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Packing Rowntrees Black Magic, 1956
© Borthwick Institute
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“Very strict but very good …”: Women’s memories of rules and regulations at the Rowntree factory, York |
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By the mid-20th Century women constituted over half of the factory workforce: they numbered 3,557 compared to 3,468 men in 1950 and this figure does not include seasonal or part time women workers. Women were thus crucial to the Rowntree business. What were their experiences of working in the confectionery industry? How did their status as women affect the ways in which they experienced factory rules concerning timekeeping, uniform, and general behaviour? Using the oral testimonies of individual women workers, this article will examine women’s memories of factory rules and how, at times, such rules could be broken.
“Blicking in”: Timekeeping
Employee packing pastilles, 1929
© Borthwick Institute |
Working hours varied and could be different for men and women. The short evening shift, for example, which was introduced to increase production after the Second World War, was designed to appeal to working mothers. For those working full time in the 1950s the day started at 7.30am and finished at 5pm. Rules on timekeeping were strict and everyone had to “blick in” (putting their time card into a clocking-in machine) to record their exact starting and finishing times.
However, some women found it impossible to keep to these times due to the demands of childcare, or perhaps caring for other relatives. One employee, Edna, remembered in her oral history how she resisted threats of getting the sack for being repeatedly late when her mother was ill. Women’s relationship to factory time, regulated by “blicking in” and the buzzer, could be complicated by commitments outside paid work.
In contrast to some factories, women were allowed short toilet breaks between the regulated rest periods. Many manipulated this to their advantage, perhaps to go for a cigarette as smoking was forbidden in the factory. As Lillian recalled, “sometimes it was just a break you know.”
The phenomenon of being tied to the machines was experienced mainly by female operatives, while men moved around the factory more freely. Women discussed this through the language of being treated like children and responded by resisting such controls, just as they might have rebelled at school. As Mavis described:
“it was like being at school actually…you got crafty. You used to think, ‘Yeah, I’m gonna take me time here.’ And, ‘Ooh, I’ve got terrible stomach aches,’ and go to the toilet and it - you might say, ‘Is it time of month?’ - if it was a woman - ‘Yeah.’ And more times than not it wasn’t”
Some women used the biology which consigned them to “the weaker sex” to fight the demands of industry.
Words: Emma Robertson
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