|
| Women workers after VJ-Day |
|
During the war, women operated lathes, grinders, milling machines and automatic screw machines- - jobs usually performed by men. Although occasionally women are still performing these operations, their number is proportionately less than during the war. Veterans with machine-shop experience have been given preference in filling vacancies in such jobs. During the war, some women did blanking and forming on heavier work than that to which they had been assigned in the prewar period. This has been largely discontinued, but women still predominate as light-press operators. The few women taken on as cutters in the garment trades are quickly being replaced by men; the cutters, highest paid of the clothing workers, are traditionally men. In the bus company, where women were taken on as bus drivers, bus cleaners, bus washers, stock and tool-crib attendants, and garage helpers, management has already replaced all but the drivers and a few cleaners with men, and, while women drivers with union seniority will be retained, no more women will be hired for this job. In February 1946, women constituted about a third of the Bridgeport labor force. Almost all the women who were working in Bridgeport in February 1946 did so to support themselves or to support themselves and others. The range of occupations in which women may expect to find employment in Bridgeport has narrowed since the war. Finding a job is particularly difficult for older women (40 years and over), married women, women without high school education, and Negro women. Many Bridgeport women were earning less in February 1946 than during the war (40% earned less; 10% earned more; the rest unchanged.) (excerpted from: U.S. Department of Labor Women's Bureau, Women Workers after VJ-Day in One Community-Bridgeport, Connecticut. Bulletin #216. Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1947.) |