CHAPTER FIVE

INDUSTRIAL CONDITIONS: WAGES

What has been said regarding industrial conditions is not mere theorizing. Private, state and federal investigations into actual conditions confirm the contention that there is a large margin of unemployed, and that a considerable portion of those who do find employment are overworked and underpaid regardless of life and limb. Anyone who studies the various official reports on this subject, must conclude that Dr. Devine's summary of the _Pittsburgh Survey_ was well within the truth and is applicable to practically the whole country:

"Low wages for the great majority of the laborers employed by the mills, not lower than in other large cities, but low compared with the prices--so low as to be inadequate to the maintenance of a normal American standard of living; wages adjusted to the single man in the lodging house, not the responsible head of a family.

"Still lower wages for women, who receive, for example, in one of the metal trades, in which the proportion of women is great enough to be menacing, one-half as much as unorganized men in the same shops and one-third as much as men in the union.

"The destruction of family life; not in any imaginary or mystical sense, but by the demands of the day's work, and by the very demonstrable and material method of typhoid fever and industrial accidents; both preventable, but both costing in single years in Pittsburgh considerably more than a thousand lives, and irretrievably shattering nearly as many homes."[49]

Assuming, throughout this discussion, that $6.00 a week ($1.00 a week less than Miss Butler's estimate), or $312.00 a year is the lowest fair individual wage; and $11.00 a week, or $572.00 a year is the lowest fair family living wage:[50] it is easy to show from reliable reports that scores of thousands of individuals and heads of families fall below this standard. But in considering any figures quoted here, or to be found elsewhere, it should always be remembered that the actual wage may be much below the rate of wage. One employed at the rate of $6.00 a week may not make anything like that because of loss of time.

How much is lost through unemployment, it is hard to say. The United States Industrial Commission was of the opinion, that "it is impossible to collect statistics of any value whatever relative to the unemployment of unorganized labor, among whom lack of employment is a much more serious thing than it is with skilled or organized labor."[51] It would seem, however, that in the clothing trades, the employees lose at least one day in every six.[52] According to a Federal report issued in 1911, in Baltimore one-fifth of the force worked between five days and full time; one-tenth between four and five days; one-seventh between two and three, and five per cent, two days or less.[53] A report of the New York State Bureau of Labor for 1906[54] contains the following suggestive table regarding the unemployment of certain classes of _organized_ labor. It may rightly be assumed that among unorganized workmen conditions are worse.

TABLE I.

NO. AND PROPORTION OF UNEMPLOYED WAGE-EARNERS

----+--------+--------+--------+-----++---------------------------------- | No. of | No. of |No. idle|Per || Per cent idle Mon.| unions | memb'rs| at end |cent |+------+------+------+------+------ |report'g|report'g|of month|idle || 1905 | 1904 | 1903 | 1902 |1902-5 ----+--------+--------+--------+-----++------+------+------+------+------ Jan.| 191 | 84,539 | 12,682 |15. || 22.5 | 25.8 | 20.5 | 20.9 | 22.4 Feb.| 190 | 85,155 | 13,031 |15.3 || 19.4 | 21.6 | 17.8 | 18.7 | 19.4 Mch.| 192 | 25,956 | 2,952 |11.6 || 19.2 | 27.1 | 17.6 | 17.3 | 20.3 Apr.| 192 | 90,352 | 6,583 | 7.3 || 11.8 | 17.0 | 17.3 | 15.3 | 15.4 May | 192 | 91,163 | 6,364 | 7.0 || 8.3 | 15.9 | 20.2 | 14.0 | 14.6 June| 192 | 92,100 | 5,801 | 6.3 || 9.1 | 13.7 | 23.1 | 14.5 | 15.1 July| 195 | 94,571 | 7,229 | 7.6 || 8.0 | 14.8 | 17.8 | 15.6 | 14.1 Aug.| 195 | 94,220 | 5,462 | 5.8 || 7.2 | 13.7 | 15.4 | 7.1 | 10.9 Sep.| 195 | 94,290 | 5,252 | 6.3 || 5.9 | 12.0 | 9.4 | 6.3 | 8.4 Oct.| 195 | 92,052 | 6,383 | 6.9 || 5.6 | 10.8 | 11.7 | 4.2 | 9.8 Nov.| 195 | 93,042 | 7,052 | 7.6 || 6.1 | 11.1 | 16.4 | 14.3 | 12.0 Dec.| 195 | 93,318 | 14,352 |15.4 || 11.1 | 19.6 | 23.1 | 22.2 | 19.0 ----+--------+--------+--------+-----++------+------+------+------+------ Mean for year| | | 9.3 || 11.2 | 16.9 | 17.5 | 14.8 | 15.1 -------------+--------+--------+-----++------+------+------+------+------

