PATRICIA BRITO
Protective Legislation in Ohio:
The Inter-war Years
During the 1920s, protective
legislation-legislation that applied only to
women and was intended to preserve the
health and safety of the female
worker-made obvious the conflict between
orthodox trade union theory
and the expeditious achievement of
economic goals. The American
Federation of Labor and its Ohio
affiliate, the Ohio State Federation of
Labor, subscribed to the doctrine of
"voluntarism," the idea that labor's
best interests were served by voluntary
organization and collective
bargaining. This implied that the state
should play only a minimal role in
regulating economic conditions. Hence,
on those issues that could be
resolved through the bargaining process,
the union jealously guarded its
role as a spokesman for the laborer's
interest.1 The AF of L opposed
legislation to set a minimum wage or
maximum hours for male workers
because, in its view, reliance on social
welfare legislation would ultimately
weaken union organization. As the AF of
L Executive Council warned in
1923: "The threat of state invasion
of industrial life is real. . . . The
continuing clamor for extension of state
regulatory powers under the guise
of reform and deliverance from evil can
but lead into greater confusion and
hopeless entanglements."2
Labor's position on protective
legislation for women suggests the
practical limits and hidden meaning of
the Federation's voluntarist
ideology. As a group of largely
unskilled, unorganized workers expected to
remain in the work force only a short
time, women posed a considerable
threat to the wage level. Labor's
voluntaristic philosophy suggested that
improvement in wages and hours, for both
sexes, should come through
Patricia Brito is a graduate student at
Rice University
1. For a more complete discussion of
organized labor's voluntaristic philosophy, see
George Gilmary Higgins, Voluntarism
in Organized Labor in the United States, 1930-1940,
The Catholic University of America,
Studies in Economics, Vol. 13 (Washington, D.C.,
1944), 35-51; Max M. Kampelman,
"Labor in Politics," Interpreting the Labor Movement,
eds. George W. Brooks, Milton Derber,
David A. McCabe and Philip Taft (Champaign,
1952), 171-91; Louis S. Reed, The
Labor Philosophy of Samuel Gompers (New York, 1930);
and Selig Perlman, A Theory of the
Labor Movement (New York, 1928; reprint ed., New
York, 1949).
2. American Federation of Labor, Report
of Proceedings, Forty-third Annual Conven-
tion, 1923, 31.
174 OHIO HISTORY
collective bargaining between the
employer and the employee. At the same
time, union leaders believed that women
were inherently difficult to
organize. Thus, for male union officials
there was this contradiction:
women should organize and bargain for
wages and working conditions,
but because they were difficult to
organize this approach was already
doomed to failure. Complicating this,
labor union officials and members
shared the common assumption that a
woman's role in nurturing future
generations was sufficient reason that
her health, safety, and morals should
receive special protection. For example,
the AF of L convention approved
a resolution favoring restrictions on
night work for women on the grounds
that "there is necessity for the
protection of the health of women workers;
that unless this protection is given
them the race cannot continue to
progress as it is desired that it
should."3
The history of the Ohio State Federation
of Labor and protective
legislation during the period between
World Wars I and II suggests that
voluntarism, with its attendant
anti-statism, was an abstraction invoked to
justify positions that served the
interests of dominant elements within
organized labor.4 Two
significant pieces of protective legislation were
passed in Ohio during the inter-war
period. One-the legislative
prohibition of women from certain
occupations-illustrates the
willingness of craft unions to resort to
state regulation to protect men's jobs
and wages against competition from
women. The second, and more
important, piece of legislation was the
provision of a minimum wage for
women. This never received support from
the Ohio State Federation of
Labor. Like the AF of L, the OSF of L
opposed such social welfare
regulation as a violation of its
voluntaristic philosophy. Those opposed to
the law felt that a legislatively
determined minimum wage might usurp the
role of collective bargaining,
especially if it were eventually extended to
cover male workers. Hence, when
protective legislation was written to
make men's jobs secure against
competition from less well-paid women,
predominantly male unions accepted it.
However, when such legislation
threatened to interfere with what unions
viewed as their self-interest, it was
rejected as a violation of trade
unionism and voluntaristic union
philosophy.
3. AF of L.. Proceedings, 1919,
240, 450.
4. Michael Rogin's analysis of the
voluntaristic ideology of the AF of L and its practical
effects reaches a similar conclusion
about the national organization. See Michael Rogin,
"Voluntarism: The Political
Functions of an Antipolitical Doctrine," Industrial and Labor
Relations Review, 15 (July, 1962), 521-35. In Rogin's view, Gompers'
voluntaristic
philosophy legitimized craft union
control within the organization.
Protective Legislation 175
OCCUPATIONAL PROHIBITIONS
During the 1919 legislative session, the
Ohio State Federation of Labor
sponsored a statute in the state
legislature prohibiting the employment of
women in a long list of occupations.
Among the occupations prohibited to
women were such disparate pursuits as
molding, work as baggage or freight
handlers, taxi-driving, reading electric
meters, and work in blast furnaces,
smelters, mines, quarries, poolrooms, or
establishments that catered to an
exclusively male clientele and sold
"substitutes for intoxicating liquors."5
The passage of this law can be
attributed to the coincidence of several
factors. During World War I, women moved
into some previously male
occupations. This phenomenon created
alarm among male workers, who
feared that women would lower prevailing
wages, impede unionization,
and eventually displace men. At the same
time, spurred by the needs of war
production, the government took an
active role in coordinating and
overseeing industry. The government's
announced policy was that
workers, especially women workers,
should enjoy a reasonable working
day and safe and healthful workplace
conditions. In the case of women, this
protection sometimes took the form of
restrictions on the occupations in
which they were allowed to work. Such
guidelines meshed neatly with the
interests of the International Molders'
Union, which had long attempted to
bar women from foundry occupations. This
union furnished the immediate
impetus for the passage of the Ohio law
prohibiting women from selected
occupations.
During World War I, women moved out of
the low-paying manufac-
turing industries that had traditionally
employed them and into better paid
positions in defense factories. In
defense-related manufacturing, the
absolute numbers of women workers
increased dramatically over prewar
levels, and as men were drafted into the
armed services, women increased as
a percentage of the total workforce in
these industries. In the summer of
1914, they comprised 6.5 percent of the
employees in defense-related
manufacturing; by the late fall of 1918,
they constituted 13.9 percent.6 In
almost all manufacturing defense industries,
a larger proportion of firms
hired at least some women during the war
than had previously been the
case. Hence, the increase in female
employment for these industries reflects
not only the addition of women in firms
that had hired them before the war,
5. Ohio General Assembly, Journal of
the House of Representatives, 83rd Gen. Assem.,
Reg. Sess., 1919 (Columbus, 1919); Ohio,
General Code (Page's Compact Edition, 1920),
Sees. 1008 and 1008-1; Cleveland Citizen,
Feb. 1, 1919; Ohio State Federation of Labor,
Proceedings of the Thirty-Sixth
Annual Convention, 1919, 31-32.
Hereafter referred to as
OSFL, Proceedings.
6. U.S. Department of Labor, Women's
Bureau, The New Position of Women in American
Industry, Bull. 12 (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1920), 34-35, 89.
