Note 38 — Chapter IV · MEN AND WOMEN AS WORKERS.

This is the real opposition which the men offer to women. In Perth and Bungay, for instance, the women put in a bill at the end of each week, worked out on the men's scale of rates. The cashier then divides the total by two and pays the women accordingly. In Edinburgh women's piece rates for composing average about two-thirds those of men. At Warrington, women do machine-ruling for prices ranging from 15s. to 20s., whilst men are paid 32s. for the same work. A more definite statement is made by a Manchester employer. He estimated that a woman was two-thirds as valuable in a printer's and stationer's warehouse as a man, and she was paid 15s. or 20s. to his 33s. A further example of this is given in connection with a Scottish firm executing Government work. "As the Government insists upon the men's Union price being paid, the work is being done by men, although in the ordinary way it would have been done by women." "But they would never allow the women," said our informant of her employers, "to make such big money as that."