labor together can do to reduce that burden will, I think, be one of the most constructive programs that can be carried on as far as working women are concerned.

I have found in the men's garment industry during the last 2 or 3 years a very marked change in the attitude of employers toward women workers. It has come, of course, more owing to the shortage of women for jobs in factories than anything else. It is an outgrowth of the war situation and of the continuing demand for women workers. For a long time we met with a very natural reaction of irritation about women being absent, or women taking maternity leave, but only irritation, not planning to meet the normal conditions of employment of women. But as we have gone along during these years, the basic fact that, in a woman-employing industry, a method of operation must be devised which takes into consideration the normal functions of women and which does not prove burdensome (or even catastrophic, as when on section work, too many women on the same section leave at the same time) has been more clearly recognized. So that now, instead of an attitude of irritation and complaint about absenteeism, and so on, there is more understanding, and if management and workers, jointly with government, begin to study just how much labor turn-over there is among working women and what the causes of absenteeism are, and they then work together at the job of solving the problem, progress can be made.

Miss Miller this morning referred to the lower wages on women's jobs. The figures she cited are conclusive, of course, on the matter. But one of the effects of the shortage of women workers during the war, and since, has been to change the attitudes about the classification of certain jobs that women work on. Work in the shirt factories, for example, was always considered unskilled until the last 3 or 4 years. Since that time it is not any longer considered unskilled. Women workers are hard to get now. It is hard to get somebody to take the place of another woman today to learn a job of sewing sleeves into a shirt, for example. It takes 6 months to learn to do that job right, to do it fast enough to get up to average production. Jobs of this sort were classified as semiskilled before, as high-speed sewing machine jobs. They were officially classed as semiskilled, but they were actually regarded by the employers as unskilled. But the effect of there not being a mass of women outside the doors looking for those jobs has resulted in their being classified as what they have always been-skilled jobs.

I think a little more of that kind of experience in American industry may have some influence on the attitude toward all of the jobs which women hold which are considered unskilled just because women hold

them. By definition they are unskilled because women do them. I think that attitude has been changing.

The real line of progress for women, of course, lies in jobs for everybody in our society. Women's problems, as well as minority problems, and all other related types of problems are less acute when we have full employment and prosperity. Through improving conditions of work for women we work in that direction, and in working in that direction lies the greatest possibility of improvement of working conditions for all working women. I thank you.

THE ROLE OF WOMEN'S LEGISLATION IN

MEETING BASIC PROBLEMS OF

WORKING CONDITIONS1

Elizabeth S. Magee, National Consumers League

Since we are keying the discussions of this conference to the progress which women have made in the last century, it may be appropriate to take a backward look for a moment to the time when we had no labor laws for women. In Massachusetts a little over a century ago, the Lowell Female Labor Reform Association, composed of workers in textile mills, presented petitions to the legislature urging the passage of a law "providing 10 hours shall constitute a day's work." The petitions declared that they were confined "from 13 to 14 hours per day in unhealthy apartments" and were thereby "hastening through pain, disease, and privation, down to a premature grave." The story of what happened to those petitions is reminiscent of the experience which many of us have had in working with legislatures: a special legislative committee was appointed to consider the petitions.

This was the first governmental investigation of labor conditions in the United States. After hearing testimony from manufacturers to the effect that the average daily hours in the mills were actually from 12 to 13 hours in April, and 111⁄2 hours in December and January, the committee unanimously recommended that legislation was not necessary at that time; that the health of the operatives was not being impaired by work in the mills; that the State could not reduce hours and compete with other States; and that legislation as to hours was bound to affect wages. Better conditions should come, the committee said, "by improvements in the arts and sciences, and in a higher appreciation of man's destiny, in a less love for money, and a more ardent love for social happiness and intellectual superiority." The members further agreed, "the remedy is not with us."

As an indication of the militancy of the members of the Lowell Female Labor Reform Association, it is encouraging to note that through their activity the chairman of this special committee of the legislature was defeated for reelection. A long struggle ensued, with more legislative committees and more campaigns, until finally, in 1874, a law was passed limiting the hours for women in manufacturing

1 See Appendix III, Summary of State Labor Laws for Women, in connection with this address.

in Massachusetts to 10 a day and 60 per week. This was the first effective law passed in the United States limiting the hours of women's employment.

