TABLE 3.-Percent of Change1 in Cost of Living in Large Cities, Apr. 15 to May 15, 1943, by Groups 1 Based on changes in cost of goods purchased by wage earners and lower-salaried workers in large cities. 2 Rents collected at quarterly dates, Mar. 15, June 15, Sept. 15, and Dec. 15. Based on data for 56 cities. 4 Based on data for 21 cities. Based on data for 34 cities. Indexes for April revised; see footnotes 6 to 10, table 5. TABLE 4.-Percent of Change1 in Cost of Living in Large Cities, in Specified Periods 6 +2.7 6+.9 +1.9 -.2 6+.2 +3.5 2526 3 0 -1.1 5 8 +3.0 +.7 1 Based on changes in cost of goods purchased by wage earners and lower-salaried workers in large cities. TABLE 5.—Indexes of Cost of Living in Large Cities, May 15, 1943 Based on changes in cost of goods purchased by wage earners and lower-salaried workers in large cities. Rents collected at quarterly dates, March 15, June 15, September 15, and December 15. *Based on data for 56 cities. Based on data for 21 cities. Based on data for 34 cities. Indexes for April revised; all items 124.2; food 140.5. ? Indexes for April revised; all items 126.7; food 148.6. *Indexes for April revised; all items 131.0; food 152.5. Indexes for April revised; all items 123.8; food 143.4. 10 Indexes for April revised; all items 127.9; food 145.9. TABLE 6.-Indexes of Cost of Goods Purchased by Wage Earners and Lower-Salaried Workers in Large Cities, 1935 to May 1943 Living Costs of Woman Workers in New York, 1942 WOMAN workers living as family members in New York State, i September 1942, were found to require $1,160.70 per annum *** provide adequate maintenance and to protect health." Women living in furnished rooms and taking their meals in restaurants would requir approximately 10 percent more, according to previous studies. The above figure does not provide for income taxes or the buying of war bonds, inclusion of which would increase the cost to $1,480.36 To provide for taxes and bonds out of the $1,160.70, the budget would have to be reduced to such an extent that there would be n longer any assurance of adequate maintenance. Approximately half of the working woman's dollar goes for housing and food expenditures. When income taxes and war bonds ar included in the budget, the housing and food expenses decline to 36 percent, while taxes and bonds constitute 21 percent. The 1942 survey is the sixth annual study made by the Division of Women in Industry and Minimum Wage of the New York State Department of Labor. It stresses the shifts in price and quality from the previous year in the goods and services which working women purchased. In the period September 1941 to September 1942, the cost of the working woman's budget exclusive of taxes and war bonds increased 5.4 percent in the State as a whole. The heaviest increases were 10.9 percent for clothing, 9.5 percent for food, and 9.4 percent for clothing upkeep and personal care. Housing, fuel, and light costs rose only 1.8 percent. In addition to these increases there was a deterioration in quality in various goods, and at the same time there was a reduction in retailers' "frills" and services. The budget adjusted to rationing regulations, effective at the close of 1942, was compiled previous to the more recently published regulations affecting shoes, processed food, meats, fats, and oils. The annual living costs of a woman living as a family member in New York State, in New York City, and in smaller cities are reported in the following table. Annual Cost of Adequate Maintenance and Protection of Health for a Woman Worker Living as a Family Member in New York State, 1942 Adequate Maintenance and Protection of Health for Women Workers in New York State, September 1942. New York, Division of Women in Industry and Minimum Wage, New York State Department of Labor, 1943. Training Woman Leaders for Production-Line Work A MICHIGAN plant reports on recent successful experiments in replacing men by women as production-line leaders. Other feminine employees of the establishment have stated that "women leaders are O. K.-being women they understand our troubles and we can talk to them more easily." The scheme was inaugurated some months ago, according to the May 1943 issue of Supervision,' which carries a brief article on the program. In the beginning, 15 girls, after careful vocational analysis. and aptitude tests, were placed on semiskilled production work. Eight of this select group were taken from the inspection department and 7 from the high-production department. Each trainee was allocated to a special zone, in which she was called upon to show her ability to carry on every operation. In this way the establishment hoped to discover whether or not a woman trainee would be more effective as a leader through transfer to another department or by taking her from the group which she would later supervise. An agreement was signed by each trainee which stipulated the length of her