176 OHIO HISTORY
but also their employment in companies
where they had never before
worked. However, most women in
defense-related manufacturing were not
new entrants into the work force. Even
as defense factories added women
workers, employers in traditionally
female industries, such as spinning,
weaving, and knitting plants, reported
serious difficulty in retaining
employees.7
As with manufacturing industries,
railways and streetcar lines also
employed more women. For example, in the
railroad industry the number
of women tripled between 1917 and
October, 1918.8 Likewise, intra-urban
lines hired women in the highly visible
new job of streetcar conductor, and
by February 1918, 30 percent of the
conductors employed by the New York
Railways Company were women9. Again,
most of the women entering these
new positions were not new to the labor
force, but were experienced
workers who transferred from traditional
women's industries into better
paid positions. For example, the
majority of new clerks in the railroad
industry had previously been clerical
workers elsewhere. Women employed
as common laborers for the railroads had
usually been recruited out of
similarly unskilled work in traditional
female industries such as laundries,
hotels, restaurants, and domestic
service.
It is difficult to determine the extent
to which women in war industries
were substitutes for men. Obviously,
many were added to new positions,
manufacturing items not previously
produced, or worked in occupations
already predominantly female. Statistics
of the Women's Bureau show that
13 percent of all women employed in
defense manufacturing in late 1918
were substituting on men's jobs. Although
the Bureau felt that this figure
underestimated the substitution of women
for men, this still suggests that
few women were directly in competition
with men.10 Likewise, in the
railroad industry most women employees
were in fields that had been
predominantly female even before World
War I. In October 1918, 72
percent of the women in the industry
were in clerical positions.
Traditionally female occupations such as
car-cleaning, work as telephone
operators, and personal service in
dining rooms or kitchens accounted for
most of the balance.11 Nonetheless, the
list of occupations open to women
did expand, even though the numbers of
women in these occupations
remained small. In transportation, in
addition to work as conductors on
streetcar lines, new types of jobs were
opened in railroads as ticket sellers,
7. Ibid., 20-25, 44-47.
8. Maurine Weiner Greenwald, "Women
Workers and World War 1: The American
Railroad Industry, A Case Study," Journal
of Social History, 9 (Winter, 1975), 156.
9. Benjamin M. Squires, "Women
Street Railway Employees," U.S. Bureau of Labor
Statistics, Monthly Review, 6
(May, 1918), 1050.
10. Women's Bureau, New Position, 50,
54-55.
11. Greenwald, "Women
Workers," 156-57.
Protective Legislation 177
telegraph operators, and electric
welders. In jobs where they had already
worked before the war, women often took
on more responsibility than
previously. For example, women had long
worked as coremakers in
foundries, but during the war they moved
into the production of cores that
were larger and more complex.12
Whatever the actual facts about women
moving into men's occupations,
the perception of male workers in Ohio
was that women were rapidly
displacing men. The Cleveland Citizen,
the paper of the Cleveland Central
Labor Union, wrote in September of 1918:
What a queer world the boys in khaki
will behold when they come home again!
Women running streetcars, taxicabs,
elevators, fire engines, locomotives, and in
part also factories, mines, mills and
farms! And what will the returned soldier boy
say when they [sic] begin looking around
for their old jobs? That's the problem,
second now only to the war itself and
will take first place later.13
The Toledo Union Leader, the
publication of the Toledo Central Union,
also viewed the phenomenon with alarm.
In December 1918 it wrote, "But
it is not mere questions of the shifting
of labor that we face, puzzling as
those questions are. Wholly new
situations have been created. What of the
women who by the thousands have taken
places formerly occupied by
men?"14
The reaction of unionized male workers
to women workers in new jobs
was not confined to mere editorial
comment. At best, the unions tried to
keep women from undercutting their wages
by assuring that women in their
craft got equal pay for equal work, a
position that preserved men's wages as
well as benefitting women. In a more
direct challenge, the Motorman and
Conductors Union in Cleveland struck the
city's urban transport company
to force the dismissal of women hired as
"conductorettes." The union
argued that there was no shortage of
male workers for the job, and hence
women should be dismissed. In this case,
the male conductors made it clear
that they saw the employment of women in
these jobs as a threat by the
streetcar companies to lower wages and
replace men with a more tractable
group of workers.15
Coinciding with this alarm among male
workers that the war meant a
possible incursion of women into
previously male trades, defense work
during World War I encouraged stricter
government attention to the
12. Women's Bureau, New Position, 25-27,
107; Greenwald, "Women Workers," 157.
13. Cleveland Citizen, Sept. 14,
1918.
14. Toledo Union Leader, Dec. 18, 1918.
15. Cleveland Citizen, Aug. 31,
1918, Oct. 19, 1918; "Strike against Employment of
Women as Streetcar Conductors in
Cleveland," Monthly Labor Review, 8 (Jan., 1919), 224-
30; and "Case of Woman Streetcar
Conductors in Cleveland," Monthly Labor Review, 8
(May, 1919), 1456-58.
178 OHIO
HISTORY
conditions under which women worked.
Those Progressive organizations
that had long advocated protective
legislation provided the staff for many
of the government agencies designed to
oversee the entrance of women into
defense-related jobs. Josephine
Goldmark, research secretary of the
National Consumers' League, and Dr.
Alice Hamilton, a pioneer in
industrial medicine, were both on the
Committee on Labor of the Advisory
Council to the Council of National
Defense. Mary Anderson, organizer for
the Women's Trade Union League and
member of the Consumers' League
and American Association for Labor
Legislation, was assistant director of
the Women in Industry Service in the
Department of Labor.16 These
women had long histories as advocates of
government regulation for the
protection of the worker, especially the
woman worker. The war provided
new avenues of influence through the
multiplying defense agencies and
was, in a sense, the culmination of the
Progressive crusade for social
justice.17
In Ohio, the Consumers' League was the
single most influential group in
formulating guidelines for the
employment of women. The Consumers'
League of Ohio was a reform-minded
organization of Cleveland women
that, prior to World War I, had worked
with organized labor in Ohio to
secure passage of maximum hours laws for
women.18 Hence, the League
brought to its wartime task a strong
commitment to protectionist
legislation. The Committee on Women in
Industry, the state's principal
defense agency designated to oversee the
movement of women into new
industries, was for all practical
purposes the Consumers' League of Ohio
under another name. The Committee's
chairman was Myrta L. Jones,
executive committee member and later
president of the League. The
membership list of the Committee was
composed almost exclusively of
League members, and it operated from the
offices of the League in
Cleveland.19 The Committee
cooperated with the Industrial Commission
of Ohio in developing guidelines for the
employment of women workers,
and the Consumers' League Bulletin gave
great attention to publicizing
these policies. The guidelines suggested
by the Committee on Women in
16. "Protection of Labor
Standards," Monthly Review, 4 (May, 1917), 650; Durward
Howes ed. American Women: The
Standard Biographical Dictionary of Notable Women, 3
(Los Angeles, 1939).
17. Allen F. Davis, "Welfare,
Reform and World War I," American Quarterly, 19 (Fall,
967), 516-33.
18. Dennis Irven Harrison, "The
Consumers' League of Ohio: Women and Reform 1909-
1937" (unpublished dissertation,
Case Western University, 1975).
19. Harrison, "Consumers'
League," 57-58; Ohio Branch, Council of National Defense, A
History of the Activities of the Ohio
Branch Council of National Defense (Columbus, 1919),
54-56. The Ohio Committee on Women and
Children in Industry was a joint committee under
the Women's Committee, Ohio Branch
Council of National Defense and the National
Committee on Women in Industry, Advisory
Commission of the Council of National
Defense.
