages from the present time to April 1st. It was agreed in this "Settlement," by both parties, that the margin so fixed by the Governor should "in no way prejudice future schedules." The manufacturers agreed to replace the striking workmen as far and as fast "as practicable," and it proved impracticable to replace hundreds of them. By this "Settlement," two-thirds of all workers in Massachusetts and all other Mill Operatives of the North are assured that their most faithful, skillful work brings no security of a living wage. Our democracy is falling down when 26,000 workers,-70,000 people make so righteous, strong, rational and peaceful a protest in vain, and when the public rejoices in Peace at any price. Boston Women's Trade Union League Room 423 — 120 Boylston Street Boston, Mass. Annual Report 1927 Officers Mrs. Mary Gordon Thompson, President Miss Bessie Irving, 1st Vice-President Mrs. Margaret G. Phoutrides, 2nd Vice-President Mrs. Roland M. Baker, Treasurer Mrs. Lois B. Rantoul, Executive Secretary Mrs. Pearl K. Wise, Secretary Executive Board Miss Nonie Bowen Mrs. William Z. Ripley Miss Agnes V. Boyle Miss May Songster Mrs. Davis R. Dewey Mrs. Agnes Stanton Miss Judith Friedman Miss Rose Sullivan Miss Mildred D. Gutterson Mrs. Maud F. Van Vaerenewyck With a budget based on a "pay as you go" policy and with the stimulus of a loyal and increased membership, the scope of the League's activities this year has notably widened. It is with a feeling of deep satisfaction, therefore, that we submit the following report: ORGANIZATION WORK The position of the Women's Trade Union League is one of steadily increasing importance. We have worked steadfastly and unflinchingly, through organization and law, for the protection of wage earning women and in this way have become an integral part in the development of their economic destinies. Wage earning women need constant training and assistance to bring about self-reliant and intelligent organization. It is in this field of coral endeavor that the League this year has made its conspicuous contribution. In the first place, the League has definitely increased, the numerical strength of various organizations. In the second place, it has definitely made progress in the application of some of the newer methods of organization technique. Neckwear Workers The organization of neckwear workers which the League helped to establish in 1926 was handicapped in its effectiveness as an organization because of the limited number of its active workers. With these few workers, however, the League carried on a quiet program of education by conducting a house-to-house canvass among non-members. It was a process of selective and slow enrollment and demanded a period of "watchful waiting" until such time as the strength of the union membership warranted a change in working conditions. The employers underestimated the influence of the organized employee group and precipitated a strike by discarding certain of the active members and intimidating others. The Union issued a strike call on March 8th and practically all the workers in the three shops involved, responded and left their work to join the line of pickets. With enthusiasm and determination to stick things through, this young and inexperienced group of boys and girls conducted a dignified and peaceful strike which within ten days terminated, with the obtainment of signed closed-shop agreements with six neckwear manufacturers. The union now is a going concern to which each member eagerly contributes in activity and resourcefulness. It has planned intelligent programs and the members each feel a personal responsibility for the work of the union and serve with a real and deep sense of duty on its various Boards and committees. It will be of interest to our members to know that this group who organized to better their own conditions have also rendered a real service to the industry by co-operating constructively with the management to bring about more efficient production processes and to place the industry on a more respectable competitive basis. Waitresses The League has continued its aid to the waitresses upon whom the attention of the Organizing Conference of 1926 was specially centered. The League devised and drafted a method of procedure of organization for chain restaurants. We were able materially to increase the membership of this union. 2 Textile Workers The workers employed in a large knitting mill in Malden requested our assistance in an organization program. After a study of facts, plans for a meeting of the workers were drawn up and the League organizer was at the meeting hall, awaiting the outcome. In some mysterious way, the plan reached the ears of the owners and notices were printed on the bulletin boards threatening participants with discharge and a group of police, as well, was stationed around the meeting hall. We could hardly expect the workers to venture forth and those few brave ones who did, were subsequently discharged. We were given the names and addresses of the majority of the workers and several meetings were later held in Boston but no definite action was taken as the workers were fearful of industrial espionage and discharge. We feel keenly that this aspect of intimidation should, by a test ease, be submitted to our Supreme Court. Millinery Workers These are about 300 millinery workers in the City of Boston who have the determination to band themselves together to bring about working standards making for progress in economic security. These workers have been holding regular monthly meetings at which the League organizer has always been present. a charter has been applied for from the American Federation of Labor and the League expects during 1928 to establish a sound and effective organization for these workers. Stenographers and Office Workers The Stenographers' Union has been conducting an aggressive campaign to organize the office employees and for this work engaged a special organizer. Everyone is agreed that the office workers as a class need the assistance which organization can give. The chief difficulty seems to be that the office workers, while realizing that a comparison of wages paid them and wages paid to other craftsmen would show a marked difference demonstrative of their comparative low wage returns, cannot overcome their feeling of "difference" and enroll as members of a union. The League, however, can report that as a result of co-operation with the Stenographers' Union, two large offices in Quincey were organized. The attitude of these new members gives us courage to hope for further gains. The Minimum Wage Commission has also been requested to investigate, under the provisions of the Minimum Wage Act, the wage paid clerical workers in insurance offices. Teachers One of the outstanding new organizations in this locality is the Teachers' Union of Cambridge. Not only are these teachers interested in assuring to themselves and to the other teachers who as yet are not fully appreciative of trade union ideals, a wage commensurate in value with their contribution to community welfare, but also in bringing about higher professional standards and improved relations between the administrative bodies and the teaching personnel. The League takes pride in its co-operation with this or- 3 ganization in the formulation and championing of its enlightened and well-considered program. The Teachers' Union includes among its membership pioneers in educational theory and practice -and is well worth watching. Beauty Parlor Workers The beauty trade of the United States has long been unstandardized, especially as to hours. In Massachusetts hours at present are very irregular and frequently late evening work is required. With the tremendous growth in the business of late years and with the increasingly large displacement of men by women workers, the Barbers' Union has realized the need of organizing these beauticians and also the need for State inspection and supervision of the shops because of the health hazards involved. Therefore, when we were requested to help organize this group of women, it occurred to us that it might be well to have something more than general information as a basis for organization. We have outlined a questionnaire and study to be made preparatory to tackling what is admittedly an extremely difficult piece of organizing work. This application of social bookkeeping will prove, we hope, a president in local labor organization technique. Hat and Cap Makers We are always glad to help in a difficult situation and when the Hat and Cap Makers asked us to help bring back to Boston a manufacturer who moved to Gloucester, the League organizer spent two weeks in Gloucester and "did the job." It is interesting to observe that manufacturers will move out of town in order to produce at less cost and they invariably pick communities where workers, only too glad to welcome the opening of a new industry, do not realize that it is being established because help can be obtained cheaper. When it was pointed out why the employer really moved his factory from Boston, the girls who had been working at the shop refused to return and the manufacturer finally had "to close shop and come back home." This incident is a striking example of the ready response workers will make when a situation is made clear to them. ASSISTANCE IN STRIKES Milk Wagon Drivers Several conferences were held with the employers and a group of allies of the League. As there was a case pending in court, however, it was impossible to come to any definite conclusions. That case has since been decided against the union. Hat and Cap Makers The League sent speakers and assisted also on the picket line in the three weeks' strike of the hat and cap makers of Boston to bring about a 40-hour week and an increase in wages of $3 weekly. These conditions were won by the union. Neckwear Workers The League was requested by the United Neckwear Makers' Union of New York to assist in their effort to abolish the recurrence of the system of home work in the New York tenements. 