536 TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION F. 



Traffic Deportment. 



The basis generally adopted in the case of women ticket collectors has been 

 to pay them 3*. a week less than the scheduled rate for the position. Thus on 

 one system women are receiving 24s. instead of the men's rate of 27s. ; on 

 another, 20s. instead of 23s. Seeing that women are appointed direct to the post 

 without previous training, whereas men graduate from lower grades, this was 

 regarded as a fair and liberal arrangement, and the experience has been that 

 women are only too ready to come in on these terms. 



From what has already been said on the subdivision of labour among women 

 and men ticket collectors, it is clear that the value of women's work is less than 

 that of men and that this difference in the rate of wage no more than expresses 

 the superior training of the men, and the more arduous, difficult, and respon- 

 sible nature of the men collectors' work. 



The danger of undercutting, which is being urged in some quarters, does 

 not appear to be very serious in view of the importance to the Companies, fully 

 recognised, of the efficiency of the men ticket collectors, as_ being the chief 

 source of supply for the more responsible posts of the service, in consequence of 

 which any attempt to level down this branch of service to the plane of semi- 

 skilled or lower grade labour would be suicidal. 



Women 



20s. 



24s. 



18s. plus 2s. AVar Bonus 



minimum T ,^ ^y^^, -g^^^^ 3^ 22s. no Bonus 

 „„„. maximum I ^ 



23s. plus War Bonus 3s. . . . 20s. plus 2s. War Bonus 



25s. plus War Bonus 3s. . . . 20s. 



The fact that a woman will remain a comparatively short time in the 

 service makes the woman a bad investment to the employer, in compensation 

 for which he keeps her rate of pay, generally speaking, practically unchanged 

 during the last five or six years of service ; the woman, on the other hand, is 

 sometimes compensated for the lack of prospects and less training thanmen, by 

 a relatively higher wage in the earlier stages of her career. In some instances 

 (see appended tables) she is paid actually a higher wage between the ages of 

 16-19 than the youth of corresponding age on the same work. With a man the 

 position is reversed, since in the earlier stages he accepts a relatively low 

 rate of wage, regarding the remuneration of his services as being in part paid 

 in training (which in itself implies prospects) and part, as it were, held in 

 trust, to be paid in after years by a series of promotions and a rate of pay 

 relatively much higher. 



With these considerations in view, that a woman's inferior training and pros- 

 pects handicap her somewhat unfairly in competing with men on the operative 

 side of the railway staff, there seems to be good ground for pressing the exten- 

 sion of the policy of paying women a proportionately higher rate during the 

 early years of service. As regards the future of the railway clerk, the unions 

 view it with some misgiving ; the increased emplovment of women on the 

 clerical side of the service is, in fact, much more likely to be permanent than 

 on the operative side, and in certain branches it may be even further extended. 

 Decreasing competition between the different svstems during recent years, it 

 is argued, must end in lowering the standard of efficiency demanded from railway 

 clerks and is likely to lead to a further increase in the employment of women, 

 and this, it is feared, will have a depressing effect upon the men's wages. The 

 disabilities of women as compared with men in several branches of the 

 clerical service, and the fact that the harder and less pleasant work and the early 

 and late turns must continue to be performed by men, constitute a strong argu- 

 ment in the men's favour, and the right policy seems to be to insist on the higher 

 value of the men's service and to demand the maintenance of their present 

 rates of pay, rather than to demand what is less justifiexl by the facts, the 

 raising of women's rates to an equality with those paid to men. 



