Page:Women Wanted.djvu/203

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THE NEW WAGE ENVELOPE
187

6d. an hour. In Paris the women conductors on the suburban lines have been advanced from the former 4 francs a day to the men's 5 francs. Glasgow has 1020 women conductors at men's pay, 27 shillings a week. London has 2000 women omnibus conductors with the wage formerly paid to men, 38 shillings a week. Even the German brewers have come to equal pay for women. Thousands of women in munitions in England are making 30 shillings a week. Some at Woolwich are making £2 to £3 per week, a few up to £4 a week. Henrietta Boardman at a skilled man's job gets exactly a man's pay, 1 shilling 1d. and 1 farthing an hour, amounting to about £4 a week. At the sixteenth annual congress of the Labour Party, held in Manchester, England, in January, 1917, the following resolution was introduced: "That in view of the great national services rendered by women, during this time of war and of the importance of maintaining a high level of wages for both men and women workers, the Conference urges, That all women employed in trades formerly closed to them should only continue to be so employed at trade union rates (the wages paid to men)."

For the new woman in industry is too efficient to be countenanced as a competitor in the labour market to offer herself at a lower wage than men. Trade unions may even admit her as a comrade, not yet but soon. For she's safer to them that way! In England they are giving their cordial support to Mary McArthur with her organisation, The National Federation of Women Workers, in which there are al-