Protective Legislation 179 |
|
Industry usually accorded with suggestions of the Women in Industry Service of the U.S. Department of Labor, the War Labor Board, and the War Labor Policies Board. Thus, the Committee acted essentially as a publicist for the views or pronouncements of federal agencies. The policies of both the federal level war labor administration and Ohio's state Committee on Women in Industry were highly protectionist. The first tenet of both was that there should be no relaxation of legislative standards on hours and working conditions.20 There was considerable caution about the entrance of women into new occupations: women should go into occupations only if they were safe from physical hazards, economic exploitation, and possible moral corruption. The Bulletin of the Consumers' League of Ohio cautioned that, "Since the war began we have heard a great deal about this being the woman's hour-'The woman's hour has struck.' Certainly we rejoice at the many opportunities for women, but
20. "Federal Standards for the Employment of Women in Industry," Monthly Labor Review 8 (Jan., 1919), 216-21; Consumers' League of Ohio. Bulletin, Nov., 1918,2. Hereafter referred to as OCL, Bulletin. |
180 OHIO HISTORY
we do not want to see women exploited
for cheap labor, shunted wholesale
into industry without preliminary
provisions for training and study of
suitable work and safeguards for
women."21
Defense agencies not only emphasized the
need to protect women from
exploitation for women's own good, but
also stressed that the introduction
of large numbers of women might upset
the status quo in the labor market.
According to the War Labor Board, one reason
for the rigid application of
the equal wage principle was "to
prevent more women being brought into
industry than the needs of the nation
demand, in order that the American
home may be maintained as far as
possible, as it is during the war."22
Likewise, a War Labor Policy Board
directive stipulated that "The
introduction of women into positions
hitherto filled by men should not be
made a pretext for unnecessarily
displacing men."23 The Ohio Committee
on Women in Industry and the Consumers'
League echoed the sentiment.
The Consumers' League remarked," .
.. we do not want women to enter
industry until there is real need, we do
not want them to upset the labor
market, to take men's work when men are
still seeking employment."24
The defense agencies concerned
themselves not only with the protection
of women's physical safety, but their
morals as well. The policy of the War
Labor Policies Board was that women
should not replace men in
occupations or places of employment
where the moral atmosphere was
unfit for them. Examples of such
pursuits were work in barrooms or
poolrooms, and employment in streetcars
or elevators for females less than
twenty-one years old.25 In
Ohio, the Consumers' League showed the same
concern that women not be exposed to
morally questionable situations. In
its opinion, there were industries
"which for women involve distinct moral
hazards, these chiefly of course for the
young worker, and when they mean
night work." The seriousness which
the League attached to determining
which occupations posed a moral threat
is shown by the considerable
investigatory work which preceded the
decision that work as an elevator
operator was suitable for women during
the daytime, when it posed "no
more moral dangers . . . than other work
in public places."26
To shield women from economic
exploitation or moral corruption, the
War Labor Administration and its Ohio
counterpart advocated restric-
tions on their employment, although
affected women workers did not
21. OCL, Bulletin, Feb. 1918, 3.
22. "Federal Policy in the
Employment of Women," Monthly Labor Review, 7 (Nov.,
1918), 1337-38.
23. "Organization of the War Labor
Administration Completed," Monthly Labor Review,
7 (Aug., 1918), 288.
24. OCL, Bulletin, Feb., 1918, 3.
25. "Labor Administration
Completed," Monthly Labor Review, 288.
26. OCL, Bulletin, Nov., 1918, 1.
Protective Legislation 181
always appreciate such protection. For
example, the government's official
policy was that women should not be
allowed to work in jobs which were
deemed too exhausting. The Ohio
Consumers' League conducted an
investigation of women working as
section hands on railroads, and
concluded that the work was much too
heavy.27 The League's conclusion
was vindicated when the Women's Service
Section of the Railway
Administration came to the same
conclusion, and the Director General of
the Federal Railroad Administration
ordered the railroads to discontinue
completely the employment of women in
such work. This protective
measure was not welcomed by all women workers;
a number of female
section hands protested vigorously for
the right to retain their jobs.28
Similarly, the Ohio Consumers' League,
like the National Consumers'
League, advocated the prohibition of
nightwork for women workers, even
though their own investigations showed
that some women workers
preferred a night shift.29
The attitude that women should, in their
own interest, be barred from
some occupations that might be
physically or morally dangerous is obvious
in the guidelines for hiring women
developed by the Women in Industry
Committee of the Ohio Branch of the
Council of National Defense and the
Ohio Industrial Commission. In addition
to other protective measures,
these would have barred women from
express driving, delivery services,
freight elevators, baggage and freight
handling, trucking, poolrooms,
bowling alleys, and saloons, or work as
bellboys, taxi drivers, or pinboys.
Women under twenty-one were not to be
hired as elevator operators,
messengers, and street car conductors.30
There was no effective mechanism
for enforcing such guidelines. Their
importance arises from the fact that
they became law in 1919 when the Ohio
State Federation of Labor, at the
behest of Ohio locals of the
International Molders' Union, adapted them to
serve a much narrower purpose-the
exclusion of women from work as
molders.
The Ohio law was not the first instance
of unionized foundry workers
attempting to bar women from their
crafts through legislation. The
Molders' Union had long been opposed to
the employment of women as
coremakers or molders, since it felt
that the manufacture of small, simple
cores-the task most commonly assigned to
women-was properly part of
the training program for apprentices.
Consequently, the union not only
forbade membership to women, but its
constitution mandated the
expulsion of members who were guilty of
teaching women the process of
27. OCL, Bulletin, Nov., 1918, 1,
Feb., 1918, 2.
28. Greenwald, "Women's Work,"
166-67.
29. OCL, Bulletin, Nov., 1918,
5-6, Oct. 1, 1920. 1-4.
30. Harrison, "Consumers'
League," 57-58.
182 OHIO
HISTORY
coremaking or molding.31 Keeping
women out of the union, however, was
no solution to the problem of lowered
wages from competition with
women. The International Molders'
Journal reported: "Not only has the
Molders' Union been opposed to female
labor on humanitarian grounds,
but it has also fought it out of fear
that it would result in the lowering of the
standards attained by men. It is a fact
well known to the student of labor
problems that women can ordinarily be
obtained at a less wage than
men."32
It is not surprising, then, that local
unions would eventually want
legislation to prohibit women form
foundry occupations. Union molders
had attempted to get an absolute
legislative prohibition against women
coremakers in three eastern states prior
to World War I. In 1910 a law to
that effect was introduced into the New
York legislature; similar bills were
introduced in Massachusetts and New
Jersey in 1911 and 1912,
respectively.33 Although
union coremakers were unsuccessfull in all these
states in eliminating women altogether,
the State Factory Commission of
New York was sufficiently impressed by
the possible dangers of female
employment in foundries to establish
strict regulations governing the
conditions under which women could work
at such employment. These
required the building of partitions
between the core room and furnace
room and limited the weight of cores and
core boxes women were allowed
to lift. The New York Commission that
framed the legislation felt that the
regulations were sufficiently stringent
to prevent the extension of women's
employment and would, in a few years,
result in the complete elimination
of women in foundries.34
In Ohio, a similar foundry safety code
was instituted with hopes of
eliminating female coremakers. In 1914
the Molders' Union received OSF
of L
convention approval of a bill to have the
legislature establish a safety
code for foundries which would, among
other provisions, prohibit women
31. Frank T. Stockton, "Women in
the Foundry," International Molders' Journal, 52
(Jan., 1916), 45; Women's Bureau, New
Position, 107-9.
32. Stockton, "Women in the
Foundry," 45.
33. Ibid., 45-46; U.S. Dept. of
Labor, Women's Bureau, History of Labor Legislation for
Women in Three States, Bull. 66 (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1921), 2, 162-64,
114-17. The
support which the International gave
such efforts fluctuated. For example, the Executive
Board voted to give Union No. 441 of
Newark, N.J. $250 reimbursement against $475.50
expenses incurred "in furthering
legislation which would prohibit the employment of females
in the production of cores in the state
of New Jersey." Three years later when Union No.81 of
Elizabeth petitioned for financial
assistance to secure passage of an act to regulate female core
makers, the motion was denied.
