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With thousands of women going into new war industries and replacing the men who have been conscripted, it is more important than ever that women be brought into unions and auxiliaries. This will be one of the best ways of insuring that the gains labor has made in the past will not be wiped out as they were during the last war. "In Union There Is Strength" [[BOLD lettering]] With 9,000,000 unemployed workers wanting jobs, women who are now housewives, agricultural or domestic workers will not be called on to work in war industries in any great number unless they can be hired to work for less than the men are demanding. Hence the dire need of organizing and educating women so that they will not undermine union wage scales that have been built up. Equal pay for equal work should be the goal of every union in the drive to see to it that one group of workers doesn't undermine the wage standards of the other. In the current drive by big business to reduce wages and lengthen hours on the grounds of an "emergency" it is necessary for women to take an active part in the union campaign to safeguard legislation limiting hours of work and putting a floor under wages. There are 25 states that have minimum wage laws for women, all but five states have a maximum hour law for women which prohibits more than a 40-hour week. Seventeen states have laws regulating home work and federal laws limit hours for women in factories coming under interstate commerce. All of these laws are under attack today. It was largely the women in unions who were responsible for the campaign to get these laws protecting them passed and it will be the job of the women in the union along with their brother unionists to protect and extend these laws. 24 [[end of page 24]] [[start of page 25]] Who Wants Women Conscripted? [[BOLD lettering]] WHEN the Military Training Camps Assn., better known as the Plattsburgh group, met to draw up the original plans for a peacetime conscription bill the plans included the drafting of women. When some over-zealous ladies, bored with their rounds of bridges, teas and luncheons, demanded organization of the women too, Col. Julius Ochs Adler, wealthy vice-president and general manager of the New York Times admitted that the original plans of the Military Training Camps Assn. called for the conscription of women, but that it had been taken out as they did not think public opinion would stand for it at that time. Ever since this statement was made there has been a conserted drive to influence public opinion to the point where such a plan would be readily accepted. This is how it is being done: At the National Assn. of Manufacturers annual meeting in New York early in December, Margaret Culkin Banning, a writer, told the big business delegates at the meeting that some release will have to be found for the emotional drive women are experiencing on the topic of national defense. "It is almost frightening the way women are getting worked up. All of this emotion must be used or it will be harmful. It will turn to fear and war hysteria," said the writer. Mrs. Emily Post, that paragon of etiquette, suggested that one way women could help would be to go home and figure out improvements for their local communities such as cutting relief costs! Eleanor Roosevelt, wife of the President, formerly a spokesman for independence for women, has made several 25 [[end of page 25]]