Shortening the hours of work was one of the basic aims of the young and struggling labor movement during this period. Efforts to secure legislation for women paralleled the efforts of labor groups to secure shorter hours for men. The legislative battle was an arduous one. Although certain forward-looking employers voluntarily established shorter hours, and some were willing to speak out for them, the organized employer groups used the weight of their influence in State legislative halls in opposing every advance. It was a tough job to get the 10-hour day accepted, and another tough job to bring it down to 9 hours and then to 8. Legislatures had to be convinced over the opposition of employers' organizations, and court battles had to be fought. As the total hours were brought down, the coverage was gradually extended to more occupations, the first laws having dealt exclusively with women in factories. It was not until 1915 that the Supreme Court decision upholding the California 8-hour law 2 established the principle that if the State could control the hours of girls who worked in millinery establishments, the State could control the hours of chambermaids in hotels.

With this brief and sketchy review of the history of labor legislation for women as a background, I want to move on to discuss three things: 1. The status of the major types of such legislation today;

2. The factors which have affected the trends in this field in the last decade; and

3. Our responsibility for the promotion of standards which will advance women's economic status.

As we look at our situation today, viewed from the standpoint of 100 years ago, great progress has been made in reducing the workday and week, in achieving what Florence Kelley used to call "leisure by statute," but it is not good enough. Only 24 States and the District of Columbia have either an 8-hour day or a 44-48-hour week, or both. The 9-hour day with a 50- or 54-hour week is the limit in 10 States; the 10-hour day with a 54- to 60-hour week in 7 States. One State allows a 1012-hour day and one sets a weekly limit only. In 5 StatesAlabama, Florida, Iowa, Indiana, and West Virginia-there are no limits, either daily or weekly. In other words, in half of the States the 8-hour day has no legal basis.

Closely related to the weekly and daily hours is the day of rest. Again about half of the States provide one day's rest in seven, and half are without it. There is probably no more important standard for the protection of health, both of men and women, than this.

2 Miller v. Wilson, 236 U. S. 373; 35 Sup. Ct. 342 (1915).

wage laws in effect, 22 States without. (Four of the State laws have been extended in the last decade to cover men.) The Federal Fair Labor Standards Act affects those women who are engaged in interstate commerce or in manufacturing goods which move in interstate commerce. I shall have more to say about that important law later. The statutes affecting working conditions for women, such as lunch periods, seating, protection from dangerous materials, are very "spotty." Over 20 States, for instance, have no requirement of a meal period.

In all these laws many women are left out of coverage. Hospitals and other institutions have resisted regulation successfully in many States. Women in industrialized agriculture are practically without any regulation. In the occupations close to agriculture, such as canneries, fruit and vegetable packing sheds, and the like, unlimited overtime is allowed in many States. Domestic service is a field which is practically without standards. The regulation of hours and wages for this group presents very special difficulties, but there is certainly no good reason why they should be excluded from the protection of Social Security laws.

Several factors stand out in the last decade which have bearing on legislative trends. One is the substantial increase in the organization of women in trade unions. This, of course, has meant very real gains both for the women in the unions and for the unorganized workers whose standards and status are affected by the achievements of the organized. The increased organization, however, has led to a public impression in many quarters that there is no need for labor legislation, because the unions can take care of working conditions themselves. That this is a short-sighted and erroneous conclusion is obvious when we realize that although several million women probably are in trade unions, there are many kinds of work in which women are employed that are completely unorganized.

In the second place, Federal labor legislation of the last decade is of great significance. Outstanding among the enactments of the New Deal period was the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, bringing minimum-wage protection to thousands of women for the first time. But Federal action cannot cover all workers. State laws must be enacted to establish minimum wages for the large body of women employed in strictly intrastate occupations, such as retail and service trades, and to conserve the shorter workday. But somehow, the public has gotten the impression that Federal legislation has taken care of everything! The third factor of importance is World War II. The great expansion of industry and the increased demands for labor widened occupational opportunities for many women; it brought out clearly the need for equal-pay legislation-the one type of women's legisla