Page 455 - The_story_of_the_C._W._S._The_jubilee_history_of_the_cooperative_wholesale_society,_limited._1863-1913_(IA_storyofcwsjubill00redf) (1)_Neat

A Minimum for Women Employees.
provisions permitting learners to enter a trade at any age; and the
rates are reckoned per hour.
The Congress scale ignored hours of
labour and was based on age simply.
At the Congress of 1908 the
Bolton Society, while sympathetic with the object desired, moved
that the actual scale be referred back for fuller consideration, but
the voting in favour of the table showed a large "
majority over the
amendment." The next year, when the Congress met at Newcastle,
an official resolution, in recommending the scale, stated that it had
met with " general approval; " and though the Woolwich Society
sought to provide for the first and last figures only, leaving the
intermediate details to the management committees concerned, the
rate as it stood was re-adopted. At this Congress Mr. Lander first
hinted at the practical difficulties there would be in such absolute
figures for a body fike the C.W.S., and said he was " coming to the
conclusion that there was no way of doing this (fixing minimum
wages) except by legislation and the estabhshment of wages boards."
In 1910 the Congress met at Plymouth. It was stated that the
Congress resolution had been sent out to 1,500 societies, but only 79
were willing to adopt the scale. This was regretted, and again the
payment was urged. The United Board did not " suggest that the
scheme and scales of payment is either perfect or final, but they look
upon it as a basis upon which a still more equitable and reasonable
system of remuneration . . . may ultimately be realised."
Beyond this point, so far as the present narrative is concerned, the
issue of the minimum wage was transferred from the Congresses to
the Quarterly Meetings of the Wholesale Society.
Instinctively it was felt that the Engfish federation was the
fortress either to be held or captured. And in June, 1911, the
Enfield Highway and twenty-eight other societies moved for the
Congress scale as applying to women and girls to be put in force
" in all departments where no trade union rate for women exists."
But the Oldham Equitable Society asked for an adjournment
for six months, the C.W.S. Committee to report in the meantime,
and this latter resolution easily was carried. In November of
the same year, therefore, "the executive of the federation issued
a full and frank statement of the entire case as it appeared from
their point of view. The directorate had found it necessary not
to confine the report to the departments "where no trade union
Only 1,616 female workers were touched by union
rates exist."
rates, compared with 5,456 under conditions undetermined. Of
the total number (7,072) those below the scale numbered 4,121,
359