Page:Women Wanted.djvu/186

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WOMEN WANTED

seven days, you are able to produce only a six-days' output. Except for extraordinary, sudden emergencies, "overtime" is a most wasteful expedient. "The effect of all overtime should be carefully watched and workers should be at once relieved from it when fatigue becomes apparent." Recently in a "General Order" for the hosiery trade, a condition included "that every fourth week must be kept entirely free from overtime." A White Paper says: "The result of fatigue which advances beyond physiological limits ('overstrain') not only reduces capacity at the moment, but does damage of a more permanent kind which will affect capacity for periods far beyond the next normal period of rest. It will plainly be uneconomical to allow this damage to be done."

Oh, Mrs. Lewis, you can see that something has happened, that there's an entirely new sort of place in industry for woman on the other side, as there's going to be here. In France the gallant government almost sees her home from work, at least they make sure of her safety in getting there. When the employés of a factory live at a distance involving a journey to and from work by trolley or train, it is permitted for the women to arrive fifteen minutes later in the morning and to stop work at night fifteen minutes earlier than the men. Thus they avoid the rush hour and the congestion on the trains.

It was in a factory on the banks of the Seine that I noticed another thoughtful attention. There were hundreds of women engaged in making munitions