"Officers' Reports and Proceedings of the Twenty-fifth
Session of the International Molders'
Union of North America," published as supplement to
International Molders' Journal, 53 (1917), 38, 99.
34. D. W. O'Connor, "Foundry
Legislation in New York State," International Molders'
Journal, 49 (April, 1913), 271-83; Women's Bureau, History of
Labor legislation, 162-64,
114-17; John R. O'Leary, "New York
State Foundry Rules Recently Adopted," International
Molders' Journal 51 (July, 1915), 495-511.
Protective Legislation 183
coremakers and foundry workers.
Eventually the request was referred to
the Ohio Industrial Commission, the
newly established state agency
responsible for drawing up safety codes
for various industries. The foundry
regulations eventually developed for
Ohio were almost identical to the New
York code. Women were not absolutely
prohibited from coremaking, but
their employment was strictly regulated.
For example, weightlifting
limitations for female coremakers were
stricter in Ohio than in New York.35
Union coremakers evidently hoped that
these regulations would not only
provide safer working conditions for all
foundry workers, but would
eliminate women from their craft. In a
resolution introduced at the OSF of
L annual convention several years after
the code's adoption, coremakers
endorsed such regulations for
"governing the employment of men and
women in foundries, and if possible to
eliminate the female molder and
coremaker."36
The opposition of unionized molders to
women in their craft clearly
predated World War I. However, the
emphasis on replacing male with
female workers during the war probably
created fears that there would be
an accelerated flow of women into
foundries. At its 1917 national
convention, the International Molders'
Union passed a resolution
vigorously condemning employers who were
using the war as a pretext to
employ females in foundries and other
factories where men had previously
worked. This was part of a resolution
that instructed the incoming officers
to use their "every effort to cure
the abuse now obtaining where female or
child labor is employed and every effort
be made to prevent its extension,"
and that they "give their best
thought and effort in opposing the
employment of females and child labor in
jobs recognized distinctly as
men's employment."37
Next fall, 1918, representatives of the
Molders' Union in Ohio
introduced a resolution at the Ohio
State Federation of Labor convention
asking the state organization to endorse
legislation prohibiting female
molders. The molders argued that fumes,
smoke, gases and the operation
of cranes and pouring of metals made the
molding department especially
dangerous, and that the foundry was
"the last place a woman should be
permitted to work." The resolution
instructed the OSF of L to have the
Industrial Commission incorporate a law
in the foundry code prohibiting
the employment of women in the molding
department of the foundries in
35. Foundry regulations in Ohio
prevented women from making cores where the combined
weight of core, corebox, and plate were
more than fifteen pounds; New York set the limit at
twenty-five pounds. John O'Neill,
"The Ohio Foundry Code," International Molders'
Journal, 52 (July 1916), 589-94; OSFL, Proceedings, 1914,
63-64, 84-85.
36. OSFL, Proceedings, 1920, 45.
37. "Officers' Reports and
Proceedings of the Twenty-fifth Session of the International
Molders' Union of North America,"
published as supplement to International Molders'
Journal, 53 (1917), 183, 221, 239.
184 OHIO HISTORY
Ohio. The resolution received convention
approval with no protests.38
The Executive Board of the OSF of L
decided to meet with the state's
Industrial Commission to determine the
best way to carry out the intention
of the Molders' resolution. This
consultation resulted in an expanded
measure that added molders to the list
of prohibited occupations in the
wartime guidelines on acceptable employment
for women that had been
suggested by the Industrial Commission
and the Women in Industry
Committee of the Ohio Branch, Council of
National Defense.39 Additional
strictures against women employees in
smelters, quarries, mines and blast
furnaces, which simply applied laws
already in force for female minors to
adult women, were also included.40 Finally,
the Consumers' League of
Ohio asked the cooperation of the OSF of
L in securing the extension of
legislation restricting hours to
occupations not already covered by state
laws. The Federation was already pledged
by a convention resolution to
support an extension of the maximum
hours law which would cover
women on streetcars, and at the League's
request added elevator operators
and ticket sellers to the list of people
who should receive such protection.41
The final bill, therefore, showed the
influence of at least three groups: the
Molders' Union, which had originally
wanted a prohibition against women
molders, the Ohio Industrial Commission,
and the Consumers' League,
which had suggested an extended list of
proscribed occupations and
additional restrictions on hours. The
bill was introduced into the Ohio
legislature in the spring of 1919 and
was signed by Governor James Cox on
June 15 of that year. The OSF of L
seemed pleased with the measure as
passed. At the 1919 convention, the
President mentioned in his report that,
although the enforcement of protective
legislation for women was still
inadequate, "In line with
recommendations made in the last annual report
of this department [the Industrial
Commission] the Legislature during the
last session made some very important
amendments to the child and female
labor, and the compulsory education
laws, which I am sure will assist very
materially in the enforcement of these
laws in the future."42
If the success of the Molders' Unions in
bending protective legislation to
their own ends was, in part, a product
of the fact that there were no
representatives of women molders to
protest, similar efforts by unionized
waiters provided an interesting
contrast. Unlike most occupations
prohibited to women by Ohio law, there
were already large numbers of
waitresses at work. Unlike the molders,
who simply wanted to bar future
38. OSFL, Proceedings, 1918, 51.
39. OSFL, Proceedings, 1919,
31-32; Ohio General Assembly, Journal, House of
Representatives, Reg. Sess., 1919.
40. Ohio, General Code (Page's
Compact Edition, 1926), Sees. 1008, 1008-1.
41. OCL, Bulletin, June 1919,
5-6; OSFL, Proceedings, 1918, 65.
42. OSFL, Proceedings, 1919, 29.
Protective Legislation 185
entry of women into an occupation that
was identifiably and
overwhelmingly male, waiters could not
hope to dislodge the large
numbers of women already at work in
restaurants. Furthermore,
waitresses and waiters belonged to the
same international-the Hotel and
Restaurant Employees International
Alliance and Bartenders' Inter-
national League of America-but to
separate local unions. Nonetheless, by
"protecting" women from night
work and immoral situations associated
with serving alcohol, waiters could
retain or increase their share of jobs.
Waitresses within organized labor
resisted such protection, and the
prohibitive legislation eventually
sanctioned by the OSF of L was much
narrower than that originally requested
by the waiters' unions.
Nationally, women comprised an
increasing proportion of employees in
the restaurant industry. In 1910 women
constituted 46 percent of all
waiters, but by 1930 they had increased
to 59 percent. This figure was not
seriously affected by the repeal of
prohibition; in 1940 women were still 56
percent of those classified in the
census as waiters or bartenders.43 Of
course, women worked for less than men,
even when organized. In 1914,
although union wages for Cleveland
waiters were only three cents more per
hour than those for waitresses, waiters
received fifty cents per hour for
overtime and union waitresses only
twenty-five cents. In Toledo, unionized
waiters were at even a greater
advantage, with hourly union wage rates
showing as much as an eleven cent spread
between organized waiters and
waitresses.44
The ostensible reason for controlling
women's employment in the
restaurant industry was that waitresses
should not be exposed to the
questionable moral atmosphere of
establishments that served alcohol.
However, the OSF of L convention
discussion on a proposed regulation to
limit waitresses' hours shows that,
given their declining position in the
industry, waiters also hoped such
legislation would reserve at least certain
jobs for men. In 1928 delegates from
Cleveland and Cincinnati locals
presented the annual OSF of L convention
with a resolution to make it
illegal for women to work in restaurants
between the hours of ten P.M. and
six A.M.
