HC Deb 05 March 1942 vol 378 c779
3. Miss Eleanor Rathbone

asked the Minister of Labour, whether he is satisfied that women are being sufficiently employed as dilutees in the sheet metal workers' industry; and whether impediments are due to any lack of an agreement with the trade unions concerned, or to the refusal of sheet metal workers individually to train or work with women?

Mr. Bevin

Women are employed to a limited extent on the simpler types of sheet metal work. The Relaxation of Customs Agreement, entered into in June, 1940, between the Engineering Employers' Federation and the two sheet metal workers' unions provided, as a wartime measure, for the employment of male dilutees on sheet metal work. Negotiations have been proceeding between the parties to the Agreement on the question whether the employment of women on sheet metal work should be extended, and I am myself proposing to hold a meeting between the representatives of employers' and workers' organisations concerned in connection with the matter in the immediate future.

Miss Rathbone

Considering that these negotiations have been going on since, I think, June, 1940, is it not time that the unions catering for sheet metal workers came into line with other unions and permitted the employment of dilutee labour?

Mr. Bevin

The difficulty is that there is no real shortage of sheet metal workers, as there is of other metal workers. The question is whether sheet metal workers should be transferred to other skilled work and women introduced on sheet metal work. That is quite a different problem from that of having a shortage to make up in the trade.