Part 19

The _Telephone Service_ also offers a few important posts to women. In the London Telephone Service a Woman Superintendent is appointed at £200-10-£300, 9 Supervisors at £159-6-£190, and 40 Assistant Supervisors at £110-5-£145. There are about 3,600 Women Telephonists employed within the London postal area. The salaries of Supervisors in the provinces vary from £125-5-£150 to £105-5-£120, according to the size of the district.

The variety of work, which is now efficiently performed by women in the various departments above enumerated, seems to prove conclusively that when other branches are opened to them they will be equally successful.

In the statements recently submitted to the Royal Commission of the Civil Service on behalf of various women's organisations, the reasons for throwing open to women the more highly paid and responsible posts were admirably set forth.

On behalf of the Association of Headmistresses it was stated by Miss R. Oldham:--

"In asking that in future some of the more highly paid and responsible posts in the Civil Service should be thrown open to women, the Headmistresses are conscious of the fact that modern economic conditions have evolved the woman who must of necessity, as well as by choice, become self-supporting. The professions of teaching, medicine, art, and literature offer openings with adequate remuneration for the highly educated young woman of to-day. Those lower branches of the Civil Service which, with a few exceptions, alone are open to women do not supply posts of enough responsibility and administrative power to prove attractive to able women of secondary school and university education, many of whom, in the opinion of the Headmistresses are fitted, both by their education and by their natural ability, to fill positions of equal responsibility with their brothers.

"They desire to submit the following reasons why women should be considered eligible for positions of administrative responsibility in the service of the State :--

"(1) Women have shown by their success in positions of great responsibility that they are capable of undertaking high administrative work.

"(2) Women have special gifts for social investigation and inquiry, and special knowledge in many important subjects, which ought to be used in the service of the State.

"(3) Under present conditions of women's employment in the Service, the ablest and most highly qualified women do not enter it.

"(4) The presence of a large number of women in the lower branches of the Civil Service makes it desirable that there should be women employed in higher and more responsible posts. This would have the effect of ensuring good discipline and judicious promotion.

"(5) The present almost total exclusion of women from high and responsible posts has the effect of discrediting them as applicants for such posts outside the Service. Private employers when asked to give women opportunities for rising to posts of responsibility, are able to point to the failure of the Government to do so."

In the statement submitted by Mrs W.L. Courtney on behalf of the Council on Women's Employment in the Civil Service the claim was made:--

"That women should be eligible for first division appointments, or equivalent appointments, in suitable offices, such as the Education Office, the Local Government Board, the Home Office, the Insurance Commission, and the Board of Trade. It has already been found necessary to appoint women to responsible posts in the Inspectorate of each of these offices, and the same reasons which justify those appointments point also to the desirability of appointing women to positions in the corresponding internal administrative service."

There is another point to be remembered in this connection; it is important that the recommendations made by Women Inspectors should have the chance of being considered and acted upon by women in an administrative capacity, as well as by men. Otherwise there is danger that the women's point of view put forward by an Inspector may be overlooked or her recommendations brushed aside.

Miss Penrose, Principal of Somerville College, Oxford, in her statement for the Royal Commission, said:

"In branches of the Service, such as the Home Office, the Local Government Board, and the Board of Trade, in which a good deal of work is done, or should be done, by women because it is concerned with women, I think it would be an advantage to have one or more women on the general administrative staff, which deals with the work of the departments as a whole.

"If a board which deals with human beings, does not employ women except to carry out the policy of the Board, after that policy has been initiated, shaped and embodied in regulations, it may not infrequently be found that regulations unsuitable in some respects to be applied to women have been drafted, or that unnecessary differences of treatment have been created. Just as in so far as women look at things from a different angle it is important that their point of view should be at the service of a department at as early a stage as possible."

An illustration of this may be found in the draft Order for the regulation of Poor Law Institutions which is now before the public. This draft has been drawn up by a departmental committee of the Local Government Board, composed entirely of men, notwithstanding that it will regulate the administration of institutions staffed by women and having large numbers of women and children as inmates. It is not surprising to find that the draft Order meets with the disapproval of many women engaged in poor law work.

The Council on Women's Employment also claimed:--

"That women should be made eligible or considered for appointment--

"As scientific specialists, especially museum assistants and keepers. The area of choice would thus be enlarged in cases where there is sometimes a very small number of suitable candidates. Women have been notably successful in original work in various departments of botany, and have done valuable original work in bacteriology and archaeology. They are already employed as scientific specialists in certain departments and in temporary work for the British Museum, though hitherto excluded from its permanent service.