4 Despite the fact that 98% of all the New York manufacturers agreed with the Union that home work should not again become prevalent, four large firms instituted the system. Investigation disclosed that many of the homes were in the slums of New York and in dingy tenements and that the women in many cases were mothers of large families and that no check could be kept on the assistance renderd by their children. Some of the workers worked ten and twelve hours a day for $10 and $12 a week. The New York Union was determined to prevent the menace of the germ-carrying possibilities of home work. The four firms moved their factories out of New York City and the League organizer devoted considerable time at the newly established factories at North Adams, Mass., and Glens Falls, New York. A member of our Executive Boards is in charge of the situation at New Haven, Conn. We take considerable pride in the fact that our League was called upon to carry on outside of Massachusetts. LEGISLATION Bill to Raise the Compulsory School Age Informed people have some to realize that 16 years of age is the minimum age at which children should leave school to enter industry. The National Association of Manufacturers has also recently issued a program on education and school attendance which proposes standards higher than those which prevail in some states, but lower than those already in effect in other states. The League, for the past eight years, has been actively working for the passage of a bill, making it compulsory for children to attend school until they are 16 years of age. The League would welcome any aggressive action of the National Association of Manufacturers in the effort to secure the passage of this legislation, maintaining and insisting, however, that while Massachusetts may have standards higher than those in states where the laws fall short of the employers' program, that there must be progress beyond the standards proposed in their program. The cause of compulsory school attendance is a challenging one and the League would welcome a concentration of interests in this field. Will the Association of Manufacturers meet the challenge to advance in such wise the cause of the children? Jury Service for Women The League again supported this measure to assure to the judicial processes of this Commonwealth the needed benefits of a woman's viewpoint. The 48-Hour Law We again protested and helped to prevent the repeal or modification of this law. Bill to Investigate the Department of Labor and Industries The League introduced a Bill for the investigation of the Department of Labor. We felt this action necessary owing to the unjust practices of the Department towards its employees and also because of its lack of law enforcement. The Bill was heard before the Committee on State Administration. The attitude of 5 that committee was most insulting and overbearing to our Legislative Chairman. This resulted in a committee, composed of women representing many organizations, going before the Speaker of the House and the President of the Senate to protest against such rudeness on the part of a committee. The Committee Chairman was spoken to and we trust it will save other legislative chairmen from being the victims of like actions on the part of a committee. An Act Relating to State Educational Aid This Bill was introduced at the last annual session of the Legislature declaring that if employees of a municipality joined a "class organization," such municipality would be deprived of State aid for its schools. It was aimed at the Cambridge Teachers' Union. This attempt, by indirection, to deprive city employees, irrespective of the nature of their organization affiliation, of liberty of association--of the right to join such organizations as the Chamber of Commerce, the Grange, or even, for that matter, the Junior League--was so patently silly that it could not stand the light of labor criticism. The League was active in assuring a many-numbered and effective opposition at the Committee hearing. The Bill was given leave to withdraw. The publicity attendant on this entire situation strengthened the Teachers' Union. SOCIAL RESEARCH Conference on Organization Technique The League is committed to an enterprise which combines a new technique of organizing work with a contribution to labor education. Its immediate objective is a conference on organizing methods, using a specific union as a basis for study. A special feature of the experimental organizing for this purpose is the co-operation of two or three crafts whose fortunes are interdependent with those of the union under study. Features that make the situation in this union especially instructive are: 1. The demoralization of the industry by competition. 2. The introduction of sectionalized processes in the shops. A unique aspect of this study is the careful preparation of social data, both as to the membership of the union and as to the standing of the firms for whom they work. We have devised a system of social bookkeeping based on what is known respectively as the member sheet and the firm sheet. The member sheet will reveal 1. Satisfactions and dissatisfactions on the job. 2. Personal interests and resources of the worker. The uses of such data include the securing of talking points for the approach to the unorganized worker and directions for the planning of union programs. The firm sheet will reveal 1. Economic data, exhibiting the business standing of the firm. 2. Social data, disclosing the social milieu of the management. The uses of such data will make for the mobilization of social pressure through various business and social agencies. These methods to secure the revealing of such use values and possibilities hold out the promise of a more scientific appraisal 6 of the social forces inherent in industrial tensions and conflicts. The solution of such social frictions should consequently be more readily attainable. This experiment in job analysis of industrial conflict will inaugurate a new role for the League. We expect, therefore, that our membership will be so sufficiently alert in their appreciation of the intellectual significance of this novel application of the more advanced theories of social research that it will co-operate not only with financial assistance, but in every other possible way. We shall appreciate volunteers calling at the League office soon to register their willingness to help. LEAGUE BITS Public Meetings Meetings devoted to the following current events--namely, The Spirit of the Times. The British General Strike. The Cost of Building a House. The New Wage Policy of the American Federation of Labor were held by the League. Spirited discussion followed each address. Minimum Wage Law Enforcement Our members may recall the report made by the League last year with respect to the Fire Department laundry contract awarded to a concern several times advertised as violating the Minimum Wage Commission's decree for laundry workers. The League organized a committee of very prominent women representing several organizations and requested an interview with the Mayor. The matter was carefully presented to him and a letter of protest signed by this group was also sent him, following the interview. He replied that he would look into the matter and give it his attention. As a result, the Mayor's office felt called upon to consult the League officers before the award of the 1928 contract, not as yet as of the date of this report, awarded. Education The League has continued to send women workers to meet weekly with the college student group of the Young Women's Christian Association, for round table discussions of the problems affecting working women. These discussion meetings are instructive both to the working woman and to the student and the continuation of these meetings is proof of their value. The League filled many speaking engagements in colleges, before women's clubs and church groups. A representative of the League made the Labor Day address at Salem, Mass. Our President also addressed the annual meeting of the Consumers' League of Connecticut in New Haven, and appeared at the State House at Hartford in behalf of the 48-hour law, sponsored by the Connecticut Consumers' League. Representatives of the League also spoke before the Economics Department of Simmons College, the Boston Young Women's Christian Association, the National Civic Federation and the Massachusetts Civic League. Our President attended the convention of the State Federation 7 of Labor and urged the delegates assembled to instruct the Executive Board to introduce legislation for the investigation of the State Department of Labor. The convention voted to do so and a Bill has been drafted and introduced for consideration by the 1928 Legislature. Our President was the Boston League's delegate to the week's Institute, arranged under the auspices of the Ladies' Auxiliary of the International Association of Machinists, which was held at Brookwood, Katonah, New York, the last week in July. This Institute dealt exhaustively with some of the more important questions facing wives of trade unionists. We are also glad to have helped in our small way to secure the appointment of a woman on the Governor's Council. The League has continued to serve as an information bureau and has helped a great many students of labor problems, including Miss E. M. Burns of the London School of Economies, Miss Hope Kaufmann of the Botany Mills, Miss Flora Mackay of the Government of Australia, and Miss Tekla Beer of the Government of the Irish Free State. FINANCE REPORT The Executive Board of the League wishes to thank the members of the League who contributed toward the special fund for Miss Elinor D. Gregg to whom the League owes a debt of long standing. It will be of interest to our members to know that the generous response made it possible for us to send Miss Gregg $200 at Christmas time. TREASURER'S REPORT Income Dues..................................................$334.00 Donations: Allies...............................$1,776.00 Unions...............................................647.00 For Elinor Gregg Fund.......................203.00 ---------2,626.00 Tie Sales, Net Profit...........................90.80 Dress Sales, Net Profit.......................542.95 Bank Interest...................................... .50 Total Income......................................$3.594.25 Outgo National League Dues.......................