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282
1909]
It is pathetic to realize how much a day in the green fields means to a woman
who has worked for ten, or in soane cases even twenty years without a holiday. One of the
workers who had thus benefitted remarked: "It gives me something to think about all the
winter." The main object of the Association at present, however, is to get the homeworkers
to organize, and for this purpose a meeting of some of the representatives of the Board
of Trade and the boxmakers was held recently at Bethnal Green, as without cohesion on
the part of the workers, it is difficult to realize how the provisions of the Bill will be
helpful to those persons for whose benefit it is principally intended.
Therefore I have ventured to bring to your notice in this report an item that,
though perhaps not absolutely connected with the work of the Inspector, has had so great
an influence on this particular class of workers that no report on their conditions, etc., in
the Borough would be complete without it.
Offices where women are employed.—According to your instructions, inspection has been
made of 55 offices employing women clerks.
The results showed that the conditions were far from satisfactory. 27 of the
premises had no separate sanitary accommodation for the women clerks employed; or, the
approach to the w.c.'s was on a public staircase, or in a room where men were constantly
employed, and without any sort of screen. In one instance there was no w.c. accommodation
of any sort provided for the clerks; in another, application for the key had to be made
to the manager, while in one establishment the pan was fixed in a store-room, without any
partition round it, from which goods were continually taken and replaced by the
warehousemen.
Two of the offices inspected were overcrowded and badly ventilated, and it
appeared from the results of the comparatively few inspections made that women clerks
frequently work under conditions that would not be tolerated in any factory or workshop.
The chief difficulty in remedying these conditions arises from the fact that it is
doubtful whether an office would be legally held to be a " workshop," under the Act, and
therefore the clauses that provide for the well-being and comfort of the factory operatives
leave the women who work in a higher grade of the labour market unprotected. It is very
desirable that some definite decision should be given by the Courts as to the precise
meaning of the word " workshop" before mentioned, so that, if it is not intended to include
offices and similar places where work is carried on for purposes of gain (i.e., workplaces), an
amending Act might be passed that would compel all employers of labour (whether clerical
i.r manual) to provide decent and adequate accommodation for the comfort and well-being
of their employees.
I remain, Sir,
Yours obediently,
(Mrs..) A. CATHERINE YOUNG,
Inspector of Workshops.