Other deductions that must be made from the apparent wage are the withholding of pay for long periods, exorbitant prices and rents obtained through company stores and houses, fines, and increases in the cost of living.

Therefore, it is not unreasonable to conclude that the per diem or weekly wage rate as given by the Bureau of Labor and other reports, affords, by itself, an accurate statement only of the maximum yearly wage. This should always be remembered in judging any facts hereafter adduced.

In the fifteenth volume of the bulletins of the Bureau of Labor will be found many interesting tables bearing on this question of wages. But as it is impracticable to quote them at any length here, a few of the more salient facts must suffice. Laborers in the flour mills of the South were working twelve hours a day for 11c. an hour.[55] Women in the carpet factories of the North were getting no more.[56] In the factory product of the clothing trade great numbers received less than 10c., 11c., and 12c. an hour (p. 35), and the compensation in sweatshops was much less. Male boarders in the knit-goods factories of the North-Central section were averaging less than $387.00 per annum. Women in the same factories were getting much less, some even as low as 7c. and 8c. an hour (p. 43). Silk-spinners in the North-Atlantic section were making only $5.00 a week, or less than $260.00 a year, for a nine and one-half hour day (p. 58). Male cigar-stemmers in the same section were making $6.00 a week (p. 59). In Michigan, in 1905, there were 3414 boys between fourteen and sixteen earning on an average 77c. a day, and 1725 girls making 64c. a day. In 1904, the average yearly earnings in the food preparations industry was $441.00; in salt production, $451.00; on tobacco and cigars, $393.00 (p. 334).

In New Jersey, in 1904-5, the average earnings in the cigar industry were $316.70; silk-weaving, $480.11; woolen and worsted goods, $373.43. In the same State in 1903-4, there were 1985 adult males receiving less than $3.00 a week; 3234 between $3.00 and $4.00; 5595 between $4.00 and $5.00; 6037 between $5.00 and $6.00; 12,406 between $7.00 and $8.00; 14,300 between $8.00 and $9.00, though $9.00, working full time every week, would be only $468.00 a year.

The very latest reports available confirm these figures. In the cotton textile industry alone, 29,974 employees, or 53.77% of the total number investigated (11,484 men and 18,490 women) were being paid at a rate less than $6.00 a week.[57] If we take the $11.00 rate, or family living wage, we find that 19,382 men (89% of the total) fall below it (l. c.). And as only 55% of the men employed in this industry were single (l. c., p. 132), at least 7285 of these men must have been married, and hence receiving less than the normal family living wage. It must be remembered, too, that these figures are based upon the assumption that full time is made. Could we get the actual wages, these groups would be much larger. This is shown by the table on page 329 of this report, where actual wages average $1.32 less than computed full time earnings.

If we turn to the clothing industry, we find conditions even worse. In the five cities investigated (New York, Chicago, Baltimore, Rochester, and Philadelphia), 6788 employees, or 37% of the total (1217 men and 5571 women) were being paid at a rate less than the individual living wage of $6.00. Taking the family living wage of $11.00 as our standard, 3499 men, or 62% of the total, fail to reach it.[58]

Again it must be repeated, that the actual wages are from 7-1/2 to 20-1/2% lower than these figures (l. c., p. 161). In one New York special order shop, the earnings for December fall to 55% of the average (l. c., p. 178).

