One of the issues to arise out of the war-time experience of welfare supervision concerned conflict of loyalty in the role. To whom in an organisation was the welfare worker responsible? One source of this confusion arose from Rowntree's belief, based on the practice of welfare at the cocoa works, that welfare workers could represent both the interests of the directors and the employees,538 a belief confirmed in the observation of the Ministry's historians and in E.D. Proud's leading contemporary textbook.539 Somehow welfare work was to occupy the moral high ground, untainted by association with management or questions of efficiency and instances occurred in which welfare supervisors insisted that welfare should be divorced from considerations of efficiency and pressures to improve output.540 At the same time, whilst ostensibly representing the views of employees, a number of welfare workers took the view that they knew best and welfare measures were imposed on workers, rather than being introduced through mechanisms of co-operation and consultation, thus attracting the taint of philanthropy or patronage in the eyes of many workers.541 These patronising attitudes were well reflected in Proud's textbook when she declared that "women are habitually less thoughtful than men in matters concerning their own health"542 and thus welfare workers knew what was best for them.
The potential for conflict of interest in the welfare worker's role as a representative of employees whilst being on the employer's payroll were also commented on by contemporary observers. An article in the Woman Worker in 1917543 put the problem as follows:
"The present developments seem to us to place the sincere welfare worker in an impossible position. If she truly studies the interests of the girls her position is
538
Briggs (1961), op cit, p103.
539
HMG (1918-1922), op cit, V. III, p47; Proud (1916), op cit, p 67.
540
Melling, J (1983), Employers, industrial welfare and the struggle for workplace control, in Gospel and Littler, op cit, p70.
541
HMG (1918-1922), op cit, V. III, p48.
542
Proud (1916), op it, p78.
543
made difficult by the employer, to whom her recommendations often mean capital outlay; yet the girls never forget that she is part of the management staff and therefore suspect".
Similar observations were made by Sidney Webb, but from a perspective which was broadly supportive of the main objectives of welfare work (if not the way it had always been practised). Webb went on to make recommendations regarding the future role of the welfare worker, arguing that:
"It is not easy in some establishments to keep the balance between her duty to her employer, who is apt to be primarily concerned with increasing profits and her natural sympathies with the women workers' claims... The welfare superintendent must look after the interests of the employer, or he will not keep her; and she must genuinely promote the interests of the women whose welfare she is there to secure, or they will not be influenced by her."544
Webb rhetorically asked whether this was an insoluble dilemma and answered by saying that whilst many employers and employees might conclude that it was, he held a different view. He argued that it was desirable that welfare work "should remain in the middle ground and should not be drawn by management into other efficiency improvements".545 Recognising that some of the difficulties with welfare work had arisen because a number of appointees had been both unsuitable and untrained, he argued that at least a year of training in social studies (such as run by London University and others) should be insisted upon. In this way, welfare workers could operate in a semi-independent capacity providing professional advice to, but not becoming an integral part of an organisation's management. Moreover, Webb was not alone in holding this view, since similar opinions had also been expressed by senior lady factory inspectors.546
Other observers of the development of wartime welfare supervision, in particular some trade unionists, had more radical ideas of where welfare should be and to whom it should be accountable. Echoing the wartime demands by trade unions and shopfloor workers for greater democracy in industry, some trade unionists 544 Webb (1917), op cit, p149. 545 ibid, p151. 546
held the view that welfare should be democratised and placed under greater worker control, following an approach that had been adopted in a few factories during the war. At one factory, a welfare committee had been established in April 1916, consisting of twelve representatives elected by the workers and one representative, also elected by the workers, of the management. The committee had been given total discretion to administer a welfare fund, based on weekly deductions from payroll, to provide recreational or social activities and sickness benefits. In another instance, a works committee at a Sheffield foundry was given responsibility for overseeing welfare activities. The committee consisted only of trade union representatives, with no representatives from management, but the welfare supervisor had been 'unanimously invited' on a discretionary basis. At another workplace, an elected welfare committee had the sole right to make proposals to management about welfare amenities, but no executive power to implement any changes.547 In 1917, the standing Joint Committee of Women's Industrial Organisations took the view that welfare supervision should either become the responsibility of the state, on the same lines as the factory inspectorate, or preferably should be managed by a trade union committee at each workplace and carried a resolution to this effect.548 A similar resolution was passed by the Woolwich Trades and Labour Council in 1918, calling for a democratic system of control over welfare schemes and supervisors, with equal worker and employer participation, and for priority to be given to recruiting welfare supervisors from the ranks of workers.549
Against the background of this debate, the problems regarding the 'hybrid' nature of the welfare workers' role had not gone unnoticed by the Ministry of Munitions. The Ministry saw the criticisms as due, in part, to the early propaganda for welfare work and thus in the latter part of the war increasingly emphasised the need for the welfare worker "to become a definite part of the managerial staff".550 However, as noted earlier, this only occurred in a minority of cases and much of
547
HMG (1918-1922), op cit, V. III, p50.