In the discussion that followed, the
attack on this restriction was
spearheaded by Kitty Donnelly, the
outspoken Vice-president of the Hotel
and Restaurant Employee's International
for the state. She claimed that,
should such a measure become law, many women
would be unable to take
care of their families.45 On the
opposite side of the question, spokesmen for
43. U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau
of the Census, Occupational Trends in the
United States 1900 to 1950, by David L. Kaplan and M. Claire Casey, Working Paper
No. 5
(Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1958).
44. Ohio Industrial Commission,
Department of Investigation and Statistics, Union Scale
of Wages and Hours of Labor in Ohio,
May 15, 1914, Report no. 5 (Columbus,
1915), 78.
45. OSFL, Proceedings, 1928, 67,
119-21.
186 OHIO HISTORY |
the waiters' unions argued that changes in the industry hurt their union's membership and favored women. Citing declining union membership among waiters, a Cleveland delegate claimed, "We are being replaced because of conditions in our industry. They are getting away from the service restaurants to the lunch counters." Furthermore, he continued, with women replacing men, "the only chance we have to maintain our jobs is in road houses."46 By restricting the hours of waitresses, the waiters would be able to keep those jobs in road houses where personnel were presumably required to work after ten o'clock in the evening. The reference to road houses was an allusion to the whole question of the propriety of women working where liquor was being consumed illegally. It was in waiters' self-interest to keep women out of such establishments. Once the association between late hours and liquor could be made,
46. OSFL, Proceedings, 1928, 121. |
Protective Legislation 187
however, the prohibition of nightwork
became a moral issue. It could then
be presented as an altruistic measure to
shield women from a seamy
environment rather than merely a matter
of men's selfish desire to retain
their jobs. Hence, a Cincinnati waiter
cast the question thus:
The people in the Union now are mostly
people working in road houses, where they
carry it [liquor] 'on the hip.' That isn't a place for the girls. I don't
think any woman
ought to work in a place where a man
pulls a bottle off his hip.47
Because of the objections raised by
women members of the Waitresses
Union, the Federation's Committee on
legislation took the unusual step of
suggesting that the resolution to limit
waitresses hours be referred back to
the Hotel and Restaurant Employees
International to see if a bill
acceptable to the disputing interests
could be constructed. There is no
evidence that the waiters returned with
a bill sanctioned by the
International, and the matter died.
However, with the repeal of prohibition
the question of regulating women in
restaurant work returned in another
form. Ohio law forbade women from
working where "substitutes for
intoxicating beverages" were sold.
The exact nature of these substitutes
remained undefined throughout the
prohibition era, but with the repeal of
prohibition the question of the
propriety of women's serving alcoholic
beverages reemerged. In December, 1933,
Kitty Donnelly charged that
"certain groups" were trying
to mobilize public opinion against women
serving drinks and warned that,
"All efforts to prevent waitresses from
serving alcoholic beverages in either
public or private eating places will
meet with vigorous opposition by
Waitresses Union Local 107." Although
she did not favor women as barmaids,
Mrs. Donnelly argued that, "we are
unable to understand why a woman who
must work to support herself, and
in many instances her family, should be
prevented from serving beer, wine,
or any other alcoholic drink."48
Unionized waiters were among those who
were interested in keeping
women from serving alcoholic drinks in
restaurants and public eating
places. At the 1935 annual convention of
the Ohio State Federation of
Labor, the Cleveland Waiters' Union
introduced a resolution that,
although not actually barring women from
serving alcoholic beverages,
would have prohibited their working
where alcoholic beverages were
served after ten P.M. Again, members of
the Waitresses' Union campaigned
against the resolution and succeeded in
bringing about its defeat in the
convention.49 However,
unionized waiters were undeterred in their
attempts to protect women form whatever dangers
were inherent in a
47. Ibid.
48. Cleveland Plain Dealer, Dec.
10, 1933.
49. OSFL, Proceedings, 1935,
91-92, 144.
188 OHIO HISTORY
working association with alcohol. The
next year, members of the
Cincinnati and Cleveland Waiters' Union
introduced an even more
stringent resolution at the OSF of L
convention. This would have
prohibited the employment of women in
any place serving intoxicants.
Apparently, there was once again
division between the affected parties,
since the convention requested that a
bill "mutually agreed upon" be
drafted and later presented to the
Executive Board.50
A measure was eventually agreed upon and
presented to the OSF of L
Executive Board, but its provisions were
much narrower than the original
resolution. The bill brought to the OSF
of L by the Hotel and Restaurant
Workers International prohibited the
employment of women only as
barmaids and continued to allow their
employment in establishments
serving liquor. This alternative was
acceptable to unionized waitresses; the
previous year they had offered no
objection to a similar resolution passed
by the OSF of L convention at the
request of bartenders. Accordingly, the
Executive Board of the OSF of L voted
its approval of the measure and it
was introduced into the Ohio Legislature
in each of the next two sessions
(1937-38 and 1939-40).51 The
Federation's legislative agent reported
attending committee hearings in the
latter session to speak in favor of the
bill. In both sessions, however, efforts
to pass the bill were unsuccessful.52
Several of the occupations from which
women were legally barred in
Ohio did not employ many female workers
even in states in which such
employment was legal. Even without a
law, it is doubtful that there would
have been women workers in quarries,
smelters, or blast furnaces. Most of
the legal prohibitions did little harm
or good. Moreover, the first impetus
toward such legislation seems to have
been furnished by a desire to protect
men's occupations. In contrast, the Ohio
State Federation of Labor felt its
interests threatened by the possibility
of a minimum wage for women and
refused to support such protective
legislation.
MINIMUM WAGE
Beginning late in World War I and
continuing until 1924, the
Consumers' League of Ohio and the
Council on Women and Children in
50. OSFL, Proceedings, 1936, 79,
125.
51. OSFL, Proceedings, 1937, 28;
Ohio General Assembly, House, A Bill to Amend
Section 1008-1 of the General Code,
Relative to the Employment of Females, 92nd
Gen.
Assem., Reg. Sess., 1937-38, H. B.
118and Am.H.B. 118; OSFL, Proceedings, 1938,41, 137;
Ohio General Assembly, Journal of the
House of Representatives, 92nd Gen. Assem., Reg.
Sess., 1937-38 (Columbus, 1938), 109-676
passim; Ohio General Asembly, House, A Bill to
Amend Section 1008-1 of the General
Code, Relative to Prohibiting the Employment of
Women in Certain Occupations or
Capacities, 93rd Gen. Assem., Reg.
Sess., 1939-40, H. B.
47.
52. OSFL, Report of the Legislative
Agent, 1939, 85.
Protective Legislation 189
Industry campaigned vigorously but
unsuccessfully for a minimum wage
for Ohio women workers.53 Throughout,
the OSF of L refused to support
minimum wage legislation for women. In
1918 the question was raised with
the Executive Board of the OSF of L when
the legislative agent, Thomas J.
Donnelley, reported that the Committee
on Women and Children in
Industry was advocating the creation of
minimum wage boards in Ohio,
and that two labor members of the
committee, Nida Pangle and Kathryn
Nordman, had asked whether the AF of L
and OSF of L were in favor of
such boards.54 After
investigation showed that the national organization
had taken no official stand upon the
subject, the Executive Board argued
that it could not support such
legislation because the membership of
neither the AF of L nor the OSF of L had
approved such action in a
convention resolution. In taking this
position, the Executive Board was
either unaware of or chose to ignore a
resolution approved by the 1912
OSF of L convention that instructed the
Executive Board to draft and have
introduced into the General Assembly a bill
"for the establishment of a
minimum wage commission for the
determination of minimum wages in
the unskilled and 'sweated' industries
that employ women and that element
among the toilers whose wages are below
the living line."55 The Board
instructed its legislative agent to take
no position on minimum wage
legislation, except to assure labor a
position on any minimum wage
commissions which might result.
