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Behind all these moves the statisticians are at
work like ants. They have to be, otherwise the bottleneck would be
choking our war effort. There would be nothing but a ghost of a plan,
merely haunting a chaotic Britain. As it is, the country is divided into
a system of colored areas. The scarlet areas are those where there is an
urgent demand for unskilled women that can only be met by bringing in
women from beyond their daily traveling distance. In other words, these
are the areas that are badly in need of “mobile” unskilled women.
Then there are Red,
which are areas that need unskilled women, but can find them by
retaining all available women within their bounds. These areas cannot
export labour, but do not need to import it.
The Amber
districts have a nice balance of supply and demand, not unlike the Red,
but the demand is not quite urgent, and if necessary some of their
unskilled women can be sent to the screaming Scarlet areas.
The Green --
are mild and calm as their colour – are the areas where no demands are
foreseen that cannot be met, and in which there should be available
capacity. Happy area! But if you come into the category of “Surplus
unskilled mobile woman labour,” it is ten to one you will be moved out
and given a travel warrant for one of the hammering, roaring Scarlets.
Again, the country is divided into eleven Regions;
some of these are Demand Regions and others are Supply Regions. A Demand
Region is linked to one or more Supply Regions, whose duty is – and
here we may quote, in wonder and admiration, the official statement –
“to supply mobile women to preference vacancies in scarcity areas in
their linked Regions.” The phrase, let us confess it, is awful; it
reads at first like jargon running into delirium; but the reality behind
it is genuine and sober enough. It means that women who can leave their
homes in these regions must do so, in order to take on urgent war jobs
in districts where the war effort, and therefore the world’s freedom
and future, is in acute danger because there is not enough manpower for
the work.
Here is the story of Mabel Black, which illustrates
the type of transfer that workers so often find to understand:
Mabel, single, aged 32, was employed in a
small South Coast town as a shorthand-typist-secretary to a surgeon, and
as such had deferment. He decided to take on a part-time secretary, and
Mabel found for herself a post as secretary to an aircraft engineering
firm in the same town. But on being interviewed at the Exchange under
the Registration for Employment Order she was held to be available for
transfer, and so was offered a post as a shorthand typist in another
town.
She complained, because, she said, the
local post offered to her was on more vital war work than the post found
for her by the Exchange which involved her leaving home. The explanation
is that although the work offered to her locally was important, that
area is fairly rich in labour.
Accordingly, a “mobile” women must be
transferred from there to an area where there is shortage of labour, and
an “immobile” worker found for the local job. There was a situation
“immobile” worker available for the local aircraft engineering firm.
Viewing the case nationally, there are two people now on work vital to
the war effort instead of one.
The comb-out continues
As the demand for labour in war industries has
grown and grown, it has been necessary not only to pull more and more
younger women out of less essential jobs, but also to arrange that more
and more women who cannot be away from home all day should be given
part-time work. It is only in these two directions that any progress can
be made towards the fullest and most flexible possible use of manpower.
For example, the distributive trade have been
combed and re-combed to pull all available women out of them, and now
women up to 45 years of age are deemed to be generally available for
withdrawal, except in the food and coal trades, where a greater measure
of protection has had to be given. Again, the 1,200 firms that formerly
made in this country have been concentrated into 170 units for
manufactures, these 170 employing 6,500 workers. Some thousands of
employees in the furniture trade have been released for transfer to
direct war worker or to jobs from which they have released other workers
for direct war work.
The deferment procedure has been tightened. Older
men are considered as substitutes for younger men still in the munitions
industries. Men on the Appointments Register with organizing and
administrative experience who cannot at present be used have been asked
to volunteer for work in factories. More labour has been made available
by a further cutting down of production for the home market.
The new recruits for industries must come mainly
from those classes of women – for the most part married women – who
have not yet been called up. A large proportion of these can only take
part-time work.
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