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… and a Strike

By Birgit Elm

In 1920 the Danes experienced a strike they could hardly believe: The female telephone operators ceased working for six weeks!


The strike was called forth by many years of accumulated annoyance at an often strained rate of working and dissatisfaction with the surveillance executed by the superiors. The self-perception of the telephone operators had changed during the about 40 years that had passed since the introduction of the telephone in Denmark. In the beginning the telephone operators were young ladies from the upper middle classes who only wanted to earn some pocket money, the so-called "pin-money", until they got married. But concurrently with the success of the telephone the fast increasing number of telephone operators had to be recruited from other walks of life. Many of the new telephone operators had to live on their wages, and that was sometimes more than difficult.

Many years went by before the female telephone operators in Copenhagen were the first to organize in 1913. They were neat young ladies without rebelliousness. The telephone operators only succeeded in mobilizing resistance against the telephone companies when, in time, they had become a fairly homogeneous group with common interests. As long as many of them only needed to earn "pin-money", it was impossible to get in step.

When the strike finally became reality, the telephone operators’ principal demands were reduction of the working hours, improvement of the wages, and the right to keep their job after marriage. They were also dissatisfied with the listening desk that was used to control if they spoke properly to the subscribers. The telephone companies’ concession expired in 1919 and among the personnel there were great expectations to the next one. The negotiations reached, however, a dreadlock and the strike became a fact at midnight on New Year’s Eve 1919. Despite repeated negotiations the telephone operators struck for 6 weeks until finally the state intervened and regulated the conditions through the agency of the official mediator. By striking the telephone operators obtained:

- to become public servants with the right to a pension.
- a considerable improvement of salary.
- rules for negotiations between the company and the trade union.
- the right to stay in the service after marrying.

The demand for reduced working hours due to the heavy headphones was not met. That amenity could still only be obtained after 20 years of employment. Nor did the telephone operators get rid of the listening desk or the stressing rate of working with up to 500 calls per hour during busy periods. A telephone operator’s work was still enervating and caused many days lost through sickness, the so-called "telephonitis", but that is a different story…


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