These figures, however, are for shop-workers only. The _average_ wages for home-workers are: Chicago, $4.35; Rochester, $4.14; New York, $3.61; Philadelphia, $2.88; and Baltimore, $2.24. "Here again the caution must be borne in mind that home-workers' wages, low as they are, often stand for the earnings of more than one worker. Sometimes, as reported on the books of the firm, it represents the earnings of more than one week" (l. c., p. 139). Ninety-eight per cent. of the married shop-finishers, and practically all of the home-finishers, too, earned less than $350.00 a year (l. c., p. 226). The average yearly earnings of home-workers are given as varying from $120.00 in New York to $196.00 in Rochester. From page 235 to 239 inclusive, the details of the earnings, size of families, and number of those working is gone into at great length. It must suffice here to say that families of five are recorded whose total yearly earnings are less than $100.00. One family of eleven is chronicled whose yearly income was $445.00, sixty-five dollars of which was earned by home-work. Working six days a week for ten hours a day, the home-worker cannot hope to make more than $156.00 a year.[59]

Seventy-six per cent. of the women employed in the glass industry earned less than six dollars a week.[60] Their average annual earnings, in fact, are stated as ranging from $163.00 for those sixteen years old to $292.00 for those from twenty-five to twenty-nine (l. c., p. 544). Nearly one-third of the female department-store employees receive less than $6.00 a week.[61] Yet many of them had other persons depending upon them (l. c., p. 55). One family, consisting of a mother, seventeen-year-old daughter, and three younger children, was supported by the daughter's $5.00 a week. They managed it by living in two rooms and eating practically nothing besides bread and tea or coffee (l. c., p. 56).

In New York State in 1906,[62] it was found that even among organized laborers reporting to the Bureau of Labor, 6078 men and 2011 women were earning less than the lowest individual living wage ($300.00), and 59,226 men and 8881 women (17.6% and 63.8% respectively) were earning less than the lowest family living wage ($600.00). If conditions were so bad among union men, they were probably much worse among unorganized workers.

In Pittsburgh, in the canneries, 59% of the girls make only $6.00 a week, or less (Butler, l. c., p. 38). Of those employed in the confectionery trades, only twenty-one earn as much as seven dollars (l. c., p. 50). And these two trades have inevitable dull seasons that cut wages much below these figures. Seven hundred out of nine hundred girls in the cracker business receive less than $6.00 a week (l. c., p. 70). Laundries are amongst the worst paying establishments, and there is practically no chance of advancement. The shakers-out never earn more than $4.00 a week, and usually only $3.00 or $3.50 (l. c., p. 170). No mangle girl makes more than $6.00 and most between $3.00 and $5.00 (p. 173). Broom-making often gives only $2.50 a week, and the highest is $5.00 (p. 252). Many box-makers earn only 60c. or 80c. a day, and 80% of the girls are being paid less than $6.00 a week (p. 261). Packing soap-powder in stifling rooms pays $4.50 (p. 270). Nearly 50% of the girls in the printing trades are below the $6.00 standard.

These, then, are the facts concerning wages. But no social fact can be entirely isolated. It is always intimately connected with many others, and no treatment of wages can be at all satisfactory without going to some extent into the ramifications of this subject along other lines. A chapter, therefore, will be devoted to the question of health and of morals as affected by industrial conditions and low wages.

FOOTNOTES:

[49] Report of annual convention of the American Sociological Society, 1908, or Charities and the Commons, now the Survey, March 6, 1909.

[50] Cf. p. 36f for discussion of fair wage.

[51] Vol. XIX, p. 754.

[52] Loc. cit., p. 755.

[53] U. S. Bureau of Labor, "Men's Ready-Made Clothing," p. 113.

[54] P. XI.

[55] Loc. cit., p. 37.

[56] P. 31.

[57] U. S. Bureau of Labor, "Cotton Textile Industry," p. 305, 1910.

[58] U. S. Bureau of Labor, "Men's Ready-Made Clothing," p. 129.

[59] L. c., p. 301; cf. also 20th Annual Report Bureau of Labor Statistics of N. Y., pp. 66-67, here quoted.

[60] U. S. Bureau of Labor, "Glass Industry," p. 405, 1911.

[61] U. S. Bureau Lab., "Wage-Earning Women in Stores and Factories," p. 46, 1911.

[62] Report of Bureau of Labor Statistics of New York for 1906, p. XXXI.