Reading Eagle (February 2, 1941)
HALF-MILLION BRITISH WOMEN WILL WORK ON DEFENSE
Even society groups will be drafted
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Needed to till fields, make munitions, says Labor Minister
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London, Feb. 1 (INS) –
Half a million women – many of whom have experienced no harder work than lifting a cocktail glass – must go to work in Britain’s war factories soon.
Thousands of shop girls and stenographers likely are to be conscripted for war labor within the next few weeks, it was learned today. But, in the words of Ernest Bevin, Minister of Labor, “the order will apply to the colonel’s lady as well as Judy O’Grady.”
Conscription of women, moreover, will dot ehm out of may of the things they love most – for they will have to turn their hands away from making hosiery, lace, household furnishings, and doo-dads, in order to make munitions and till the fields.
Issues ruling
Bevin, following a meeting with representatives of employers and the Trades Union Congress, announced that henceforth no man would be permitted to do any work which a woman was capable of performing.
Under his direction, the employers and unions set up a consultative committee, now functioning, to draft women into industry.
Bevin stressed that women now employed would work side by side with women who never had worked before.
Authorities today said that conscription of female labor is a matter of urgency. Sweeping changes in the schedule of “reserved occupations” were predicted, in order to free 500,000 girls and women for war work in the immediate future.
Key to their release is the “limitation of supply order,” an act designed to force down consumption of non-essentials. Thus the first to be enrolled for war work probably will be 100,000 women now engaged in the hosiery industry.
Will affect industries
The spindles of Manchester will become idle to a great extent. At present, 500,000 women are employed in the cotton spinning industry, and eventually a major portion of them will be drafted.
Other industries to be affected are the lace, carpet, glass, furniture, music, pottery and clothing.
However, the boss who depends on an expert secretary won’t have to give her up, so long as he is able to show that she is essential to his business.
But all “non-essential” women eventually will be drafted into war work according to the scheme now envisaged.