$274.00 Salaries..............................................2,740.00 Postage.............................................58.00 Telephone.........................................91.90 Meetings...........................................14.85 Rent...................................................120.00 Officers' Expense..............................133.90 Light.................................................. .85 Bill to Raise School Age to 16...........44.90 Office Stationery and Supplies........105.32 Miscellaneous...................................182.80 Total Outgo.......................................3,766.51 Deficit................................................$172.26 We have ended the year, feeling that we have maintained our purpose in the social order and proved out worth. We hope you will feel the same and will give as generously as you can so that we may assure the women workers of a continuation of our work. 8 Do Working Women want the Vote? The following resolutions, adopted unanimously at the Convention of the NATIONAL WOMEN'S TRADE UNION LEAGUE in St. Louis, 1913, show the feeling of the Working Women Concerning Suffrage in the United States, and Toward the Anti-Suffragists: Whereas: The most costly production of any nation, and its most valuable asset, is its output of men and women, and the industrial conditions under which over 6,000,000 girls and women are forced to work, are an individual and social menace; and Voteless Women Lower Standard Whereas: Working women as an unenfranchised class are continually used to lower the standards of men, and as, during the recent uprising of working women to better their economic conditions, it has been conclusively demonstrated that the political powers of the employers are persistently used so as to defeat the organized efforts of their unenfranchised class; and Antis are Denounced Whereas: A group of women of leisure who by accident of birth have led sheltered and protected lives and know nothing of the dangers and hardships confronting the working women, and who never through experience have had to face the misery that low wages and long hours produce, are carrying on an active campaign of propaganda to defeat the efforts of working women to obtain this essential instrument of their industrial freedom; and Whereas: Every thinking working woman realizes her individual and social responsibility toward controlling these conditions for herself, her fellow workers and the coming generation, and wants the power the ballot will give her and her fellow workers; therefore be it Leisure Women Obstruct Workers Resolved: That the National Women's Trade Union League of America in convention assembled, representing the organized working women of America, hereby solemnly protest against the active opposition of these women of leisure, who persist in selfishly obstructing the efforts of the organized working women to obtain full citizenship, thereby making the struggle for the protection of the working people's homes immeasurably more difficult; and be it further Resolved: That a copy of these resolutions be sent to all Anti-Suffrage Headquarters, the Press, the National American Woman Suffrage Association, the Woman's Journal, and the International Suffrage Alliance. Presented by EMMA STEPHAGEN, Chicago. MARY E. DREIER, New York. AGNES NESTOR, Chicago. ROSE SCHNEIDERMANN, New York. 18 NATIONAL WOMEN'S TRADE UNION LEAGUE THE EIGHT HOUR DAY A LIVING WAGE TO GUARD THE HOME BOSTON BOSTON WOMEN'S TRADE UNION LEAGUE 120 BOYLSTON STREET TELEPHONE CAPITOL 6705 President Mrs. MARY GORDON THOMPSON Textile Workers' Union First Vice-President Miss BESSIE IRVING Waitresses' Union Second Vice-President Mrs. MARGARET GARRISON PHOUTRIDES Treasurer Mrs. ROLAD M. BAKER Executive Secretary Mrs. LOIS B. RANTOUL Secretary Miss PEARL KATZ Stenographers' Union Mrs. RAYMOND ROBINS Honorary President Miss ROSE SCHNEIDERMAN National President "LIFE AND LABOR" Official Bulletin EXECUTIVE BOARD Miss NONIE BOWEN United Garment Workers' Union Miss AGNES V. BOYLE Waitresses' Union Mrs. DAVIS R. DEWEY Miss JUDITH FRIEDMAN Int. Ladies' Garment Workers' Union Miss MILDRED D. GUTTERSON Mrs. WILLIAM Z. RIPLEY Miss MAY SONGSTER Boston Street Carmen's Union Mrs. AGNES STANTON Textile Workers' Union Miss ROSE SULLIVAN Telephone Operators' Union Mrs. MAUD FOLEY VAN VAERENEWYCK January 18, 1928 Dear Member: In the enclosed report, you will see the work which the League has been doing for the past year. Ahead of us lies another year of work. It will be, we fear, a year fraught with heavy responsibilities to an organization whose work means education and wisdom to wage earners. Already wages are being cut, business is slacking off and unemployment is slowly but surely uncoiling its misery for increasing numbers of workers. From long experience we know these to be signs of trouble. In the past they have meant strikes, lockouts, misunderstanding, poverty and bitterness. The work we have already done in gaining the confidence of the older groups of organized workers, will stand by them as a real heritage. But there will be new groups -- impassioned young strike leaders - bitter groups locked out with no reason given - employers unable to gain the confidence of their workers, in the truth that business is slack. Where women are employed these groups will turn to the League for help and even if our workers go unpaid through our lack of money, we will give help. We always have. Our budget only calls for $5000. We never reach that amount, probably because our members think a small budget only necessitates a small donation. That is perfectly natural but it should not be! Do please surprise us this year by sending a little more than you did last year. We shall be so grateful and we make it go such a long way towards solving the problems in our midst,- a work which no other organization can so well solve. Sincerely yours, Lois B. Rantoul SBAOEU #14965 [*Women's Trade Union League*] REGULAR MEETING OF THE Woman's Trade Union League Wednesday evening, April 11th, at 8 o'clock 919 Washington Street SUBJECT: "Safeguarding the Workers in War Time" Discussion opened by MR. JOHN F. STEVENS of the Committee on Public Safety. Nomination of Delegates to the Bi-ennial Convention of the National Woman's Trade Union League to be held in Kansas City in June. REFRESHMENTS ALL WELCOME RUMMAGE SALE To meet the expenses of our delegates to the National Convention in Kansas City we are to hold a rummage sale early in May -- time and place to be announced later. Will you not help by sending us clothing and household furnishings? Ask your friends to save articles for us. MISS FRANCES VAN BAALEN Chairman Sale Committee 919 Washington Street NATIONAL WOMEN'S TRADE UNION LEAGUE OF AMERICA NATIONAL HEADQUARTERS, 64 WEST RANDOLPH STREET, CHICAGO, ILL. OFFICERS MRS. RICHARD ROBINS PRESIDENT CHICAGO WOMEN'S TRADE UNION LEAGUE ROSE SCHNEIDERMANN VICE-PRESIDENT PRES. NEW YORK WOMEN'S TRADE UNION LEAGUE EMMA STEGHAGEN SECRETARY-TREASURER BOOT AND SHOE WORKERS' UNION EXECUTIVE BOARD ELIZABETH CHRISTMAN GLOVE WORKERS' UNION JO. COFFIN TYPOGRAPHICAL UNION MABEL GILLESPIE OFFICE EMPLOYEES' UNION SARAH GREEN WAITRESSES' UNION AGNES NESTOR GLOVE WORKERS' UNION PAULINE NEWMAN PHILADELPHIA WOMEN'S TRADE UNION LEAGUE JULIE O'CONNOR TEL. OPERATORS' UNION HILDA SVENSON BOOKKEEPERS, STENOGRAPHERS AND ACCOUNTANTS' UNION NATIONAL WOMEN'S TRADE UNION LEAGUE THE EIGHT HOUR DAY A LIVING WAGE TO GUARD THE HOME 1903 LEGISLATIVE HEADQUARTERS 1423 NEW YORK AVENUE WASHINGTON, D. C. LEGISLATIVE COMMITTEE MISS AGNES NESTOR CHAIRMAN MISS MARY DREIER MISS NELLE A. QUICK MISS ETHEL M. SMITH SECRETARY January 14, 1921. Dear Friend: I am writing to ask for your help with the Senate Appropriations Committee, The Senators from your state, and the House conferees, in reference to the appropriation for the Women's Bureau of the U. S. Department of Labor. The House Appropriations Committee not only did not grant the appropriation asked for by the Women's Bureau to expand its work, but put limitations on the salaries of the staff in such a way as to make the Bureau practically powerless to continue the work it has been doing. In other words, the House Appropriations Committee has given the Women's Bureau the same appropriation it had last year, $75,000, but has deprived it of the trained services upon which the Bureau's accomplishments were dependent. It has incorporated a proviso in the appropriation bill that only three persons besides the director and assistant director shall be employed at more than $1800 a year, and those three may receive only $2,000. The Bureau cannot retain or replace its present industrial supervisor, industrial agents, editor, and chief clerk under those limitations. The civil service examinations, in fact, with salaries at existing rates, yielded at most only four eligibles for any of these positions, and in one instance only one eligible, out of about 50 at each examination who failed to qualify. The bill is now on its passage through the House, but we hope to secure the remedy for the House action in the Senate, and then in the conference on the bill -- the Legislative, Executive, and Judicial Appropriation Bill it is which carries the Women's Bureau item. Therefore we are making the following requests. 