In 1921 and 1923, the Consumers' League
and the Council on Women
and Children in Industry sponsored bills
to create the necessary state
agency to set and administer a minimum
wage. In both instances the
proposed legislation would have
established a commission composed of
both employers and employees to set
minimum wages for female workers
by industry and occupation. Both
measures failed to pass the legislature.
The 1921 minimum wage bill passed the
House, but the Senate committee
to which it was referred, the Committee
on Manufactures and Commerce,
reported a substitute bill which was
completely unacceptable to the
sponsors of the original proposal. A
decision on the 1923 bill was avoided
when the General Assembly voted to
appoint an investigating commission
to study the matter further. Only a few
days after the Commission was
53. In December 1920, the wartime
Committee on Women and Children in Industry
became the Council on Women and Children
in Industry. This was later called the Council on
Women in Industry. The campaigns for a
minimum wage law in Ohio are discussed briefly in
Elizabeth Brandeis, "Labor
Legislation," History of Labor in the United States, 1896-1932,
Vol. III, ed. John R. Commons (New York,
1935), 519-22. For a more complete account, see
Harrison, "The Consumers'
League," chaps. IV, V, 90-164.
54. OSFL, Proceedings, 1918, 42.
55. OSFL, Proceedings, 1912, 103.
190 OHIO HISTORY
appointed, the Supreme Court's decision
in Adkins vs. Children's Hospital
invalidated the minimum wage law of the
District of Columbia.
Despite these setbacks, the meetings of
the Minimum Wage Commission
continued, and the Consumers' League and
the Ohio Council on Women
and Children in Industry prepared an
extensive brief for presentation to
that Commission. The briefs few
allusions to the Adkins decision leave the
impression that the constitutionality of
the state minimum wage laws was
still open to question. However, as the Bulletin
of the Council had already
reported, other state minimum wage laws
would undoubtedly be held
invalid, and thus it seemed that the
only remaining possibility was for a
nonmandatory law similar to that of
Massachusetts.56 The League's efforts
in behalf of such a law were to no
avail; as expected, the Commission
returned to the General Assembly with a
report unfavorable to any
minimum wage legislation. After this
defeat, the issue lay dormant until
depression conditions of the 1930s
revived interest.
The Executive Board of the OSF of L
refused to support either bill, since
there had been no vote to do so either
in its own convention or in the AF of
L. Attempts in 1921 and 1924 to pass
resolutions at OSF of L conventions
that would have put it on record in
favor of such legislation were defeated
by the substitution of resolutions for
further study.57 Therefore, the
Executive Board felt that it still
lacked the authorization to support such
legislation, and its refusal to do so
was a simple procedural matter.
However, a 1921 reply to proponents of
the measure suggested that its
reservations may have gone deeper. In
1921 the Executive Board of the
OSF of L wrote that "as the Trade
Union Movement is pledged to the
principle of Collective bargaining as
against wages fixed by law, the Board
could not co-operate at this time in
advocating Minimum Wage
Legislation."58 This
reduced the question to a clear conflict between
voluntaristic trade union orthodoxy and
state regulation.
This formulation of the controversy was
echoed on the convention floor
during the debate on the 1924 resolution
to support the mimimum wage
bill. John Frey, elected president of
the OSF of L at this convention, was a
strong opponent of mimimum wage laws
both on the convention floor and
in his position as editor of the International
Molders' Journal. He spoke in
behalf of voluntaristic orthodoxy by
asserting:
56. Consumers' League of Ohio and The
Council on Women in Industry, Operation of
Minimum Wage Laws: California,
Wisconsin, Massachusetts. (Brief
submitted to the Ohio
Legislative Committee to Investigate
Minimum Wage Legislation), 1924, 47, 77, 147; Ohio
Council on Women in Industry, Bulletin,
June,1923, 1.
57. OSFL, Proceedings, 1921, 77,
132; OSFL, Proceedings, 1924, 21-22, 103-111.
58. OSFL, Proceedings, 1921, 21.
Protective Legislation 191
.. .such a measure would not only work
eventually to their [women's]
disadvantage, but that in addition it
will create another handicap to those of us who
have placed our faith, as Trade
Unionists, in collective bargaining, as the only
method by which we will agree to have
our terms of employment established.59
Although representatives of organized
labor focused on the argument
that a minimum wage for women would
violate the principles of
voluntarism and the role of collective
bargaining, behind this was a more
serious apprehension about the effects
of a minimum wage for men. The
AF of L was unalterably opposed to a
legislatively determined minimum
wage for men because it felt that such a
measure would usurp the function
of the union organization. The
possibility that a minimum wage law for
women would eventually include men had
often been stressed by Samuel
Gompers and the national AF of L. The
Executive Council of the AF of L
had reported to the 1915 convention that
"The trade union movement has
opposed the regulation of working
conditions, hours of work, and wages
for men in private industry by law or by
political agents. Where equality
between men and women is established the
endorsement of this principle
for women becomes also a very serious
menace to the liberty of the men
wage-earners."60 Gompers
expressed a similar opinion that a minimum
wage law could be enacted safely only if
women were, in a sense, wards of
the state-a status inconsistent with
trade union support of women's
suffrage.61
This same fear was evident almost a
decade later in 1924, when the Ohio
State Federation of Labor debated a
resolution to endorse a minimum
wage for women. One delegate, for
example, held that
. . I realize that if this convention
goes on record to concede that right to the
Legislature to establish a minimum
rate-minimum wage for women-that the
Labor Movement of this country has lost
its right for collective bargaining, as it will
be easy to establish the same conditions
for men.62
The issue was then changed from a
question of the benefits or liabilities
inherent in a minimum wage law for women
to the effects of such a law for
men. Hence, the endorsement of a law for
women was tantamount to
agreeing to the loss of collective
bargaining power for men. One male
spokesman justified his opposition to a
minimum wage law for women
because "I want to remain a free
man as a wage earner, and not become a
subject of the State."63
59. OSFL, Proceedings, 1924,
104-105.
60. AF of L, Proceedings, 1915,
63.
61. Samuel Gompers letter to John I.
Nolan, reprinted in "Gompers on Minimum Wage
Law," International Molders'
Journal, 49 (April, 1913), 294-95.
62. OSFL, Proceedings, 1924, 107.
63. Ibid., 106.
192 OHIO HISTORY
The only remedy allowed for women was
organization: "They should
establish these minimum wage rates in
the same Trade Union manner in
which the men do."64 The
argument that women were difficult to organize
was not seen as sufficient reason to
pass special legislation, since this might
imply that unorganized male workers also
should be protected by state
minimum wage laws. Furthermore, a
minimum wage law was held to be
dangerous because it might actually
retard the organization of women.
John Frey first raised this point and
argued that while a number of states
had enacted laws creating minimum wage
commissions, no trade union
records showed an increase of organization
among women and, in fact, in
two states organization had decreased.
This argument appears particularly
self-serving, since Frey's own union,
the International Molders, refused
admission to women. Nida Pangle, a
delegate from the Waitresses' Union
and long an advocate of a minimum wage
law, reminded the convention
that trade unions had been negligent in
organizing women and that
delegates were thereby advocating a
remedy which they were not willing to
support with funds or sustained effort.65
Thus, even when opponents of a minimum
wage for women posed the
problem as one of clear-cut theoretical
objections to state intervention,
most delegates felt that more concrete
issues were at stake. As long as there
was a chance that such a law might be extended
to men, it was a threat to
what many predominantly male unions
perceived as their own ability to
bargain. Secondarily, if legal remedies
discouraged unionization among
women, such remedies were counter to the
interests of the OSF of L.
