CHEAP FEMALE LABOR.

Evening Star, Issue 8644, 12 October 1891, Page 2

CHEAP FEMALE LABOR.

At a recent meeting of the Melbourne Trades Council an amusing discussion took place concerning the action of a Mr Marchant, of Richmond, in employing women as bottlewashere.

The Chairman reported that at the request of the bottlewashere a deputation had waited upon Mr Marchant, at his factory, to protest against the employment of female labor. They found Mr Marchant surrounded by his wife and three or four young women, and though they tried to speak to him privately he declined to step on one side, bo that the deputation had to remonstrate with him in the presence of the women employes, which was very objectionable to them. Mr Marchant simply refused to discharge the women and to take on men in their place. His argument was that the business would not " run " it, as he had made no sales as yet, but was simply giving away thousands of bottles of hop beer. Mrs Marchant said on no consideration would she part with the girls, and that two of them were widows and, had dear, good little children at home who wanted looking after. The deputation pointed out that the women could surely do better than by getting 15s per week to keep themselves and their children. Mrs Marchant was evidently a woman who tried to pose as a philanthropist; but his own opinion was that she was simply * shrewd, sharp* business woman. Anyway, she intended to stick to the girls. Her husband said that he would be in favor of employing men if his wife would agreo. A Member: Adam and Eve again.— (Laughter ) The Chairman: Mr Marchant also said that it the business increased he would employ men, but that at present he could not give them employment for half the time. A Member: Why didn't yon talk to his wife!

The Chairman: We had a long talk with his wife.—(Laughter.) She is a woman who goes in for women's suffrage, and she means to stick np for ber girls. The Executive Committee presented a report recommending that the various trades and labor organisations and the public should be invited not to patronise any business in which cheap female labor had been introduced for the purpose of competing unfairly with male labor, and not to purchase retail any goods manufactured in such establishments.

Mr Aram suggested that such a resolution would greatly interfere with women engaged in legitimate occupations, such as tutoresses. The Executive Committee had been limply asked to deal with the grier>

ance of the bottlewashers, and they had no right to deal with the whole question of female labor,

The Chairman pointed out that within the past fortnight a judge in England had ruled that any such resolution dealing with a particular trade amounted to boycotting, and was illegal. This general resolution was not intended to interfere with the Tailoresses* Union, but was passed in the hope that it might do the bottlewashers some good. _ Mr Hyman: All the Executive Committee intended was to object to the unfair competition of women with men. Mr J. J. Campbell said that women labor—he hated the word "female"—was like a vine with phylloxera vanlatrix. The only possible courae was to caat it out root and branch. A Voice: "You're a stump grubber. (Laughter.) Mr J. J. Campcll: Women labor was a curse, and it was a perfect scandal in a young community like this that women should have to work for such a paltry pittance, and that they should have to follow such a degrading occupation as bottle washing. The thing could never bo settled until the wages of mechanics were fixed by statute, and until a law was pianed guaranteeing every working man his proper wage. The Chairman was sorry to hear such an expression as "degrading" applied to any occupation. Representatives of every branch of labor were recognised as equal in the council chamber, and the expression "degrading " was calculated to hurt the feelings of the representatives of the bottlewashers in the Council.

Mr Campbell withdrew the expression. He thought that one of the planks of the platform of the Progressive Political League should be a law to fix the wages of every mechanic at 12s per day. Then they would be able to support the women.—(Laughter.) Mr Mahoney thought that to object to women labor was a very narrow-minded view to take. The fact was that the one thing necessary was to get the woman to organise so as to keep up the rate of wages. , ~ Mr Fleming thought that women should have equal rights with men. What the Executive Committee wished to do was to stop such wretched traffic in women as went on at the Melbourne coffeo palaces, where girls were kept from 7 a.m. until 11 p.m., with two hours off in the afternoon. He supported the adoption of the report. Mr Thomas said that the labor at which the women ouaht to bo employed—the laundry business—was taken up by an alien race, The Chairman reminded members that the question at issue waß not the employment of women, but that in this instance women were doing work at 15j per week for which a man would receive from 36j to L2 53 per week. The report was adopted.