WOMEN IN TRADE

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 233, 20 June 1918, Page 2

WOMEN IN TRADE

MRS. FAWCETT ON THE OUTLOOK. Spenkinß at Huddersfield on 'Tho Status of Women utter the War." Mrs. Ifenry Fmvcrit said that the exclusion of women fi'oiii the skilled trades, which was a part of-trade- union policy up (o 1015, reduced a great mass of industrial .women to a position of serfdom. The freeing of women fivm these shackles had been accomplished only at the prico of a world-war on an unprecedented eca.le.

Tho question of tho industrial freedom of women must bo approached, from the national point of view, and the problem was to apply the lessons which they had learnt during the war to the future. As far as women were concerned the root of the matter lay in the claim of "equal pay for ei|iral output." The plcdgo given to the trade unionist* as to the restoration of trade union rules and regulations eoitld not be. treated as a scrap of paper. It tho promise could not be kepi: the two parties to Ihe bargain must meat and arrive n,t a solution of the difficulty on terms satisfactory to each. Something might bo done on tho lines of tho Whitley Commission and Ihe giving, of tho workmen employed in any industry an insight into ite management and a share in ils control.