548
Tillett, A, Kempner, T and Wills, G (1970), eds, Management Thinkers, Harmondsworth, Penguin, p196.
549
HMG (1918-1922), op cit, V. III, p49.
550
the work still focused on social and recreational matters. Moreover, the proposals of those such as Sidney Webb and others that welfare should seek autonomy from works management and managerial concerns for efficiency were defeated by the determined opposition of employers and Ministry officials.551 In 1918, the final report of the Health of Munition Workers Committee clearly defined the welfare worker as "the person to whom the employer delegates this section of management" and so as to clarify some of the confusion which had arisen in relation to the authority of line managers, it added that the work "is purely administrative and advisory".552 Shortly after this, the Welfare Workers Association adopted a similar definition, seeing welfare work as "that part of management which deals with the well being of those engaged in business".553 Niven implies that his definition had been the result of considerable internal debate and concluded:
"The committee [of the WWA] had taken the bit between its teeth. If welfare work were indeed recognised as being part of management, many of the difficulties encountered would vanish and the way would be free for the proper development of the work".554
The apparent shift from the high moral ground untainted by managerial involvement or efficiency considerations in such a short space of time seems remarkable. In fact, it was to cause a deep division within the welfare movement which festered for a further decade. The first sign of the strain could be seen in a paper given by Miss E B Voysey,555 a leading figure in the Welfare Workers Association, to the Industrial Reconstruction Council (IRC) in 1919. As noted in chapter 3, there had been a rapid growth in interest in scientific management in the period 1917 to 1919, but writers on this subject had tended to be sceptical of the value of welfare work which was seen as reflective of a traditional approach to management, based on benevolent paternalism and was therefore unprofessional and unscientific. Moreover, their proposals for schemes of 551 Melling (1983), op cit, p70. 552 Niven (1967), op cit, p51. 553 ibid. 554 ibid. 555
A former welfare worker at Hudson Scott (tin box makers) in Carlisle and from 1919 Secretary of the WWA.
scientific management saw welfare being placed in the hands of relevant specialists with the appropriate qualifications, such as physiologists, psychologists or time and motion experts. Given the theme 'The Relation of Welfare Work to Scientific Management', much of Voysey’s paper appeared to present the official line (given the interest of the IRC in scientific management) that welfare work and scientific management are "very much bound together" and "on the whole, the two seem to be complementary".556 In her concluding remarks, however, she appeared unwilling to sustain the official line and returned to the high moral ground which she believed distinguished welfare work from scientific management:
"Welfare work postulates that the first necessity of industry should be the full development of all the capacities of the individuals concerned and this will automatically react on their productive capacity...The aim of scientific management is maximum production. But what is this production for? Surely for the benefit of man as an individual? If, however, this production of maximum output is going to hinder a man's full development as an individual, it is defeating its own end. Welfare work, on the other hand, only wants maximum output in so far as it serves the true end of man - which end is his maximum development in character and individuality".557
Thus, the war ended with welfare workers divided over whether they served management or employees and what role they should play in the efficiency of their enterprises. Moreover, a question had arisen as to whether welfarism belonged in management at all, but rather should be subordinated to the democratic control of trade unions.