Letters to Women.

Maoriland Worker, Volume 2, Issue 41, 15 December 1911, Page 14

Letters to Women.

By DORA S. MONTEFIORE.

The Horn© and Industrial Organisation.

LETTER 11. The second message that I have to give to the women of Australasia is that, although the working women are in an enormous majority over the nonworking women, yet the non-workers are the privileged, the economic rulers over the workers, the self-appointed leaders of those who do the useful work of the world. And this in spite of the fact that if the working woman's vote weire used solidly against privilege and self-arrogated power, the woman who works could place herself economically in a. position where she would not only command conditions suitable for a. selfrespecting human being, but would at the same time gain the industrial respect of men, workers, who too often themselves suffer because their competitors, women, will take less than a living wage. When talking the other day to a Labor journalist, he remarked that women were essentially blacklegs, not only towards men in indiuistrial questions, but often also towards their own sex. Much as I regretted having to agree, I was forced to acknowledge he was only voicing what I myself had often observed. But I strove to point the moral, and adorn the sad tale, and that Labor journalist had to hear from mc. before we parted, the woman's side of the story. We Socialists, who interpret from the economic standpoint most of the great movements and questions of the day, we know that it was economic pressure, as capitalism broke into the home and snatched from the man worker a living wage, which at the same time forced the man's women of his own household into the labor market to compete against him. All labor is a commodity, bought and sold_ in the labor market, and the capitalist soon discovered that a pair of hands (be they '-hose of a man or of a woman) could tend a machine which produces for him t daily toll of wealth, and consequent profit. But there was one factor in the bargaining for these pairs of hands of which the employer or buyer of labor was not backward in taking advantage. Owing to artificial and social disabilities added to the fact_ that women were, unlike men, new .and untrained at bargaining, and were ignorant of the ABC of unionism. THE" LABORING WOMAN'S PAIR OF HANDS WERE HALF AS CHEAP TO BTJY AS WERE THOSE OF THE LABORING MAN. And ever since this great discovery was made by the capitalist, the merry game has been going o-n of using women to keep down pen's wages, _ and at the same time incidentally to increase his own profits. Daring the latter half of the nineteenth century millions of women in every country to which industrialism had spread, performed the same function toward capitalism as machinery had pea-formed during the first fifty years of the century—THEY INCREASED THE NUMBER OF UNEMPLOYED MEN, AND BROUGHT DOWN WAGES TO STARVATION POINT. And the men, what were they doing when faced with this new industrial invasion, this increased economic disability? Just as in the past, they had attempted in their narrow and uiv instructed way to smash -the new machinery, which they looked _ upon as their enemy, so now, in their equally narrow <and unijnstructed wjay, tLley have attempted by special legislation to restrict or keep women out of the industrial field. And each time they have failed in their futile attempt. Why ? Not because either machines or women were obstinate or malicious, but because the men workers were up against the economic forces at the back of the machines and at the back of the women —forces which they did not understand and could not control. We can blame neither the men nor tjie women workers; we can only deplore, and try and give_ both to men and women the economic interpretation which can alone help them in the future. What the men should have done obviously was to have shared with the women, who were competing with them in factory and workshop, whatever economic and industrial lore they themselves possessed; they shotild have taught them by precept .and example industrial comradeship, whilst instilling early and late, into the consciousness of the women the il-ecessity of workingclass solidarity. Instead of discouraging them, as was too often the case, from°entering trades unions with men, every effort shoxild have been made to get 'them to join, and to give them

positions and responsibilities which would have developed class-conscious-ness. And the women, they should have realised that a woman in industry is a human being, and a woman afterwards. They should have sought eagerly for industrial strength, which can only be obtained through union, and through solidarity; and instead of too often taking a pocket-money wage, and thereby outraging every law of work-ing-class solidarity, they should have made any sacrifice in order to become financial and militant members of trade unions, and thus help in the great working-class struggle against power and privilege. But yon Australasian women will say as you "read this:. "All this is a counsel of perfection, but what are we to do NOW?" My answer is that the day of the craft union has passed, and the day of the .industrial union has dawned, and that it is the supreme duty of women workers to seek out and apply all the knowledge possible on this question of industrial unionism. Sit still for a moment, close your eyes, and let your imagination run along the lines which this huge industrial organisation of ALL WORKERS might take if you women weire class-conscious and understood the issues at stake. Think of the factory workers, the teachers, the women employed in Government offices, the domestic workers, typists, the N clerks, the field and dairy workers, AND THE MOTHERS, all organised together to back each other up in any dispute which may arise during the prolonged struggle of. the workers for obtaining their share of the wealth they are producing! Think of it again! You will observe that our objective is not a craft union objective of sixpence a week more wages or extra pay for overtime, or a limitation of hours of work—all very good palliatives in the past, while the thinking power ot the workers was growing, but of little effect now (except the limitation, of tne hours of work) in obtaining your real objective, the control-of the means of life, and the real share in the wealth yo-u create. Some of you women may think that you do get a fair share, or something near it '(because women have so long suffered from sex disability that they are ever modest in their demands on their share of social wealth), but if you will have patience with mc for a few miiautes longer. I think you will agree iv.it'h mc that if working women were class-conscious —that is, were conscious that they belonged to a class, which,, through 'its toil"makes it possible _ for others to live without work, things would be very different, not only for the working woman but for the men, their comrades, and for the little children, who should be to all of us the hope of the future. Only a century ago, be'ore steam and electricity had revolutionised the social and econiomic life of this planet, baking, brewing,, weaving, spinning, pickling, preserving, sweet making, washing and dremg were HOME INDUSTRIES. CARRIED ON BY WOMEN IN THEIR OWN HOMES FOR USE AND NOT FOR PROFIT. Year by year, and so gradually that the general public is hardly aware of the fact, men owning capital and the tools and machinery of production, having started these industries outside the home, \RE CARRYING THEM ON FOR PROFIT INSTEAD OF FOR USE, and are exploiting as minders of the machines, the woKieii who used in the past to have control over the industries in their own homes. This subtle change wot only implies a loss in the social and economic status of women, but an enormous change for the worse in the quality of the goods produced. Tli-e man who starts a jam factory, for instance, has not got at the back of his mind the impulse to do so because a certain number of families require jam (which is what the woman had at the back of her mind when she made jam for home use), but because he has figured out that, given the price of fruit, sugar, rent, and wear and tear of machinery, plus CHEAP WOMAN AND GIRL LABOR, he can make a certain profit from the surplus value, or unpaid wages, which he withholds from that labor. The more workers he employs, the larger is his surplus value, and con>scQiiently the larger his profits. But as ho has no interest (as had the housewife) in the persons who are going to consume the jam or the pickles or wear the clothes he manufactures, the results generally leave much to be desired. Again, the housewifery activities of women are exploited by men capitalists in tea shops, restaurants, hotels and shops, while her intellectual and organising faculties are exploited by business moil and in government and typing offices. In a word, women never get anything like the same