1. Will you please write immediately to Senator FRANCIS E. WARREN, of Wyoming, and Senator REED SMOOT, of Utah, chairman and ranking member respectively of the Senate Appropriations Committee, also to the Senators from your own state asking them to strike out the proviso in the Legislative, Executive and Judicial Appropriation Bill which limits the salaries of the staff of the Women's Bureau of the U. S. Department of Labor? Then will you please send copies of your letter to Senator Warren to the following members of the Appropriations sub-committee in charge of the bill: Senator William S. Kenyon of Iowa " Asle J. Gronna of North Dakota " Selden P. Spencer of Missouri " Lee S. Overman of North Carolina " Marcus A. Smith of Arizona " William J. Harris of Georgia - 2 - 2. Will you also please write to Honorable WILLIAM R. WOOD, of Indiana, Chairman of the House Appropriations sub-committee in charge of this bill, protesting against the House action on the Women's Bureau appropriation, and telling him that you are asking the Senate to cut out the conferees to accede to this change if made by the Senate. Will you please send copies of your letter to Mr. Wood to Hon. Frank W. Mondell of Wyoming, Majority leader, and Hon. James W. Good, of Iowa, Chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, and to the following members of Mr. Wood's sub-committee: Hon. Edward H. Wason of New Hampshire " Charles R. Davis of Minnesota " Thomas U. Sisson of Mississippi " James McAndrews of Illinois Members of this sub-committee will be the House conferees. The House inserted the objectionable proviso in this bill in the interests of "economy" co-called. By so doing, it cut from the salaries of eight persons a total of $2160! But it left the door open to the employment of an unlimited number of people in the lower salary grades, where they are not needed. The Bureau's usefulness depends upon the technical training and specialized experience of its investigators, and the other employees are not needed if no technical staff can be had. It is completely crippled by this proviso. The House action is apparently due to the reluctance with which congressmen accept the idea of women experts properly paid. We trust that the women of the country will demand of Congress that the Women's Bureau be allowed the funds and the freedom to employ a staff qualified to continue the important work it has so successfully done thus far. Appreciating your cooperation, I am, Sincerely yours, Ethel M. Smith Secretary Legislative Committee. Nat WTUL 27. The following conditions shall be null and carry with them no obligations on the contracting party, even though stipulated in the contract: (a) Those which call for an inhuman working day because of excessive length, the nature of the work being taken into consideration. (b) Those which fix a wage which is insufficient remuneration in the opinion of the Commission of Conciliation and Arbitration. (c) Those which provide the for the payment of wages at intervals longer than one week. (d) Those which designate as a place at which wages are to be paid, any place of recreation, restaurant, cafe, tavern, saloon, or store unless the laborers are there employed. (e) Those which stipulate directly or indirectly the obligation to purchase necessities in designated stores or places. (f) Those which allow a part of the wage to be withheld as a fine. (g) Those which involve the renunciation on the part of the laborer of the indemnities to which he may be entitled due to accidents attending his work, professional diseases, damages incurred by breach of contract or because he is discharged. (h) All other stipulations which imply the renunciation of any right intended to favor the laborer in the laws enacted for his protection or assistance. If these laws are carried into effect , the entire reorganization of all business enterprises in [the] Mexico will e inevitable . Private life and the servant question will be greatly affected also, Much of the legislation in some of the States of this union fall far below the proposed Mexican code. North Carolina labor laws read " Not exceeding 60 hours shall constitute a week's work in all factories and manufacturing establishments. No woman and no minor shall be employed in such fac ories longer than 60 hours a week . No employee in any factory shall be worked longer than 11 hours a day . " The Georgia laws state " The hours of labor of all persons employed in cotton or woolen factories except engineers, firemen, watchmen ,mechanics teamsters, clerical help and yard employees,shall not exceed 60 a week , or ten a day , or the same may be regulated by the employers so that they do not exceed sixty a week . " Those who think the United States is fair to working people want to watch Mexico .... ...... [*single*] The New constitution for Mexico ,adapted in k st Querotare ,will go into effect on May 1 this year . If it enforced according to the letter of the law , many reforms of radical nature will come to the fore. Especially in the realm of labor is the new constitution a sweeping change . Article 123 calls for the enactment of laws by the national Congress and the provincial Legislatures along the following lines : 1. A working day shall not exceed eight hours as a maximum. 2. The working day for labor performed at night shall be seven hours. Work of an unwholesome or dangerous nature is forbidden for women in general and for youths of less than sixteen years of age. Industrial night work is forbidden for both, and they may not work in commercial establishments after 10 o'clock at night. 3. Youths of more than twelve and less than sixteen years of age shall have a working day of not more than six hours. The labor of children under twelve years of age may not be subject to contract. 4. The operative shall enjoy one day of rest for every six working days. 5. Women, during the three months preceding confinement, shall not engage in physical labor which shall require material bodily exertion. During the month following confinement they shall be required to rest and shall receive their wage in whole and retain Their employment and the rights which they may have acquired through contract. During the lacteal period they shall have two additional rest periods per day of half an hour each in which to suckle their children. 6. The minimum wage which a laborer shall receive shall be what is considered sufficient, the conditions obtaining in each locality being taken into consideration, to satisfy the necessities of his life, education, and honorable pleasures, he being considered as head of a family. The laborers in every agricultural, commercial, or manufacturing establishment shall have the right to participate in the utilities as regulated in Section 9. 7. There shall be equal compensation for equal labor without distinction of sex or nationality. 8. Minimum wages shall be exempt from embargo, commission, or discount. 9. The minimum wage and the participation in utilities referred to in Section 6 shall be carried on by special commissions organized in each municipality subordinate to the Central Commission of Conciliation to be established in each State. 10. Wages shall be paid in legal tender and payments in merchandise, bills of hand, counters, or in any other object intended to represent money are prohibited. 11. Wages shall be increased 100 percent. when, because of extraordinary circumstances, it is necessary to increase the hours of work. Overtime may not exceed three hours a day nor may it occur more than three consecutive times. Men under 16 years of age and all women shall not engage in this kind of work. Mrs. RAYMOND ROBINS Honorary President Miss ROSE SCHNEIDERMAN National President "LIFE AND LABOR" Official Bulletin BOSTON WOMEN'S TRADE UNION LEAGUE 5 BOYLSTON PLACE TELEPHONE CAPITOL 8237 President Mrs. MARY GORDON THOMPSON Textile Workers' Union First Vice-President Miss BESSIE IRVING Waitresses' Union Second Vice-President Miss MAY SONGSTER Boston Street Carmen's Union Treasurer Mrs. ROLAND M. BAKER Secretary Mrs. JULIA O'CONNOR PARKER Telephone Operators' Union EXECUTIVE BOARD Miss AGNES V. BOYLE Waitresses' Union Mrs. DAVIS R. DEWEY Miss JUDITH FRIEDMAN Int. Ladies' Garment Workers' Union Miss MILDRED D. GUTTERSON Mrs. MARGARET GARRISON PHOUTRIDES Mrs. WILLIAM Z. RIPLEY Miss BERNICE ROGERS Teachers' Union Miss ROSE SULLIVAN Telephone Operators' Union Mrs. MAUD FOLEY VAN VAERENEWYCK MRS. ROSE NORWOOD Telephone Operators' Union MRS. ROSE COOPER Stenographers' Union Feb 17, 1930 Dear Member: Enclosed is the annual report of the Boston Women's Trade Union League. Members are urged to send in their annual dues and contributions as soon as convenient after receipt of the report in order to simplify book and record keeping. Our annual dues of $2.00 are so small that the necessity for several solicitations for their payment throughout the year makes a disproportionate printing and postage expense. The League is planning a Silver Anniversary dinner and pageant at which it is hoped to bring together all friends old and new of the League and the principles for which it stands. This will be on March 19 and you will hear more from us about it. On Saturday afternoon we will plan during Spring and early Summer to gather at the attractive headquarters of the League about four o'clock for tea and discussion of some pertinent economic or social topic with an interesting speaker on each occasion. All members and friends are invited to share in these meetings. Further announcements later. We trust the important work which the Women's Trade Union League seeks to do will merit a contribution of your sympathy and support. Fraternally, MARY GORDON THOMPSON, President JULIA O'CONNOR PARKER, Secretary enc. SBA&CEU 14965 nearby colleges regularly seek the advice and direction of the League on matters in which our organization specializes. The entire class in Labor Problems at Wheaton College made a special trip to Boston by motor-bus, and we held a sort of seminar at which various representatives of women's unions talked about the particular economic problems of their industry to the students, with opportunity given for questioning and exchange of opinion. We held in November an organization conference which was well attended and which aroused great interest. We have received comments indicating favorable interest in the content of this program from the Workers' Educational Bureau, the American Federation of Labor Research Department and the Russell Sage Foundation. The League sent delegates to all general labor meetings and conferences and participated to the best of its ability in all projects for the civil and industrial advancement of women. As a by-product of our main activities, we have been very successful this year in raising money for our budget by the sale of union-made dresses and ties. TREASURER'S REPORT Balance, January1, 1929................$117.70 Receipts.........................................5,372.08 Bank Interest..................................2.08 Total................................................$5,492.86 Disbursements...............................5,399.76 Balance December 31, 1929..........$92.10 RECEIPTS Allies...............................................