"As librarians, keepers of records and papers, and assistants to the holders of these offices, and to positions requiring qualifications for statistical work and historical knowledge, such as those in the Public Record Office.

"That appointments in suitable offices should be opened to women between the ages of 19 and 24, who have either passed or can pass an examination equivalent to that of male second division clerks, or clerks of the intermediate class, according to the practice of the department in filling its appointments. It seems desirable that the abilities of women who would otherwise be occupied in business, teaching, secretarial and clerical, and other work, much of which is closely comparable with that of second division and intermediate clerks, should be available for the work of the Civil Service, especially in the offices already mentioned in connection with the first division appointments."

These claims, pertinent as they are, and strongly as they should be urged, need to be extended still further.

Women claim to be admitted to share in the administrative work, not only of those departments directly concerned with women, but also in those in which the work concerns equally men and women as citizens--_e.g._, the Treasury, the Foreign Office, the Colonial Office, the Inland Revenue. No one could argue that the work of these departments is unsuitable for women, any more than is the work of the General Post Office, in which they have so conspicuously succeeded. Even the War Office, with the charge of so many soldiers' wives and children living in barracks, removed from the jurisdiction of all civic services, and the control of so large a number of Army Nurses, needs women amongst its administrators.

The claim must also be made quite clearly, that in throwing open these posts to women, the same method of recruiting must be employed as for men, and the remuneration must be at the same rate. In asking for these opportunities women are simply asking that the sex disability which at present bars them from the majority of posts in the service, may be removed. They do not seek admission in some special way, nor do they wish to undercut men by accepting lower salaries. They ask that the sex barrier may be removed in the case of both Class I. and Class II. appointments--in other words, that these appointments may be open to them on the same conditions as they are or may be open to men.

In the case of the majority of the appointments hitherto held by women, some care has been taken to put them on a different footing from those of men; in these instances it is not easy to compare the work of women with that of men, or to urge the claim of women to be paid at the same rate as men for work of equal value. There are, however, some conspicuous instances--_e.g._, of the Factory Inspectors and Inspectors of Schools--in which no such differentiation is possible and in which the only reason for paying the women less than the men seems to be that given by the ex-Permanent Secretary of the Treasury in his evidence before the Royal Commission on the Civil Service, "that women ought to be got as cheaply as possible, and that if they can be got for less, they ought not to be paid the same as men."

There seems some ground for believing that official opinion in this matter is undergoing modification, since in the case of later appointments--_e.g._, in the Labour Exchanges and in the National Health Insurance Commission--the tendency has been to approximate the salaries of women much more closely to those of men and even in some instances to make them identical. It is therefore reasonable to hope that the principle of equal pay for equal work will, before long, be extended to appointments of longer standing, in which its application would be no less just than in the case of new appointments.

II

THE LOWER GRADES AND THE PRESENT POSITION

So far as the position of its women workers is concerned, the State is very far from being the model employer it sometimes professes to be. When one considers the very wide disparity existing between the salaries for similar work of women and of men, one realises to what an enormous extent the Exchequer, and, consequently, the taxpayer, has benefited by the economies practised at the expense of the women Civil Servants ever since their introduction in the early seventies. There is not a shadow of doubt that economy was the motive for their employment, but even economy would not have justified the continued increase in their numbers, had they not exhibited what has been called by a high official, "remarkable efficiency," and also the very desirable qualities of docility, patience, and conscientiousness.

When the Government first took over the telegraphs from the private companies, it found women in their employ, and decided to retain them in the service. Women Telegraphists and Counter Clerks are now a very large body numbering in London about 2,000, and in the Provinces about 5,000,--a total of 7,000 women as compared with 16,000 men. The duties of men and women telegraphists are more closely comparable than their respective work in any other class in the Civil Service, practically the only differentiation being that women are debarred from night duty. They are also generally exempt from Sunday duty, excessive late duty, and special duties in connection with race meetings, although the Hobhouse Committee in 1907 recommended that women should do the Sunday work if required. (As, however, payment for this is made at a higher rate, there is usually no lack of volunteers.) Their scale of salary in the Central Telegraph Office is 18s. a week at eighteen years of age, rising to a maximum of 40s. The men's scale is 20s. rising to 65s. When the necessary technical qualifications are acquired, an allowance of 3s. a week carried beyond the maximum and pensionable, is now given to both sexes alike. Formerly the technical allowance for women was 1s. 6d. per week only, and this would appear to account for the lower proportion of women who have qualified for the technical increment.