share of the wealth they create as men get, and men get little enough, and the employment of women is on tho increase in proportion as men capitalists discover their capabilities of being exploited. Doss this mean that we shoiild strive to get industries put back into the home? By no means. Economic forces and applied discoveries have driven them out, and at. the same time have increased enormously the possibilities of the creation, of wealth which these erstwhile home industries repras-emt. Our task as Socialists is to organise •Jie workers—women as well as men. — to get these and all other industries, with the machinery and plant, under their own control, so that the wealth may once more be produced for use instead of for profit. This is why it is so necessary that women, as well as men, should join industrial unions, so that they may learn, side by side with their men comrades, organisation and industrial responsibility, and be able, when the time comes, to take an equal share in the administration of these wealth-producincc in dustrips. THE SOCIALIST PARTY IS THE ONLY POLITICAL PARTY THAT OFFERS ECONOMIC FREEDOM TO WOMEN, AND EQUAL SOCIAL AND POLITICAL FREEDOM. How have the bourgeois employers, and even so-called "Labor" men, managed in the past to delude women on. this great and all-important economic question? They have told them that men require more pay because they have families to support, and women have believed this statement without looking more closely into it. If men were paid according to the size of their families there might be some truth in this contention; but has such a scheme ever been suggested? Again, when a woman writes a book, draws an illustration for a paper, sings a song behind the footlights, or is a paid member of Parliament (as in Finland) in fixing her remuneration is there any enquiry made as to her financial and domestic obligations? Why, then, should these considerations be brought forward in fixing women's salaries in, any walk of life? If women were industrially organised, they would see to it that they received equal pay for equal work, and they would request the gentle-men who talked about men having families to support, 'to take their fustian economics somewhere else. When I was in Chicago last year I witnessed <n, demonstration ifn the largest auditorium in the city in honour of a woman educationist, Mrs. Ella Flagg Young. She had just been appointed director of all the public elementary and secondary schools in that city at a salary of £2000 a year. The members of the Educational Committee argued that as this woman had proved herself a more able organiser than any man in the department, it was in the interests of good education to give her supreme responsibility, and THE SAME SALARY AS THE MEN DIRECTORS HAD RECEIVED IN THE PAST. But don't forget, you women of Australasia, that the Chicago Union of Teachers is affiliated with the General

Federation of Labor. These wmpeffl teachers know where strength hee m the fight agaiii3t privilege, and tbrig have taken good care not to be » fenceless I _ If there 13 one class of-women w&» require this force of the solidarity m Tabor behind them more than anot««| it is the women clerks,, the typists, «s«S ■ women in Government offices —-aye cttfSft under a "Labor" Government. I wa» i talking to a woman Government e*»-ploy-eo the other day, who passed bri3* liantly, nhi-o years ago,, an cxamins» tion in the special depart-meat in wJbtdg she- works, leaving behind her 19 raw's, Who passed—let us say, less brilliautSs* But these 10 meij are earning now ter salariea than she ia earning, aim are in better positions in the depai*ment- When she complained one eajg to a Government official, lie rcplsea with a bland. siaile: 'Ah, Miss X, A _ tou wa.nt more money you must g« - married." He evidently did not too* Use tliat he was insulting the girl h£ sup-gestirug she should sell her ses rot* vices for a higher salary than sin could, get for her intollcolual Men don't mean to lash us across th* face with a whip, but tiioir elemental ■eco-nomica being wrong, they often so without meaning it, and it is up Iβ us women who have felt the lash to -4$ and protect other woine-n from it. I enumerated in the list of those wliiß should join the great industrial uarnw THE MOTHERS, and I hope to t« you in my next letter why it is «s supreme importance to the race tfcjA working-class mothers should liav-e tlw strength and force of industrial SOU'S" afity behind them.