$1,141.00 Unions............................................685.50 Dues...............................................117.00 Dress Sales....................................2,146.50 Tie Sales........................................415.00 House Income................................475.53 Rummage Sales.............................36.60 Conference....................................66.25 Gregg Fund....................................132.00 Miscellaneous................................156.70 Total...............................................$5,372.08 DISBURSEMENT Salaries..........................................$1,845.00 Rent, Light.....................................686.89 Telephone......................................111.08 Dresses..........................................1,781.45 Ties................................................283.48 Printing and Postage....................250.35 Moving..........................................15.00 Officers' Expenses.......................61.30 National Per Capita Tax...............88.00 Gregg Fund.................................150.00 Miscellaneous.............................127.21 Total............................................$5,399.76 BOSTON WOMEN'S TRADE UNION LEAGUE 5 BOYLSTON PLACE BOSTON, MASS. Annual Report 1929 Officers MRS. MARY GORDON THOMPSON, President MISS BESSIE IRVING, 1st Vice-President MISS MAY SONGSTER, 2nd Vice-President MRS. ROLAND M. BAKER, Treasurer MRS. JULIA O'CONNER PARKER, Secretary Executive Board MISS AGNES V. BOYLE MRS. ROSE NORWOOD MRS. ROSE COOPER MRS. WILLIAM Z. RIPLEY MRS. DAVIS R. DEWEY MISS BERNICE ROGERS MISS JUDITH FRIEDMAN MISS ROSE SULLIVAN MISS MILDRED D. GUTTERSON MRS. MARGARET GARRISON PHOUTRIDES MRS. MAUD FOLEY VAN VAERENEWYCK MRS. HENRY WISE To the Officers and Members, BOSTON WOMEN'S TRADE UNION LEAGUE: Herewith is submitted the annual report of the work of the WOMEN'S TRADE UNION LEAGUE for the year 1929. The officers have advised the issuance this year of a brief review of activity. Last year on the occasion of our twenty-fifth anniversary a fairly comprehensive report was published, outlining not only the current year's work but evaluating the LEAGUE'S function in our industrial order and restating the fundamental philosophies which have influenced our quarter of a century's existence as part of the labor movement. ORGANIZATION Conforming, therefore, to this idea our report for 1929 is a short and rhetorically unadorned statement of the service we have given to the care of trade union organization among women. There is little of the spectacular and dramatic to report. The color and the drama of the labor struggle seem to belong to an earlier industrial day. The social tempo of the machine age is drab with inertia, dull with the apathy of moral surrender; organization work was never harder or less resultful; we have few new successes to report. The work of the year along organization lines has been the useful, necessary, routine performance which does not make the front page very often. but which has nevertheless been a source of strength, encouragement and vitality to the unions affected. Special organization work has been done among the teachers, the upholsterers, the neckwear workers, the waitresses, the bakers, the garment-worker and the textile workers. Among the latter group in two instances particularly effective work has been done - one the New Bedford cotton textiles, the other the jute workers in textiles at Ludlow. At New Bedford there is a large and flourishing league doing splendid trade union educational work, furnishing the best kind of moral impetus to organization efforts in that city, to which we have given generous time, advice and assistance. At Ludlow has been brought about the reorganization of the textile workers union, largely through the efforts of the Springfield Central Labor Union. Early in the story we were called upon to help with the work and the League President, herself a former worker in this industry, has since October given a large share of her time to this important job. An interesting feature of this situation is the fact that when the unjustifiable working conditions in the plant were revealed by the threatened revolt of the workers, the communists descended upon the scene. The management thereupon, more perhaps in panic than goodwill, called upon the representatives of the A. F. of L. organization to come in and organize, agreeing to recognize officially that organization. The immediate cause of this encouraging revival was the attempt now classic in textile employing practice of. introducing the multiple system, more spinning frames for fewer workers. This policy was successfully resisted as a result of the re-establishment of the Union. LEGISLATION We continued this year our work for the raising of the school age. The special recess committee has reported favorably on a 15 year old compulsory attendance law, and so another step to liberate children from industry seems about to be taken. We co-operated as usual on all State Branch and other labor measures, particularly the efforts to improve workmen's compensation, on the legalizing of the union shop, elimination of the yellow-dog contract, and old age pensions. We have participated this year in the preliminary conferences held by the Massachusetts Committee on Old Age Security, looking to the enactment by the Legislature of a satisfactory old age pension law. It seems to the League officers that no measure deserves more conscientious endorsement and support than the effort to free those whose only crime is that they have grown old without growing rich, from poverty and suffering in their last years. Particularly does this obligation lie upon us as a women's organization, since all the statistics reveal the fact that dependent old women greatly outnumber the men so situated. Again the modern phenomenon of economic old age at 40 or 45 affects adversely more women than men. Study the want ads of your daily paper, and it will be evident that present-day industry has little to offer women passed early middle life in the way of wage-earning opportunity. The lengthening span of life and this cruel shortening of the productive years is instituting a situation of undeserved poverty and dependence so critical as to require immediate legislative action, even while longer range plans are being made to undermine the indefensible attitude that the man or woman at 45 is no longer a valuable factor in industry. EDUCATIONAL The League continued this year to follow its practice of furnishing speakers on labor and industrial subjects to a long list of church conferences, women's clubs, civic and labor organizations, and industrial conferences of the Y. M. C. A. Classes in economics and sociology in BOSTON WOMEN'S TRADE UNION LEAGUE 5 BOYLSTON PLACE, BOSTON, MASS. Affiliated with the National Women's Trade Union League of America Endorsed by the American Federation of Labor A pioneer organization whose purposes are the organization of women into trade unions, the limitation of child labor, the protection of women and children in industry, and the general objectives of the American labor movement. Affiliation and support solicited from individuals and organizations interested in the growth of the labor movement and the promotion of the economic interests of wage-earning women. Annual membership..........$2.00 Associate membership........5.00 Contributing membership....10.00 Sustaining membership.......25.00 Supporting membership......100.00 Check the type of membership consistent with your contribution. Name...................................... Address.................................. Make checks payable to MRS. ROLAND M. BAKER, TREASURER (Over) THE WOMEN'S TRADE UNION LEAGUE It is not a philanthropy; it is not a social service agency. Important as such organizations are in our social economy, they deal with economic effects. The purpose of the Women's Trade Union League is to deal with first causes, with wages, hours, conditions of work. It prescribes as an essential to the democratic and equitable functioning of industry the organization of workers into trade unions. Its province is particularly with women workers — it has a long history of service and accomplishment in this field. Do these industrial problems and their just solution interest you? That of the waitress who carries her tray four miles every day she works, of the telephone operator who nearly accomplishes perpetual motion in the speed and continuity at which she works, of the girl at her power-machine in the clothing factory, the weaver tending her spindles. You eat, you telephone, you wear the product of the loom and the machine. Would you help these women workers to the dignity and economic security of organization? Join the Women's Trade Union League (Over) National Women's Trade Union League Mrs. Raymond Robins, President (Powhatan Hotel, Washington, D. C.) FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE. TRADE UNION WOMEN PROTEST TO McADOO AGAINST 12-HOUR DAY. Washington, June 19. -- Protest against the 12-hour work day now in force in the Bureau of Engraving and Printing was made to Secretary McAdoo to-day by a committee presented a resolution adopted by the recent convention of the National Women's Trade Union League in Kansas City, asking the President of the United States to forbid excessive overtime in government establishments. The resolution was proposed to the convention by the delegate of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, Mrs. Walter McNab Miller. It reads as follows: WHEREAS, the government establishments, notably the Bureau of Engraving and Printing and the Government Printing Office, have been operating with excessive overtime, amounting to twelve hours a day and seven days a week for several hundreds of employees, among them many women: and WHEREAS, the United States Civil Service registers of eligibles for positions in these establishments are and have been ample to supply additional workers and thereby avoid the overtime: and WHEREAS also, such practices, by government establishments particularly, tend to break down industrial standards throughout the country; therefore BE IT RESOLVED, that the National Women's Trade Union League hereby requests the President of the United States to forbid excessive overtime in government establishments, and require the heads of all such establishments to add new shifts of workers