MUNITION WORKERS IN ENGLAND.

Auckland Star, Volume XLVII, Issue 156, 1 July 1916, Page 17

MUNITION WORKERS IN ENGLAND.

Munition work Gounda very fine, and there is the other side. An English exchange says:—Think of a day begun at 4 or even -3.30 a.m. for work at (i a.m., followed by fourteen hours in the factory and another two to two and a-half hours on the journey back, ending at 10 or 10.30 p.m. in a home or lodging where ttie prevailing degree of overcrowding preclude* all possibility of comfortable rest. Beds are never empty and rooms are never aired, for in a badiy crowded dUtrict the beds, like the occupants, are organised in day and night shifts. One of the leading: manufacturers of munitions in the country worked liia women for one year and four months seven days a week in 12----hour shift?. After considerable negotiations with the National Federation oi Women Workers they reduced the hours by one shift a week, giving Saturday off, but retaining Sunday labour. Tne firm is now so satisfied with the results in production that they propose to reduce the hours still further. In several inotances prirls have worked thirty consecutive nights without a break. In one case a woman's working week was 93 ho'.-rs. which, is, of course, illegal. She was paid just over 2jd per hour. In another factory the piris worked sever day? a week and had one Sunday off a month. The National Federation o: Women Workers does not mean to resl ; until it has procured eight-hour shifts for ail women munition workers. Ther< i* sufficient labour, but it needs to b< better organised.