There appears to be a tendency to stereotype certain kinds of work for men only, in order to justify the differentiation in pay, but in point of fact, most of the work now exclusively allotted to male telegraphists was at one time done by women. The work done by men and women Counter Clerks is identical. The women in the Telegraph Service have no separate organisation, but combine with the men in the Postal Telegraph Clerks' Association, which has a large number of branches, and carries on a very active campaign for improvement in pay and conditions of service. Equal pay for equal work is one of the planks in its platform, and formed part of the case put forward before the Select Committee on Post Office Servants last year.

Women Clerks are employed in the great financial Services of the General Post Office, the Savings Bank Department, Money Order Department (including the Postal Order Branch), Accountant-General's Department, and the Controller's Office of the London Telephone Service, as well as in the Accountant's Departments of the General Post Offices in Edinburgh and Dublin. In all, they number nearly 3,000. It may, perhaps, be of interest to go into the history of this class.

Women Clerks were first introduced into the General Post Office in 1871 by Mr Scudamore, who considered that as women were more "fault-finding" than men, they might well be used as "a check on the somewhat illiterate postmasters of the United Kingdom in the interests of a somewhat long-suffering public." Entry was at first by nomination, but in 1881 the appointment of Women Clerks was thrown open to the public by competitive examination by Mr Fawcett, who was then Postmaster General. This step met with some opposition, and Queen Victoria even caused a letter to be written to Mr Fawcett expressing her strong disapproval of the change. The Postmaster-General, however, carried his point, and fixed the scale of salary at £65, rising by £3 per annum to £80. When the working day was increased from six to seven hours, the maximum was raised to £100. The revisions of the Tweedmouth Inter-Departmental Committee came into force in 1897, involving many concessions to the male staff, and simultaneously the minimum salary of the Women Clerks was, without any warning, reduced for new entrants to £55 per annum, and the increment for the first six years was reduced to £2, 10s.

Realising the defencelessness of their position, the Women Clerks formed an Association in 1901, and so strong was the case for improvement which they were able to bring before the Hobhouse Parliamentary Committee of 1906, that in spite of considerable misrepresentation of their work in the evidence given by Heads of Departments, they were able not only to get back the 1881 minimum of £65, but were awarded further an increased increment of £5 throughout the scale and a rise of £10 in the maximum. This was the position until December 1911, when a tentative scheme was introduced in the Money Order Department to hand over all the simpler duties to a new class of Assistant Women Clerks with an eight-hour day and a wage of 18s. rising to 34s. a week. The Association of Post Office Women Clerks, the basis of which is "equal pay and opportunities for women with men in the Civil Service," and which therefore necessarily stands for simplification of the classes of employment, regarded the restriction of a fresh grade of women to yet another water-tight compartment at a low wage as in itself an evil. But apart from this, they looked upon the scheme as a deliberate evasion of the Hobhouse Committee's recommendations. So strong was the criticism levelled at the new scheme, both by Members of Parliament and the Press, that the Postmaster-General, Mr Herbert Samuel, consented to refer the matter to the Select Committee on the Post Office (known as the Holt Committee)[1], which was appointed in the early part of 1912, and he gave an undertaking that no more appointments to the new grade should be made in the Money Order Department until the Committee had reported, The value of this concession was considerably lessened by its limited application, and the fact that many Assistant Women Clerks were subsequently appointed to the London Telephone Service, clearly indicated the intention of the authorities to proceed with the development of the scheme in a Department which provided an easier field of operation in the shape of new work and a new staff taken over from the National Telephone Company.

In 1897 the class of Girl Clerks was created, to undertake some of the simpler duties in the Savings Bank Department, hitherto performed by Women Clerks. They were subsequently introduced into the Money Order Department and the Controller's Office of the London Telephone Service, and there are approximately 250 now employed. They take the same examination as Women Clerks, but at a lower age--sixteen to eighteen--and are grouped apart for the purpose of marking. Their hours of duty are seven daily, and their salary £42, raising by £3 per annum, to £48. They are in reality a probationary class, and become Women Clerks automatically after two years' service. The introduction of this class was not considered by the Department to be an administrative success, as the obligation to make them Women Clerks in two years prevented their being employed in sufficiently large numbers to effect any appreciable economy. The scheme for the introduction of the grade of Assistant Woman Clerk involved the abolition of the Girl Clerk.