where necessary to attain this purpose. RESOLVED FURTHER, that a copy of these resolutions be sent to the President and head of each executive department of the government, and that it be also given to the press. The committee that called upon Mr. McAldoo is composed of Miss Agnes Nestor of Chicago, chairman, who is vice-president of the International Gloveworkers Union and is also a member of the Women's Committee of the Council of National Defense; Miss Mary Anderson of Chicago, of the executive board of the Boot and Shoe Workers Union; Miss Fannia Cohn of New York, vice-president of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union; Miss Melinda Scott of New York, president of the straw, Felt and Panama Hatmakers Union; and Miss Julia O'Conner of Boston, president of the Telephone Operators Union. The committee had previously called at the White House and the War Department to protest against the exploitation of (2) women workers on government contracts, and to present resolutions of the National Women's Trade Union League urging the following standards for the employment of women: (1) Adult labor -- no child labor; (2) equal pay for equal work by by men and women; (3) the eight-hour shift; (4) one day rest in seven; (5) no night work; (6) exemption of pregnant women for 2 months before and 2 months after childbirth; (6) preference of women not mothers of little children. In addition to these standards the trade union women demand that when women workers are shipped from one place to another, their wages shall continue while traveling, and they shall not be transferred at a lower wage scale. They are also urging legislation to give the Department of Labor power to inspect all factories where government contracts are performed, and another piece of legislation they desire is to require that a committee of women meet women workers who are sent to any given town for government work. This last provision is modeled upon legislation which has been adopted in France under war conditions. National Women's Trade Union League of America ENDORSED BY THE AMERICAN FEDERATION OF LABOR AND THE TRADES AND LABOR CONGRESS OF CANADA MRS. RAYMOND ROBINS, HONORARY PRESIDENT ROSE SCHNEIDERMAN, PRESIDENT UNITED CLOTH HAT & CAP MAKERS OF NORTH AMERICA MATILDA LINDAY, VICE-PRESIDENT FEDERAL EMPLOYEES' UNION ELISABETH CHRISTMAN, SECRETARY-TREASURER GLOVE WORKERS' UNION EXECUTIVE BOARD MARY E. DREIER, NEW YORK WOMEN'S TRADE UNION LEAGUE MRS. MARY V. HALAS, WOMAN'S AUXILIARY NAT'L FED'N OF P. O. CLERKS IRMA HOCHSTEIN, OFFICE EMPLOYEES' UNION AGNES NESTOR, GLOVE WORKERS' UNION ETHEL M. SMITH, FEDERAL EMPLOYEES' UNION MRS. MAUD SWARTZ, TYPOGRAPHICAL UNION NO. 6 MACHINISTS BUILDING NINTH STREET AND MT. VERNON PLACE, N. W. WASHINGTON, D. C. CABLE ADDRESS: "LIFELABOR" LOCAL BRANCHES BIRMINGHAM, ALA. BOSTON CHICAGO ILLINOIS STATE LEAGUE KANSAS CITY, MO. LA CROSSE, WIS. NATIONAL COMMITTEE LAKE GENEVA, WIS. NATIONAL COMMITTEE MADISON, WIS. NATIONAL COMMITTEE MILWAUKEE, WIS. NEW BEDFORD, MASS. NEW YORK PHILADELPHIA SEATTLE TULSA, OKLA. NATIONAL COMMITTEE WORCESTER, MASS. October 30, 1930 My dear Miss Blackwell: We have a call to the Sixth Conference on the Cause and Cure of War, to be held in Washington, D. C. January 19th to 22nd, 1931, with headquarters in the Hotel Washington. Our National President, Miss Schneiderman, and I send to you a very hearty invitation to be a member of the National League's delegation to this Conference. Please say you will accept. The Conference invites us to learn of the complex causes that have created and sustained the war machines of the past and are even now keeping those machines up to war strength; and to learn also of the developing orderly system for the maintenance of peace which will become the established substitute for was when the peoples of the world so determine. "Prospective war preparations are costing Europe six millions of dollars a day to say nothing of the countless billions still unpaid for past wars," said the chairman of the Naval Affairs Committee of the House of Representatives on September 21st, as he returned from an extended trip through Europe. A preliminary announcement of the Conference program is enclosed. "Demobilizing the War Machine" will be the general topic for discussion. Please not the instructions for the registration of delegates, and particularly the paragraph "Reduced Fares" under the heading: General Information, on page 2. This will mean a saving of one-half of each delegates fare if enough signed certificates are turned in. The delegates representing the National Women's Trade Union League, at previous Cause and Cure of War Conferences, have made a contribution of their own expenses, and we are hoping that the same arrangement may prevail again this year. Will you again make your contribution to the cause of Peace by attending the Washington Conference in January 1931 as our delegate? We want so much to have you. Faithfully yours, Elisabeth Christman Secretary-Treasurer EC BM Nat Women's Trade Union League The Union Was My School, Says Rose Schneiderman Organizer at Nineteen, Strike Leader, Suffragist, Advocate of Labor Laws, Member of A.L.P. Executive Now Heads State Dept. Rose Schneiderman, who has been appointed by Governor Lehman to the office of Secretary of the State Department of Labor, vacated by the untimely death of Maude Schwartz, is a well-known figure in the labor movement of the state and of the nation. Born in Russian Poland, and of Jewish race, she was brought to this country by her parents when still very young and grew up in New York City. She attended the public school for a few years, but the poverty of the family soon compelled her to go to work. The will to learn has in her case made up for the lack of early opportunities. The shop, the union hall, and the picket line, she says, have been her schoolrooms. At the age of nineteen, Miss Schneiderman was serving as volunteer organizer and executive member of the Cloth, Hat and Cap Makers' Union, performing the duties of those officers in addition to her 60-hour week at the machine. Along with Mary Dreier, Elizabeth Dutcher, Elsie LaGrange Cole, and others, Miss Schneiderman had a large part in building up the Women's Trade Union League, of which she became a national vice-president and was for years a full-time organizer. She was a leader in the great waist makers' strike of 1909-10, which put the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union on the map and also of the general strike of the white goods workers in 1913. Indeed, there is hardly a branch of industry where women and girls are employed that has not had her active and devoted service, and other trades have often called her in to aid in their struggles. Trade union, Miss Schneiderman holds, is the basic form of the moment for economic and social liberty and advancement, but on this basis a political structure must be erected to make it complete. She has worked untiringly for labor legislation, state and national. She served as chairman of the industrial department in the great campaign for Women Suffrage in New York State, was candidate for United States Senator on the Farmer-Labor ticket in 1920, and was one of the group that launched the American Labor Party last summer, of whose state executive committee she is hard-working member. THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR, BO UNION UPHOLDS WEDDED WOMEN IN INDUSTRIES Women's Trade Group Says Idea of Dismissal Unjust and Impractical Special from Monitor Bureau WASHINGTON, Dec. 22-Dismissal of married women would not remedy the unemployment situation; it would scarcely make a dent in the situation even were it not too unjust and too impracticable to consider, says the executive board of the National Women's Trade Union of America in a letter sent yesterday to Mr. Walter S. Gifford, director of President Hoover's organization on employment relief. The married woman question must not become a smoke screen, the letter says, to hide the real unemployment problems of providing work by shortening hours and increasing the consumer's purchasing power by readjustment of the sharing of the earnings of industry. The only fair dismissal policy with reference to women, the union declares, is to consider each case on its own merits. Not the marriage status, but the economic status of the worker, the need, the number of dependents, the service given, etc., should determine the preference, providing, of course, that all possible means of spreading work have been exhausted. "Even if the married woman has no dependents," it says, "there is no more reason for dismissing her than for dismissing the young man who had no dependents, or the young man or woman who is living at home. Married or unmarried, it is safe to assume that most persons work for their living because they have no other means of support for themselves or others." The board then goes on to point out that a third of the married women gainfully occupied are in domestic service and a fifth are in agriculture. "Does anyone believe that these women are filling jobs that men would take or could get?" it asks and decides that few men are prepared to fill the places of the thousands of married women secretaries, typists, telephone operators, dressmakers, milliners and saleswomen. "The employment of married women, the union says, shows that married women of Binghamton, N. Y., for example, are not undercutting other women. The length of their day and their wages differ but little or at all from those of their unmarried sisters. The medium earnings of married women in Binghamton is reported to be $22 a year higher than those of the single women. Of the reasons why married women work: to support dependents, for example aged parents or relatives; to eke out the low earnings of the husband; to support the family when the husband is unemployed; to help buy a home which the family would lose without the combined earnings of these-government studies show that the most important is that the husband's earnings are too low for family support, the union explains. "Mothers who must earn to keep the family together, however, will work even if the children are neglected. It is a choice between food and clothing for the children, and their adequate supervision," it concludes. THE