The Women's Trade Union League is, and as long as it fulfills its
present function, will surely remain, a federation of trade unions
with women members, but it finds a niche and provides an honorable and
useful function for the wives of workingmen, for ex-trade-union women,
and for others who endorse trade unionism and gladly give their
support to a constructive work, aiming at strengthening the weakest
wing of labor, the unorganized, down-driven, underpaid working-girls.
If the League is to be an organization open to, and aiming at
including eventually the great majority of working-women, it must be
so flexible as to admit the woman who works in the home without formal
wages, as well as the woman who works for an employer for wages. Both
are in many respects upon the same footing in relation to society.
Both are earners and producers. Both require the help of organization.
Both should be an integral part of the labor movement. Both therefore
may be consistently received as dues-paying members into Women's Trade
Union Leagues, even although we are still too confused and puzzled
to permit of housewives forming their own unions, and therefore such
members have to be received as allies.
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