Although the state organization refused
to endorse a minimum wage for
women, it never went on record
specifically in opposition. Thus labor
leaders and publications were free to
support the measure. Max Hayes, a
long-time leader of the Socialist
opposition within the AF of L and editor
of the Cleveland Citizen, favored
such legislation. As previously
mentioned, Nida Pangle, a member of the
Toledo Central Labor Union
and of the Waitresses' Union, was an
active supporter of the bill. In March
1921, she and the legislative agent of
the OSF of L travelled to Cincinnati to
speak before that city's Central Labor
Union on the minimum wage bill
and to dissuade them from the view that
legislation for women only was a
form of discrimination.66
Several labor publications also endorsed
the minimum wage. For
example, the Cincinnati Labor
Advocate, the publication of the local
Building Trades Council, gave support to
the minimum wage in a number
of ways. First, it made considerable
space available to the Consumers'
64. Ibid., 105
65. Ibid., 106-110.
66. Harrison, "The Consumers'
League," 102-114; Toledo Union Leader, March 18,1921.
Protective Legislation 193
League of Cincinnati and the Catholic
Women of Columbia, two local
groups working for the minimum wage. In
1921 it published a statement
and appeal by the Catholic Women of
Columbia asking for help in the
campaign for the minimum wage. In
addition, considerable material
provided by the Consumers' League in
support of this legislation was
published, as well as the annual report
of that organization for 1922.67
In addition to giving interested
organizations free space to present
arguments in favor of minimum wage
legislation, the Labor Advocate gave
some editorial support to the measure.
Although saying that the minimum
wage was not a union measure because
"the unions make their own
minimum wage and fight to get it,"
the paper continued that such a measure
was "only supported by union labor
because it is a just cause."68 When Mrs.
Nettie B. Loughead, a Senator on the
Minimum Wage Commission of the
General Assembly and known to be opposed
to the minimum wage,
addressed the Lecture Club in
Cincinnati, she was roundly criticized by the
Labor Advocate. The paper suggested that "The women of Hamilton
County should elect a woman in Senator
Loughead's place with a woman's
desire to help her unfortunate sisters
to secure wages that will protect their
virtue."69
The Toledo Union Leader, the
voice of that city's Central Labor Union,
also gave the minimum wage measure at
least favorable mention. This
paper seemed unlikely to champion the
measure; in 1920 it had run several
short items about the failure of minimum
wage commissions in other states
under headlines such as "Trade
Union Theory is Again Vindicated" or
"Girls Must Organize to Gain
Recognition." These articles featured
quotations from other labor papers, the
general tenor of which was to point
out that "Women ought not to be
obliged to rely on a political or legal
mandate for their protection. Men have
found that political agencies
oftimes prove broken reeds when leaned
upon."70 However, in a 1921
broadside to supplement the newspaper,
the Union Leader referred to
minimum wage laws as union sponsored
measures "of incalcuable worth
to those to whom they relate."71
In reporting on the 1921 minimum wage
bill, it further noted that "The
trade union and other progressive women of
Ohio were bitterly disappointed when the
Schrimper bill to establish a
minimum wage commission was defeated in
the state legislature last
week."72
Nevertheless, in the 1920's the Ohio
State Federation of Labor refused to
67. Cincinnati Labor Advocate, Feb.
26, 1921; Ibid., March 5, 1921, April 14, 1923.
68. Ibid., April 21, 1923.
69. Ibid., April 28, 1923.
70. Toledo Union Leader, Oct. 22,
1920, Dec. 17, 1920.
71. Ibid., Feb. 13, 1921.
72. Ibid., May 20, 1921.
194 OHIO HISTORY
endorse a minimum wage bill for women
workers, since male craft unions
in the organization felt that such
legislation was dangerous to the interests
of organized labor. However, labor
opinion was by no means unanimous.
Several leaders within the state
organization favored such legislation;
moreover, some labor publications in
Ohio gave space and support to its
proponents. Such a division of opinion
was even more apparent in the early
1930s, when the issue was raised again
and Ohio did pass its minimum wage
law.
After the campaign of 1923 through 1924,
the Consumers' League of
Ohio dropped its efforts to pass a
minimum wage bill, wishing to
concentrate instead on legislation for
the abolition of child labor. The issue
of a minimum wage commission lay dormant
until the depression
conditions of the 1930s revived
interest. As early as 1931, the Ohio
Consumers' League began publicizing the
rapid drop in women's wages
which had occurred since the beginning
of the Great Depression.73 In
December 1932, the National Consumers'
League established state
minimum wage laws as one of its goals.
Initially, the Ohio Consumers'
League deferred work on such
legislation, preferring to concentrate instead
on child labor restrictions and
unemployment insurance.74 However,
sentiment for such a measure increased
in Ohio as falling women's wages
attracted public attention. A series of
articles in the Cleveland Plain Dealer
in early 1933 exposed the deplorable
conditions and low wages for women
workers in northeastern Ohio. Coinciding
with this, the Roosevelt
administration began to pressure Ohio.
In March 1933, Secretary of Labor
Frances Perkins called for a minimum
wage bill as a necessary piece of
legislation. In April, the New York
Legislature passed a minimum wage for
female workers in that state. Following
the passage of the New York bill,
President Roosevelt sent a telegram to
the governors of Ohio and twelve
other industrial states, commending the
New York measure and
recommending that they take similar
action.75
The Ohio minimum wage bill was endorsed
by William Green, president
of the AF of L, even before it was
introduced into the General Assembly.
Green voiced his approval in an address
before the Cleveland City Club in
late April and afterward in a letter to
the sponsor of the Ohio bill. The
Cleveland Plain Dealer suggested
that "This action of the national leader of
organized labor undoubtedly will carry
great weight with the Ohio and
Cleveland Federations of Labor in any
stand they may take on the
73. Cleveland Plain Dealer, June
6, 1931.
74. Harrison, "The Consumers'
League," 282.
75. Cleveland Citizen, March 25,
1933; Robert P. Ingalls, "New Y ork and the Minimum-
Wage Movement, 1933-1937." Labor
History, 15 (Spring, 1974), 179-198; The Public Papers
and Addresses of Franklin D.
Roosevelt, Vol. II, The Year of
Crisis 1933, comp. Samuel 1,
Rosenman (New York, 1938), 133-34.
Protective Legislation 195
measure."76 Some
important representatives of organized labor in Ohio
followed suit. On April 12, the Summit
County Central Labor Union
(Akron) wrote Governor George White to
urge that he consider a
minimum wage law for women. It was
joined in its support by the
Cleveland Federation of Labor, which
voted unanimously to endorse the
minimum wage bill and also agreed to
join the Ohio Labor Standards
committee, which was working for the
bill's enactment. Harry
McLaughlin, who was president of the OSF
of L as well as the Cleveland
Federation, pledged that the state
federation "would be on the job at
Columbus and aid in every way to push
over the proposed legislation." He
added, "We would like to see women
and children entirely out of industry,
but, since that does not seem possible
at present, we do want to see them
have the best working conditions that
can be secured, for we are not
selfish."77
Despite McLaughlin's pledge, the
legislative agent of the OSF of L was
not "on the job at Columbus"
when hearings were held on the bill. The
Executive Board of the OSF of L decided
that, in view of the failure of
either the AF of L or the OSF of L to go
on record in convention for
minimum wage legislation, the
organization's legislative agent should take
no position on the bill.78 Thus,
the OSF of L officially maintained the same
uncommitted stance it had assumed in the
1920s, despite the drastically
changed conditions of the 1930s and the
endorsement of such legislation by
the presidents of both the state and
national organizations.