BOSTON WOMEN'S TRADE UNION LEAGUE Officers MRS. MARY GORDON THOMPSON President MRS. ROSE NORWOOD MRS. ROLAND M. BAKER First Vice-Pres. and Organizer Treasurer AGNES V. BOYLE MARY F. CONNOLLY Second Vice-President Secretary Executive Board MSS CECIL DOYLE MRS. MAUDE VAN VAERENWYCK MISS JUDITH FRIEDMAN MRS. DAVIS R. DEWEY MISS MARGARET CONNOLLY MRS. JULIA O'CONNOR PARKER MSS MARY KEARNS MRS. ROSE COOPER MRS. WILLIAM Z. RIPLEY MRS. HARRISON HARLEY MISS ROSE SULLIVAN MRS. LOIS B. RANTOUL * Sponsors GOV. LEVERETT SALTONSTALL MAYOR MAURICE J. TOBIN MRS. LEVERETT SALTONSTALL MRS. MAURICE J. TOBIN LT. GOV. AND MRS. HORACE CAHILL MRS. CHARLES L. SLATTERY MISS ALICE W. O'CONNOR MRS. MOSES WILLIAMS MISS ELLEN FAULKNER MR. AND MRS. CONRAD HOBBS MRS. ANDREW J. PETERS MRS. GLADYS BECKETT JONES MISS ANNA NAGLE MR. AND MRS. ARTHUR T. LYMAN MRS. DONALD J. HURLEY MRS. ROBERT L. DENORMANDIE JOHN J. MURPHY MRS. EVA WHITING WHITE JAMES T. MORIARTY MISS MILDRED H. MCAFEE MRS. EVA RANKIN MISS FRANCES G. CURTIS HOWARD LITCHFIELD MRS. JOHN F. MOORS PHILIP KRAMER MISS MARY L. GUYTON NICHOLAS P. MORRISSEY MRS. RUTH O'KEEFE KENNETH I. TAYLOR DANIEL L. MARSH JOHN MCLAREN MISS ANNA M. MAHONEY JOHN CARROLL MRS. MEYER N. ODENCE JOHN J. KEARNEY MRS. MARGARET J. STANNARD A. PEARLSTEIN JOSEPH F. TIMILTY JAMES P. BURKE MRS. ARTHUR G. ROTCH MATTHEW A. DUNN MRS. LA RUE BROWN HARRY P. GRAGES MISS LUCY LOWELL MAX HAMLIN MRS. WILLIAM P. EVERTS JACK HALPERN MRS. COLIN MacDONALD DANIEL GOGGIN MRS. ARTHUR A. SHURCLIFF THOMAS F. BURNS MISS ADA LOUISE COMSTOCK JACOB BLUME MR. AND MRS. ARTHUR N. HOLCOMBE GUY HOPWOOD MRS. WALTER CAMPBELL AARON VELLEMAN MRS. DOUGLAS MERCER ERNEST A. JOHNSON MRS. JENNIE LOITMAN BARRON MRS. CECILIA NICHOLSON MRS. S. S. WHITE MRS. ROBERT HOMANS DR. AND MRS. SHELDON GLUECK MRS. ROBERTA CURRIE MRS. ROBERT LOVETT J. ARTHUR MORIARTY MISS SARAH WAMBAUGH GEORGE LANSING MRS. ALEXANDER STEINERT JOSEPH STEFANI THOMAS BUCKLEY MISS ANNA WEINSTOCK DR. MIRIAM VAN WATERS MISS MARY LEVIN MR. AND MRS. EDGAR J. DRISCOLL MISS SARAH H. STITES MRS. MAX ULIN JAMES M. LANDIS MISS MILDRED KEANE MRS. HENRY WISE MRS. ROBERT J. CULBERT MRS. FLORENCE ALLEN MR. AND MRS. HERBERT B.EHRMANN JOHN VAN VAERENEWYCK MARGARET GORDON THOMPSON MRS. CHARLES MALIOTIS MR. AND MRS. HECTOR HOLMES MRS. GEORGE ROEWER THE BOSTON WOMEN'S TRADE UNION LEAGUE Luncheon in Honor of Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt WHOSE SYMPATHETIC INSIGHT, COURAGE, AND SINCERE CONVICTIONS HAVE NEVER FAILED THE WORKING WOMEN OF AMERICA HOTEL STATLER Boston, Massachusetts Saturday, February 15, 1941 Program MRS. MARY GORDON THOMPSON PRESIDENT BOSTON WOMEN'S TRADE UNION LEAGUE MRS. ROSE NORWOOD CHAIRMAN WOMEN AND DEFENSE MRS. FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT MUSIC BY SYD ROSS AND HIS ORCHESTRA Statement of Purpose THE BOSTON WOMEN'S TRADE UNION LEAGUE, organized during the convention of the American Federation of Labor, meeting in Boston in November, 1903, is entering upon its thirty-eighth year of activity on behalf of industrial women. Recent events add a new challenge to the League's responsibilities, which we are attempting to meet by renewed efforts in the organizing, legislative and educational fields through which we operate. Progressive social laws need strengthening and extension; these are still many unorganized workers who do not understand the benefits of trade unionism and who have never had an opportunity to discuss their problems in the free and friendly atmosphere of workers' education classes. The League believed that in promoting such activities we are helping to strengthen our democratic institutions and spirit. The organized working women of this state join the officers and members of the League in expressing their gratitude to Mrs. Roosevelt and to each of you for your interest. We are glad to bring you this brief word about the League and its efforts towards making the lives of countless women wage earners a little happier, more secure, better informed and, as a result, more useful in their unions and their communities. Further information concerning the League, membership and classes may be secured from the headquarters, 9 Park Street, Boston. National Women's Trade Union League of America ENDORSED BY THE AMERICAN FEDERATION OF LABOR AND THE TRADES AND LABOR CONGRESS OF CANADA MRS. RAYMOND ROBINS, HONORARY PRESIDENT MRS. MAUD SWARTZ, PRESIDENT ROSE SCHNEIDERMANN, VICE-PRESIDENT TYPOGRAPHICAL UNION, NO. 6 UNITED CLOTH HAT & CAP MAKERS OF North America ELISABETH CHRISTMAN, SECRETARY-TREASURER GLOVE WORKERS' UNION EXECUTIVE BOARD MRS. SARAH GREEN WAITRESSES' UNION AGNES NESTOR GOVE WORKERS' UNION PAULINE NEWMAN CUSTOM DRESS MAKERS NO. 76, I.L.G.W.U. JULIA S. O'CONNOR TELEPHONE OPERATORS' UNION MRS. RAYMOND ROBINS CHICAGO WOMEN'S TRADE UNION LEAGUE ETHEL M. SMITH FEDERAL EMPLOYEES' UNION LOCAL LEAGUES BOSTON PHILADELPHIA CHICAGO ST. LOUIS, MO. KANSAS CITY, MO. TRI-CITY-ROCK ISLAND, NEW YORK MOLINE, DAVENPORT WORCESTER, MASS. COMMITTEES BIRMINGHAM, ALA. RHINELANDER, WIS. CLINTON, IA. ST. PAUL GRAND RAPIDS, MICH. SEATTLE MADISON, WIS. WASHINGTON MINNEAPOLIS ILLINOIS STATE COMMITTEE 311 SOUTH ASHLAND BOULEVARD CHICAGO 328[?] September 19, 1922 Miss Alice Stone Blackwell, Chilmark, Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts My dear Miss Blackwell: There is an old indebtedness covered by loans amounting to twenty-six hundred dollars ($2600), which the National Women's Trade Union League of America is carrying on its books, resulting from certain big pieces of work such as the launching of the International Congress of Working Women. Interest at six and at seven per cent consumes money that should be doing constructive work. Ninety days' interest would pay for the pricing of five thousand leaflets like the enclosed "How to Abolish War", or three thousand similar to "The International Federation of Working Women", or it could be equally well applied to other branches of the League's activities. You have been a loyal friend of the work to which the League stands dedicated and naturally we turn to you now in a special effort to be freed from these ever-recurring "interest due" days. Raising our budget is one thing. Clearing up old loans in another. We therefore ask your indulgence when we come to you for assistance in wiping out this liability, which is entirely outside our regular working budget. There is much work ahead, both constructive and interpretative, and while we have not permitted these debts to block our efforts, still they have a way of consuming energy - in dollars and time - that might be spent to better purpose. Taking our courage in our hands we appeal to you who believe in what the League stands for, to help us. Please - may we ask you to share this liability to the extent of five dollars? You have cooperated with us in the past and we look forward to your continued friendship. Sincerely yours, Elizabeth Christman Secretary-Treasurer EC. MC. Nat WTUL The INTERNATIONAL FEDERATION OF WORKING WOMEN In many countries and among many groups of working women had been dimly felt the need for closer relations among working women everywhere. This found its most definite expression at the Biennial Convention of the Nation Women's Trade Union League of America, held in Kansas City in 1917, when it was resolved, even although we were then in the midst of the war, to try to call together the women workers of the world at the earliest possible moment after peace should be declared. Two years later, at the Philadelphia Convention, the Leagues' Committee on Social and Industrial Reconstruction reported that they had received the support of the British women. It was decided to go ahead. The First International Congress of Working Women met in Washington, in the closing days of October, 1919, and immediately ahead of the opening of the International Labor Conference. The countries represented by delegates were Argentina, Belgium, the British Empire, Canada, Czecho-Slovakia, France, India, Italy, Norway, Poland, Sweden and the United States. Several of the foreign delegates also held the position of the technical adviser to the delegations of their respective countries in the International Labor Conference. Many other women technical advisers also attended many of its sessions. and when asked, gave of their experience, adding thus to the value of the discussions. Congress Asks for International Labor Standards The Congress placed before the Labor Conference the desires of women everywhere that they should have direct representation at all succeeding Labor Conferences, by having one labor delegate and one government delegate for each country a woman. Resolutions were passed, and transmitted to the International Labor Conference, expressing the views of the women upon child labor, the eight hour day and the forty-four hour week, night work, maternity insurance, and hazardous employments. The tendency towards bringing men as well as women within the scope of all such humane protections was very marked. Moreover the urgency of the need for industrial legislation in Oriental countries was emphasized by the Japanese woman technical adviser, who pointed out that the cruel exploiting of her own group could not fail to have a lowering effect on the status of women in other manufacturing countries, employed in making similar goods. Three resolutions, dealing with the distribution of raw materials, unemployment and immigration, hung together, and expressed the view that the great problems of food, its scarcity or abundance, of employment and unemployment, and of the migration of working folks must be handled by the peoples of the world in concert, if they are to be handled at all. Apart from drawing out the views of women upon these questions, there were two invaluable results from this first Congress; the forming of a Provisional Committee with Mrs. Raymond Robins as the president, to keep the working women of the various countries in touch with one another, to maintain a bureau of information at Washington, and to call a second Congress later on; and next, something less definite but as real, the beginning of an understanding of the various difficulties, so different countries, that stood in the way of progress, and an appreciation of what women in far-separated lands were doing and trying for. Second Congress. The second meeting of the International Congress of Working Women opened in Geneva, Switzerland, on October 17, 1921. Delegates were present from Belgium, Cuba, Czecho-Slovakia, France, Great Britain, Italy, Norway, Poland, South Africa, Switzerland, and the United States. There were besides visitors and guests from countries not officially represented. Even from far-away China came Miss W. T. Zung. Permanent Organization. The Congress began its work as the International Congress of Working Women, a temporary, loosely organized, informal group. Before it adjourned it had become the International Federation of Working Women, a permanent body, organized on a well-thought out plan, so as to include the trade union women of all the affiliated countries. The objects of the International Federation of Working Women are threefold. 