WOMEN IN GUN SHOPS

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2734, 31 March 1916, Page 3

WOMEN IN GUN SHOPS

EXACTING WORK. In a munition factory in Yorkshire where tho dilution of labour has resulted in a happy co-operation between unskilled women and skilled men workers there is a woman on gun-breech work —perhaps the most exacting of all munition work, states the "Daily Mail." A man sets her machine and she completes tho boring of a hole, an eighth of an inch in diameter, .which has to continue dead true through twelve inches of steel. In this work tho woman's delicacy of touch has made her of greater use than the unskilled man. Tile test is the tally of broken tools, and this woman, who was previously a charwoman, has as yet a clean sheet. A short distance away is a woman who has become surprisingly proficient at slot drilling—a process in which the thousandths of an inch matter. Still more women in this shop are able to take over bigger work- from the men, with tho assistance of a labourer for lifting the heavy weights. There is a woman, too, who is able to do her own tool-setting. She is probably the only woman tool-setter in tho country, anchor spur to efficiency has been the knowledge that she is aiding in an in : direct way the efforts of her husband at the front. The first bomb shop in the country to be staffed by women is in tho same works. The country will be in a position soon 'to send 3000 bombs a week more to the trenches from this shop alone. How women came into these works is a lesson in the employer's tact and freedom from prejudice on the part of his men. He called his men together, told them that tho output had to be doubled and that men or women would have to bo got. There would be much teaching to be done. Perhaps the workers would like to find men workers. They said they would. They came back later saying they would rather work with women. "You must look after them," said the employer, "and you must all pull together." "From that day to tins," said tho employer, "things have gone perfectly." No part of a gun undergoes a more searching test -than the vent, and the making of the gauges alone entails an outlay of a hundred pounds or more. Women have been put on to this work together with one or tw;o niore unskilh cd men, the number of skilled men en-, gaged remaining the same.. "But," said tho managing director, "where I was doing well previously to get six vents a week I am now get. ting thirty. I have been told by tho authorities that I am making them bet, ter than anyone else." The achievements of the women in these works aro the more remarkable in view of the fact that they are en-, gaged on general engineering and rarely remain at the samo job for more than three days.