probationary-service period. The date of her first automatic pay increase was explained, and she began her on-the-job training and conference training. The job instructors maintained progress reports for each trainee. Of the first group of 15 trainees, 5 from the inspection department were returned to their previous jobs, as they were found unadaptable to machine work. One of the trainees finished her on-the-job training in 5 weeks, and was placed as a leader. After a study of the performance of trainees from the inspection department, it was agreed not to appoint leaders from departments other than the one in which they would be expected to function as leaders. The initial experiments indicated that the average girl trainee from a department in which she is later to act a leader can, as a rule, complete her on-the-job training within 6 or 7 weeks. Conference training is continued until 12 conferences have been attended, at the rate of 2 a week. Based on its experience with the first 15 trainees, the plant devised an appointment and training routine for women suitable for leaders, the objective being to have 78 female leader trainees in the highproduction department and 51 such trainees in the lap department. At the time the article under review was prepared, the company had 50 leader trainees in the high-production department and 10 trainees in the lap department. Thirty-one leaders, after completing their job and conference training, had become leaders on production. On March 1, 1943, 3 leader trainees in heat inspection were appointed. 1 Magazine of Industrial Relations and Operating Management, New York, N. Y. "Equal Pay" Principle in New York War Industries THE rate paid on a job, without regard to sex, becomes a more important issue as increasing numbers of women replace men in the factories. The first 12 months of war showed a very decided industrial acceleration, together with a rise in volume of employment. In New York State, where a considerable number of jobless workers had not yet been absorbed, the replacing of men by women was not very obvious, among the establishments applying for dispensation from the labor law under the War Emergency Act, until the latter half of 1942.1 During the first half of the year the labor shortage was not generally acute. In that period only 14 percent of the 1,135 plants asking for such dispensations with reference to working conditions reported that women were taking jobs previously or ordinarily done by men. However, in the second half of the year this replacement was carried on at a rising tempo. Of the 1,912 establishments requesting dispensations affecting working conditions during the period June to December 7, 1942, nearly 30 percent reported replacing men by women, as compared with 14 percent for the preceding period. The statement below shows that of 551 reporting plants in New York State, 314 paid equal entrance rates to women replacing men. Plants reporting replacement 1 551 Equal entrance rate.. Lower entrance rate 173 44 129 Equal rate for some occupations, lower for others-- 26 1 Employers' reports to factory inspectors during the period June 1 to December 7, 1942. Up to May 1942 the ratio of women to men rose only slightly, to 10 percent. Based on employment data for December 1942, women constituted 18.6 percent of the force in the industries covered. Employers reported they were substituting women as assemblers and bench workers, as inspectors, and, most frequently, as operators of such machines as drill presses, milling machines, lathes, punch presses, and screw machines. Women have also replaced men in other occupations such as grinding, welding, riveting. and even as crane operators. Almost 37 percent of the war plants in these metal industries reported lower entrance rates for women and an additional 5 percent indicated lower rates only for some occupations. In 57 plants manufacturing textile-mill products and apparel, women were reported to be taking the place of men as weavers, spinners, knitting-machine and other machine operators. Employers in several industries stated they were hiring women as laboratory workers and chemists. The nonmanufacturing industrial enterprises which, in periods of expanding employment, lose their workers to more remunerative jobs also reported that they were substituting women for men, notably in the messenger service of telegraph companies and as counter and kitchen aids in war-establishment restaurants. The industries showing the highest expansion in war production, namely, the metals and machinery group, were those which most frequently stated that their men were being replaced by women. Numerically, this is also the most substantial group asking for the The "Equal Pay Principle" in the Replacement of Men and Women in New York War Industries New York, Department of Labor, Division of Women in Industry and Minimum Wage. (Reprint from Industrial Bulletin, March 1943.) |