1. To promote trade union organization among women. 2. To develop an international policy giving special consideration to the needs of women and children, and to examine all projects for legislation proposed by the International Labor Conference of the League of Nations. 3. To promote the appointment of working women on organizations affecting the welfare of the workers. Only national trade union organizations who are either affiliated with the International Federation of Trade Unions (Amsterdam), or whose aims agree in the spirit to follow "Amsterdam" will be admitted so that the underlying principle of the new organization is in sympathy with what is known as the middle ground of the great trade union movement of the world. This rule excludes on the one hand unions organized on a religious basis, and on the other, organizations which have become affiliated with the International of Moscow. The Secretariat is located now in London, with Dr. Marion Phillips as Secretary. Mrs. Raymond Robins was re-elected president. There are twelve countries affiliated, each represented on the Board by a vice-president. The countries are Belgium, Canada, Cuba, Czecho-Slovakia, France, Great Britain, Italy, Norway, Poland, South Africa, Switzerland, and the United States. The office of the Americas will be at the headquarters of the National Women's Trade Union League, 311 South Ashland Boulevard, Chicago. Delegates expressed dissatisfaction at the very slow progress that has been made in so many countries towards ratifying, and putting in force the conventions agreed upon by the First International Labor Conference, it having been found especially difficult in the smaller countries to bring about such improvements as the eight hour day, on account of the overwhelming influence exerted by the commercial interests in the great manufacturing countries. Miss Zung remarked upon the fact of China's reported silence in reference to all requests for information as to her industrial status. "It is no wonder," Miss Zung went on. "China has no factory legislation; there is no minimum age. Some children are working in the factories at the age of seven and even less. Likewise there is no birth registration, so definite proof of a child worker's age is lacking." The explanation of European dilatoriness is evidently that the workers' organizations are nowhere strong enough to translate into law the proposals that were adopted in Washington. It would help materially, it was thought, if nations represented in the International Labor Conference should be compelled to submit these matters to their own countries, for anything that comes before a legislature has at least a fighting chance. Many of the Washington conventions have been merely pigeon-holed and never submitted to public discussion at all. Some of the evils discussed were to the ears of some of the American women almost unbelievable; for instance the employment of children on board ship, and the wretched living conditions imposed upon agricultural workers in so many European countries, brought out through the resolution proposed by Madame Casartelli of Italy "that agricultural workers must no sleep in the stables." The Congress expressed its conviction that present unemployment is mainly due to international causes, and that the problem can only be solved by the re-establishment of the world trade. It called upon all countries to take concerted action for the stabilization of exchanges, and the extension of credits to the war-torn countries. Disarmament. On disarmament the Congress went on record for the complete abandonment of war as a method of settling disputes between nations. Miss Kate Manicom, of England, and Miss Gertrude Baer, of Germany, fraternal delegate from the International League for Peace and Freedom both argued strongly for total disarmament. Miss Manicom pled especially on behalf of the young women of England, robbed through the war of any possibility of ever having a family life of their own, their husbands that might have been lying in the graveyards of France. Miss Baer, another speaker for the younger generation, told of the reduction of the army in Germany to 100,000 for purposes of defense only. Miss Manicom was sent as a representative to carry a message to President Harding, and to the Conference for the Limitation of Armaments, then about to sit in Washington. On the matter of industrial hazards, the Congress demanded the prohibition of the use of white lead in the industries, and pending this recommended that the well-known preventive measures, by which poisoning can be warded off or lessened should be adopted in all lead-using trades. A second industrial hazard considered was the spread of anthrax, especially among workers in wool, and handlers of leathers and furs. It was recognized that proper disinfection at the port of origin and at all centers of wool and hide distribution would very markedly lessen the risk of infection. The study of the disease in animals, with a view to its being stamped out altogether, was considered of prime importance. Constructive Results. The Congress gave to the visitor, and still more to any one taking part in its deliberations, a sense of soundness and of intelligent effort to comprehend common difficulties, and to outline practical methods of meeting them. It was no gathering of theorists, but of women accepting full responsibility for their share in building up an International understanding among women upon industrial questions, and home problems closely related to these. Apart from the very different conditions which each delegate had to meet in her own country, thereby making it a slow and difficult task to arrive at a solution fairly acceptable to all, there was the barrier of difference of language. In such technical matters explanations were hard to make, and statements, even of plain facts, were apt to be misunderstood. So strongly was this additional difficulty felt that one resolution recommended all delegates to future conventions to study Esperanto. One happy outcome of the long-drawn out sessions and meetings of the commissions was the feeling and respect and friendship which developed between delegates. This must surely increase with every opportunity of coming together. Besides the Congress being a great success in the concrete results to be shown, it gave new courage to those oppressed with the state of the world today, and the delegates went home with a new faith in the world is to come. EXECUTIVE BOARD. Mrs. Raymond Robin............United States.............................President Miss Burniaux........................Belgium..............................Vice-President Mrs. Kathleen Derry..............Canada.............................. Vice-President Mrs. Laura de Zayas Bazan...Cuba.................................. Vice-President Mrs. Bozena Kubickova.........Czecho-Slovakia............... Vice-President Miss Jeanne Bouvier...............France............................... Vice-President Miss Margaret Bondfield.......Great Britain......................Vice-President Signora Cabrini Casartelli......Italy.....................................Vice-President Mrs. Betzy Kjelsberg...............Norway...............................Vice-President Miss Sophie Dobrzanska........Poland................................Vice-President Miss Fitzgerald.........................South Africa.......................Vice-President Miss Monnier...........................Switzerland........................Vice-President Mrs. Maud Swartz...................United States.....................Vice-President Dr. Marion Phillips...................Great Britain..............................Secretary Mrs. Harrison Bell....................Great Britain..............................Treasurer Published by the EDUCATIONAL COMMITTEE of the NATIONAL WOMEN'S TRADE UNION LEAGUE 311 South Ashland Boulevard, Chicago 325 Mailed to "Mrs B. Homer" by Women's Trade Union League postmarked Jan 10/45 Evidently to discuss the Equal Rights Amendment. [W L B?] didn't get there. MIDWINTER CONFERENCE BOSTON WOMEN'S TRADE UNION LEAGUE HOTEL TOURAINE SATURDAY JANUARY 13, 1945 Women Workers Produce for War and Plan for Peace Economy In Factories In Offices In Homes Program MORNING SESSION 10:30 A.M. HARRISON HARLEY, Chairman Professor, Simmons College; Director Samuel Adams School "The Outlook for White Collar and Domestic Workers" Speaker: MRS. CHASE GOING WOODHOUSE U.S. Congresswoman from Connecticut Discussion: MR. R. NEWTON MAYALL, Consulting Engineer MISS CARA COOK, Economist, Regional WLB MR. JOSEPH ERKER, Bird and Son and other representatives of Management Trade Union Representatives SUMMARY OF PRESENT AND PENDING LEGISLATION MR. THOMAS WILKINSON, Legislative Representative, Mass. Federation of Labor. LUNCHEON 1:30 P.M. MRS. ROSE NORWOOD, Chairman President, Boston Women's Trade Union League "AN INDUSTRIAL WORKER BETWEEN TWO WARS" MISS ROSE PESOTTA Former vice pres. ILGWU, author "Bread upon the Waters" ''WHAT IS AHEAD FOR WORKING WOMEN" MISS FRIEDA MILLER Director, Women's Bureau, U.S. Dept. of Labor Discussion: Trade Union and Employer Representatives TICKETS, including Luncheon, $2.50 RESERVATIONS IN ADVANCE Without luncheon, 50 cents each session. Apply to: BOSTON WOMEN'S TRADE UNION LEAGUE 2 PARK SQUARE, BOSTON 16, MASS. 74 Telephone DEVonshire 9062 Transcribed and reviewed by contributors participating in the By The People project at crowd.loc.gov.