The Women Clerks are an analogous grade to the Male Clerks of the Second Division who are common to the whole Civil Service, and they do practically the same class of work. The examinations for the two classes are somewhat severe in character and are roughly comparable.[2] There is, however, a wide disparity in the salaries paid, as will be seen from the following comparison:--

SECOND DIVISION CLERKS.

£70 by £7, 10s. per an. to £130 thence by £10 per an. to £200 thence by £10 per an. to £300 (Efficiency Bar at £130 and £200)

Above the salary of £300 advancement to higher posts by promotion.

WOMEN CLERKS.

_Second Class_-- £65 by £5 per an. to £100 (No Efficiency Bar)

_First Class _(by promotion)-- £115 by £5 to £140

Above the rank of First Class Clerk there are certain higher posts which constitute a percentage of 4.6 of the total number of First and Second Class Clerks.

The existence of this double standard of payment for the same kind of work is not only an injustice to the women concerned, but is a standing menace to the men, who rightly consider that the presence of women as a blackleg class keeps down their wages and reduces their prospect of promotion. A sense of irritation and dissatisfaction is thus engendered between the two sexes. The maintenance of separate staffs of similar status but with different rates of remuneration, enables the department to play off one against the other, for the existence of a lower paid class makes it increasingly difficult for the Men Clerks to substantiate a claim for better pay themselves. The standard of their work is raised by the "moving-down" or "degrading" of duties, without any improvement in pay such as they would probably be able to obtain if women were not involuntarily undercutting them. Women fully sympathise with their male colleagues, whose prospects are injured in this way, but they insist that the only solution of the difficulty is equal treatment and fair and open competition. The Association of Clerks of the Second Division supported the Women Clerks' claim for equal pay for equal work in their evidence before the Royal Commission on the Civil Service, and it is gratifying that, in spite of the determined policy of the department to adhere as far as possible to the absurd segregation of the sexes, the two organised bodies of Men and Women Clerks are on excellent terms.

In 1883 the class of Women Sorters was instituted, its original scale of pay ranging from 12s. per week, increasing by annual increments of 1s. to 20s. per week. In 1885 a first class was created with a maximum of 30s. per week. The Tweedmouth Committee of 1897 abolished the classification, and substituted therefor an efficiency bar at 21s., so that, unless incompetent, all the Women Sorters have a right to proceed to the maximum of 30s. Since the salary was fixed at that figure, the work of the Sorters has greatly improved in character. Originally introduced for the purpose of sorting, arranging, and filing the multitudinous kinds of official documents and papers, they have by degrees taken over more and more of the simpler duties formerly performed by the Women Clerks, until, at the present day, it is no exaggeration to say that nearly one-half of their duties consists of elementary clerical work. The Women Sorters are recruited from an examination of the same standard as that hitherto applied to Telegraphists, and the Women Sorters' Association claims that the principle of equality between Sorters and Telegraphists, which was recommended to the department by the Tweedmouth Committee in 1897, should be applied to the Women Sorters. Prior to 1900, vacancies occurring in the female staff at the Returned Letter Office were filled by transferred Women Telegraphists, but since that date, vacancies have been filled by successful candidates at the Women Sorters' examinations, who are awarded the Women Telegraphists' scale of pay. There is, therefore, the anomaly of two different scales of pay being given to successful candidates in the Women Sorters' examinations. The Women Sorters also claim some outlet, or prospect of advancement, other than that provided by the "Senior Sorterships," of which there are a few in each department, carrying a supervising allowance of 3s. a week; this claim has been partly met by the apportionment of the new posts of Assistant Women Clerks previously mentioned.

Women Telephone Operators are a large and rapidly growing class, recruited entirely by nomination followed by a qualifying examination. They number at the present time about 4,000, including Supervisors. The growing use of the telephone is replacing the telegraph, and is likely to make of this class a serious rival to the grade of Telegraphist. In this connection, it is important to recognise that the change is likely to entail an enormous increase in the use of cheap labour. The maximum salary of the Telephonist in London is only 28s. per week. The work is extremely exacting and exhausting to the nervous system, so much so, that it is an absolute necessity for the maintenance of health that proper and adequate rest-room accommodation should be provided, and that the operators should be equipped with apparatus of the proper type.