Workers: Mary Macarthur

Mary Macarthur (1880-1921) was a trade unionist who fought for women workers. She founded the National Federation of Women’s Workers, helped pass the 1909 Trade Boards Act, which guaranteed a minimum wage for women workers, and led multiple strikes against employers who refused to pay their workers fairly. 

For Further Reading: 

• Mary Macarthur 1880-1921 The Working Woman's Champion
• The life of Mary Macarthur. A TUC Library Exhibition | London Metropolitan University
• Mary Macarthur : a biographical sketch

This month we’re talking about workers: Women who fought for labor rights and shaped the way we do business today. They advocated and innovated to make the “office” – wherever it is – a more equitable place.

History classes can get a bad rap, and sometimes for good reason. When we were students, we couldn’t help wondering... where were all the ladies at? Why were so many incredible stories missing from the typical curriculum? Enter, Womanica. On this Wonder Media Network podcast we explore the lives of inspiring women in history you may not know about, but definitely should.

Every weekday, listeners explore the trials, tragedies, and triumphs of groundbreaking women throughout history who have dramatically shaped the world around us. In each 5 minute episode, we’ll dive into the story behind one woman listeners may or may not know–but definitely should. These diverse women from across space and time are grouped into easily accessible and engaging monthly themes like Educators, Villains, Indigenous Storytellers, Activists, and many more. Womanica is hosted by WMN co-founder and award-winning journalist Jenny Kaplan. The bite-sized episodes pack painstakingly researched content into fun, entertaining, and addictive daily adventures.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hello. For Wonder Media Network. I'm Jenny Kaplan and this
is Wamanica. This month, we're talking about workers, women who
fought for labor rights and shaped the way we do
business today. They advocated and innovated to make the office
wherever it is, a more equitable place. Today we're talking
about a woman who understood the power of the collective

(00:23):
and used her voice to speak for thousands of women's workers.
Let's talk about Mary MacArthur. Mary was born in eighteen
eighty in Glasgow. She grew up at a family of owners,
not workers. Her father ran a successful drapery business. After
graduating high school, Mary started working as a bookkeeper for
her father's business. She was good at her job, but

(00:47):
what she really wanted was to be a writer, so
she started writing articles for local papers. That's how she
wound up sitting in a trade union meeting for shop assistants.
A conservative paper had commititioned Mary to do a piece
mocking the worker's efforts to unionize, but by the time
Mary left the meeting, the trade unionists had converted Mary

(01:08):
to their cause. In that room and all across Europe,
trade unionists were organizing for fair pay and better working conditions.
Mary joined that fight. By nineteen oh two, she became
the first woman elected to the union's national executive Committee.
The next year, Mary moved to London and became the

(01:29):
secretary of the Women's Trade Union League. Women worked across
a variety of industries, from garment making to metalworking. They
often faced dangerous working conditions, and they were paid much
lower wages than their male counterparts, but they were a
tiny minority of British trade unionists. Mary summed up the
situation this way, women are badly paid and badly treated

(01:53):
because they are not organized, and they are not organized
because they're badly paid and badly treated. So in nineteen
oh six, Mary founded the National Federation of Women's Workers,
her goal to organize women workers and expand female unions.
To explain why she thought unions were important, Mary compared

(02:14):
a worker alone to a single stick easily snapped. Workers
united in a trade union, on the other hand, were
a bundle of sticks impossible to break. They have the
power of resistance, Mary said. They can resist reductions in wages.
They can ask for an advance without fear. In nineteen
oh nine, Mary successfully lobbied for the passage of the

(02:37):
Trade Boards Act, which required employers to pay a minimum wage.
But six months after the act passed, women chain makers
were still denied a minimum wage. These chain makers worked
out of sheds in their tiny backyards, hammering out chain
links for fifty hours a week. They were paid as
little as five shillings a week. That's roughly the equivalent

(02:59):
of paying someone for thirty dollars for fifty hours of work. Today,
the minimum weekly wage was eleven shillings a week. So
Mary helped the chain makers organize a strike. The women
refused to go to work. They campaigned to be paid
a minimum wage. Mary helped to raise a strike fund,
money that the women used to live while they weren't working.

(03:21):
The strike was ultimately successful, and the Federation used its
leftover funds to build a union headquarters. A few years later,
World War One began, women flooded the workforce, many building
weapons for the war effort, Female trade union membership tripled.

(03:41):
Mary used this momentum to pressure the government for fair wages.
Shortly after the war ended, Mary turned to politics. In
nineteen eighteen, she began her campaign to be elected as
the Labor Party candidate. Her election platform included a call
for international peace and a demand for the government to
build a million new homes. She lost the election, but

(04:03):
was still wildly popular. Mary's political career was cut short
in nineteen twenty she was diagnosed with cancer. A year later,
she died. She was forty years old. Her legacy lives on.
Multiple funds have been set up in her name, all
with the goal of enriching the lives of working women.

(04:26):
All month, We're Talking about Workers. For more information, find
us on Facebook and Instagram at Wamanica Podcast special thanks
to Liz Kaplan, my favorite sister and co creator. Talk
to you tomorrow.