INTRODUCTION

Tho service which the public received from the Telephone Company in the pre-war period was almost above criticism. In the last two years, especially during the year 1919, the service deteriorated to such an extent that business was crippled and the public seriously inconvenienced. By December, 1919, the situation had become so acute that the Governor, desirous of throwing some light on the relation of the working conditions of telephone operators to the increasingly inefficient service rendered the public, sent the following letter to the Industrial Commission of the State of New York:

December 22, 1919.

The Honorable, The State Industrial Commission, 230 Fifth Avenue, New York City:

You are hereby directed to request the Bureau of Women in Industry to make an investigation of the conditions of employment for women in the telephone exchanges throughout the State with especial reference to

1st-Wages

2nd - Hours of labor

3rd Sanitation

4th-Labor turnover and its causes;

that this special investigation be made for the purpose of supplying your Commission and the Public Service Commission with necessary information. According to the newspapers some investigation of the telephone exchanges has been made by the Health Commissioner of the City of New York. I am also informed that the employees of the telephone companies have asked for a hearing on the question of their wages, before the Public Service Commission. I am given to understand that this hearing is to be held sometime in January.

Truly yours,

ALFRED E. SMITH.

On December 23, 1919, the Industrial Commission of the State of New York passed a resolution requesting the Bureau of Women in Industry to make the investigation of the conditions of employment for women in the telephone exchanges throughout the State, with special reference to wages, hours of labor, sanitation, labor turnover and its causes.

Telephony is one of the newest of our large commercial industries, dating only from 1876. In the earlier years of its history

the telephone industry employed only men and boys, but in its development it has become one of the largest employers of women and girls. Executives in the telephone industry make the claim that women are much more successful and satisfactory operators than men or boys, and hence the replacement of men and boys by women and girls on the operating force.

There is perhaps no other industry that has so rapidly increased in improvements and where invention has played such a large part.

The farmer living in remote districts of the Middle West is in close communication, by means of the telephone, with his neighbor and the country store. The business man, spending his summer on the coast of Maine, can be kept in constant contact, by means of the telephone, with his office in New York City. From coast to coast, all over the country, the telephone has come to play an important part in economic, social and industrial life.

The American Telephone and Telegraph Company system practically controls the great national net-work of toll lines. The New York Telephone Company is a subsidiary Company of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company and in New York City handles only local and suburban calls.

The telephone industry is a continuous one-it must operate twenty-four hours of the day and seven days of the week. Because of the fact that it is a public utility the fixing of rates and standards is within the power of the Public Service Commission. This Commission, however, has never done anything more than the fixing of rates. It has never exercised its power to go into the efficiency of the organization from the point of view of the worker.

The women who are employed by the New York Telephone Company are not subject to any of the regulations of the New York State Labor Laws. The laws limiting the hours of factory and mercantile workers to nine a day and fifty-four a week, and prohibiting their employment at night, do not cover the telephone operators.

Two studies of importance have already been made. The first was published in 1907, and was a report of the Royal Commission on a dispute respecting hours of employment between the Bell Telephone Company of Canada and the operators of Toronto, Ontario.

This dispute hinged on the point that the working time of the operators was to be lengthened from 5 to 8 hours. The operators contended that it was a physical impossibility to stand such long hours. The Company at that time refused to deal with them in any way and a strike was threatened, which would so seriously have affected the public's interest that the Canadian Government stepped in to settle the dispute.

The second investigation was that of the Department of Commerce and Labor of the United States Government in 1910, after a resolution was introduced into the Senate asking that an investigation be made of the telephone companies engaged in the conduct of inter-state business as to their method of business, wages, hours, Both these reports threw considerable light on telephony, and are significant in that these official bodies at that time argued that the wages of the workers were too low and the hours too long.

etc.

SCOPE OF STUDY

Following the suggestions in the Governor's letter, the points covered in the study submitted deal generally with hours, wages and labor turnover. Sanitation was not considered to any great extent in this investigation, because of lack of time and because the Board of Health of the City of New York had so recently made a survey of sanitary conditions in the Telephone Company.

In conference between officials of the Telephone Company and the Chief of the Bureau of Women in Industry, the week ending December 13, 1919, was decided upon as a typical period of time in which to study the pay-roll and the hours of the operating force. The hour and wage discussions which are considered in this report cover only this week. The labor turnover, however, is taken on a yearly basis for the year 1919, and in other parts of the report, wherever possible, records for the entire year are used.

Roughly speaking the study covers two-thirds of the girls employed in the exchanges of each geographical division, totaling 12,326 operators. The choice of exchanges was also reached in conference with officials of the New York Telephone Company, in order that we might have a correct picture.

In undertaking this study of the New York Telephone Company, the Bureau of Women in Industry had the fullest co-operation and support from the officials of the Company. An office was assigned to the Bureau in the New York Telephone Company's building and the officials of the Company gave unsparingly of their time and assistance.

The Bureau of Women in Industry began this study on January 2, 1920, and is submitting the final report to the Industrial Commission of New York State on April 6, 1920.

[10]

SYSTEMS OF EMPLOYMENT AND TRAINING

The main difficulty in the Telephone Company in New York City at the present time is the fact that there is not a sufficient supply of trained operators to care adequately for the central office positions. The employment methods of the Company are then of paramount importance.

Prior to July, 1919, the employment for the New York Telephone Company was handled locally through the division Superintendents of Traffic in co-operation with the Advertising and Publicity Departments and the Training Schools, and ordinarily there was a waiting list of girls who wished to become telephone operators. This is still true in some parts of the State at the present time. In Albany, for instance, there were 50 girls on the waiting list in January of this year. In New York City, however, the situation had become so serious by July of last year that the employment work was separated from the Training School and made into a department, with an Employment Manager in charge.

In September, 1919, the main employment office for operators at 1158 Broadway was opened, after some $5,600 had been spent on remodeling and furnishing the necessary rooms. A staff of seven are employed at this office, where everything has been arranged to show the applicants who come in that telephone operating is an attractive occupation.

The policy of the Employment Department has been one made necessary by the desperate need of the Company a policy of securing operators at any cost, by any legitimate means. No money has been spared. Few experiments in systems of advertising, bonus plans, etc., have been left untried. The Employment Department, created because of the serious situation due to a shortage in operators, has had that unhappy problem of attempting to meet ever increasing difficulties. With the public clamoring on one hand for better service, with operators constantly and increasingly leaving, on the other hand, the Employment Department has had to struggle somehow to meet the situation as best it might, and its course has not been an easy one. By February first