APPENDIX

STATISTICAL TABLES

PAGE

Names and approximate size of exchanges covered in hour and wage inquiry

69

Showing number of days worked by regular time operators.

80

Table showing percentage of operators on split trick.

82

Table showing percentage of absentees December 8, 9, 10..

83

Table showing percentage of operators with broken time December 8, 9, 10 83 Productive hours lost.

84

Number of times days of absence and broken time were or were not paid for by company

Table showing number of workers at each basic wage.

Table showing period of service, exclusive of students in training school.. 94

[4]

RECOMMENDATIONS

The Bureau of Women in Industry recognizes that recommendatious for the improvement of the labor policy of the Telephone Company fall under two general headings:

First, reduction of labor turnover. A telephone operator is not a real asset to the Company until she has been with it for one year. Therefore, every effort should be made to retain the operators.

Second, an increased number of operators. Traffic has increased 27.5% from January, 1919, to January, 1920. It is necessary, therefore, that the number of operators increase proportionately to the increase in traffic.

As means of meeting the problems presented by these two factors, the Bureau of Women in Industry would therefore recommend:

(1) Scientific selection of suitable operators by the Employment Department in order to decrease the labor turnover within the Training School itself.

(2) A re-organization of labor management, so that the same department, preferably the Employment Department, is responsible for employing, dismissing and accepting resignations of operators, thus securing co-ordinated methods of handling labor supply.

(3) The limitation of the number of working days to six.

(4) Compulsory rest periods of 15 to 20 minutes at reasonable intervals for every operator, preferably splitting the trick in two equal parts.

(5) The elimination of all overtime, and the gradual establishment of a seven-hour shift for the day and the night operators similar to the seven-hour shift for evening and split-trick operators.

(6) A higher maximum wage rate, and a faster rate of promotion for an employee who has been in the service two years. Increase in wage, after this period, which marks the beginning of 100% efficiency, should be such that it will be an incentive to remain with the Company.

(7) The extension of the facilities of the Medical Department to give operators periodical physical examinations with particular reference to nervous strain and its effect on health and efficiency. In order to make this effective, complete medical records for each employee should be kept.

(8) A democratic system of organization and representation among the employees, through which they may express their de sires and by which they may acquire a sense of responsibility toward their work.

The Bureau of Women in Industry would recommend further: (1) An amendment or amendments to the Labor Law which shall include telephone exchanges as subject to the supervision of the Industrial Commission as prescribed for factory and mercantile establishments under Section 51-a of the Labor Law.

(2) The serious consideration by the Public Service Commission of the items in this report which have a bearing upon the much complained of inadequacy of the telephone service, with such action to remedy these defects as is possible under its broad powers.

The 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

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.