The final passage of a minimum wage
measure for women workers was
the fruition of years of effort by
organizations such as the Consumers'
League interested in the protection of
the working woman. At the critical
juncture in its passage, however, the
deciding influence was brought to bear
by Washington rather than by any
organization within Ohio. A minimum
wage bill for women was introduced into
the Ohio House on May 18, 1933.
The bill passed the House on June 8,
1933, but the House's delay in
considering the bill seemed to doom its
chances of passage, for June 8 was
the deadline for consideration of
regular legislation.79 However, as was so
often the case in the progress of this
measure, the national government
intervened. A telegram from Secretary of
Labor Perkins to Governor
White urging the bill's passage resulted
in its being placed on the Senate
76. Toledo Union Leader, April
28, 1933, May 5, 1933, Cleveland Plain Dealer, May 1,
1933.
77. Summit County Central Labor Union,
letter to Gov. George White, April 14, 1933,
George White Papers, Ohio Historical
Society, Columbus, Ohio; Cleveland Plain Dealer,
May 4, 1933; Cleveland Citizen, May
6, 1933.
78. OSFL, Proceedings, 1934,
42-43.
79. Ohio General Assembly, Journal of
the House of Representatives, 90th Gen. Assem.,
Reg. Sess., 1933-34 (Columbus, 1934),
822-1100, passim; Cleveland Plain Dealer, June 8,
1933.
196 OHIO HISTORY
calendar. Through the strategem of
stopping the clock at a quarter until
midnight, the Senate officially passed
the bill on June 8, the last day of the
session, and it was signed by the
governor on June 30.80
Despite some union support, Ohio's
minimum wage for women was
never a measure of primary importance to
unions. The Cleveland press and
the Consumers' League of Ohio took the
initiative in again bringing the
question to the public's attention in
the early 1930s; the Roosevelt
administration was principally
responsible for its ultimate passage. The
measure received almost no mention in
state union publications, and the
legislative agent of the OSF of L was
instructed not to appear at hearings in
behalf of the measure. Yet, once in
effect, organized labor in Ohio was
quick to assure that its interests were
protected under the new minihum
wage law for women. Part of its
political program for the next year was a
request for union representation on the
minimum wage board. In 1935 the
OSF of L convention at last officially
endorsed a minimum wage law by
passing a resolution asking that the law
be made more stringent. Thus, the
Ohio State Federation of Labor gave its
official approval to a minimum
wage for women only after it was already
an established fact.
Throughout the 1930s, unions continued
attempts to exclude women
workers when they might threaten men's
jobs. As previously mentioned,
waiters worked throughout the decade to
curb increased employment of
women in restaurants. Furthermore, in
1932 the OSF of L agreed to
support the Polishers and Buffers Unions
in defending against a suit that
challenged the legislative exclusion of
women from that occupation. As
competition for jobs became more severe,
married women were singled out
as a particular threat to men's jobs,
and the annual convention of the OSF
of L approved a resolution asking the
legislature to consider legal
restrictions on the employment of both
husband and wife.81 Organized
labor was most interested in women when
they threatened men's jobs, and
then its interest resulted in attempts
to exclude them from occupations in
which they might compete with men.
While Ohio unions finally acquiesced in
a minimum wage law for
women, they did not initiate the
measure. This was true even though
throughout the Great Depression
officials of the Women's Bureau and
other interested observers suggested
that extremely low wages for women
encouraged employers to replace male
workers with females. Presumably,
a minimum wage for women that narrowed
the wage difference between
men and women would decrease the
advantage employers could hope to
80. Frances Perkins, telegram to Gov.
George White, June 8, 1933, George White Papers;
Cleveland Plain Dealer, June 9,
1933, June 10, 1933.
81. OSFL, Proceedings, 1932, 13,
102-104; OSFL, Proceedings, 1938, 80, 124.
Protective Legislation
197
gain by such a substitution.82
Therefore, higher wage standards for women
might protect men's jobs and wages. In
the face of low-wage competition
from female labor, and given the
recognized necessity of raising purchasing
power to combat unemployment, it is
surprising that Ohio unions were not
more active advocates of minimum wage
bills for women. Ohio union
publications did not discuss a minimum
wage for women as a possible
method to discourage employers from
hiring female labor. This was
certainly not because Ohio unions did
not care about the incursion of
women into occupations previously held
by men. Rather, it seems probable
that Ohio unions did not see a minimum
wage for women as effective
protection against such low-wage
competition, or that the predominant
craft unions did not feel particularly
threatened by the largely unskilled
female labor force. In those few
occupations where women were seen as a
threat to men's jobs, organized labor
preferred specific legislative
prohibitions to restrict their further
entry. Whatever support Ohio labor
finally gave to assuring female labor a
reasonable wage did not extend to
assuring women an equal opportunity in
the labor market.
82. For example, see statements by Mary
Anderson, Director of the Women's Bureau,
New York Times, Jan. 25, 1937,
and New York Times, Feb. 21, 1938. Also, column by Dale
Cox, Cleveland Plain Dealer, June
22, 1931. For an analysis that concludes that minimum
wage laws did discourage women's
employment, see John M. Peterson, "Employment Effects
of State Minimum Wages for Women: Three
Historical Cases Re-examined," Industrial and
Labor Relations Review, 12 (April, 1959), 406-22.
PATRICIA BRITO
Protective Legislation in Ohio:
The Inter-war Years
During the 1920s, protective
legislation-legislation that applied only to
women and was intended to preserve the
health and safety of the female
worker-made obvious the conflict between
orthodox trade union theory
and the expeditious achievement of
economic goals. The American
Federation of Labor and its Ohio
affiliate, the Ohio State Federation of
Labor, subscribed to the doctrine of
"voluntarism," the idea that labor's
best interests were served by voluntary
organization and collective
bargaining. This implied that the state
should play only a minimal role in
regulating economic conditions. Hence,
on those issues that could be
resolved through the bargaining process,
the union jealously guarded its
role as a spokesman for the laborer's
interest.1 The AF of L opposed
legislation to set a minimum wage or
maximum hours for male workers
because, in its view, reliance on social
welfare legislation would ultimately
weaken union organization. As the AF of
L Executive Council warned in
1923: "The threat of state invasion
of industrial life is real. . . . The
continuing clamor for extension of state
regulatory powers under the guise
of reform and deliverance from evil can
but lead into greater confusion and
hopeless entanglements."2
Labor's position on protective
legislation for women suggests the
practical limits and hidden meaning of
the Federation's voluntarist
ideology. As a group of largely
unskilled, unorganized workers expected to
remain in the work force only a short
time, women posed a considerable
threat to the wage level. Labor's
voluntaristic philosophy suggested that
improvement in wages and hours, for both
sexes, should come through
Patricia Brito is a graduate student at
Rice University
1. For a more complete discussion of
organized labor's voluntaristic philosophy, see
George Gilmary Higgins, Voluntarism
in Organized Labor in the United States, 1930-1940,
The Catholic University of America,
Studies in Economics, Vol. 13 (Washington, D.C.,
1944), 35-51; Max M. Kampelman,
"Labor in Politics," Interpreting the Labor Movement,
eds. George W. Brooks, Milton Derber,
David A. McCabe and Philip Taft (Champaign,
1952), 171-91; Louis S. Reed, The
Labor Philosophy of Samuel Gompers (New York, 1930);
and Selig Perlman, A Theory of the
Labor Movement (New York, 1928; reprint ed., New
York, 1949).
2. American Federation of Labor, Report
of Proceedings, Forty-third Annual Conven-
tion, 1923, 31.