Part 14
The Senate heard the report of the Commission, and in spite of the merchants’ protests, the women’s bill was passed without a dissenting vote. Its most important provision was the ten-hour limit which it placed on the work of women under twenty-one. The bill also provided seats for saleswomen, and specified the number of seats, one to every three clerks. It forbade the employment of children, except those holding working-certificates from the authorities.
But soon it was found that the smart representatives of the merchants had succeeded in attaching to the bill a so-called “joker,” by which the inspection of the stores was entrusted to the local boards of health. As the officials of these boards, supposedly experts, proved, in fact, ignorant of industrial conditions and their relation to health and sanitation, the true objects of the bill could not be enforced. So the Consumers’ League was compelled to wage another tedious war, until it finally succeeded in convincing the Legislature that the inspection of all department and retail stores should be turned over to the State Factory Department. When this was done, there were reported in the first three months of the enforcement of the Mercantile Law over 1200 violations in Greater New York. At the same time 923 under-age children were taken out of their positions as cash girls, stock girls, and wrappers, and sent back to school.
It was natural that the good results and the purely benevolent motives of the Consumers’ League attracted wide attention. Similar Associations were formed in many other cities and states. The movement spread so rapidly, that in 1899 it was possible to organize “=The National Consumers’ League=,” with branches in twenty-two states.
Encouraged by such success, the league now began to study the working conditions of girls employed in restaurants. It was found that in many cases these conditions were even worse than in the department stores. Girls of twenty years were found working as cooks from 6:30 in the morning to 11:30 at night, with no time off on Sundays or holidays! This meant 119 hours a week, more than twice the time the law permits for factory employees. Other girls, employed as waitresses, were serving every day from 7:30 a. m. to 10:30 p. m., or 105 hours each week! In going back and forth, they walked several miles a day, carrying heavy trays at the same time. In rush hours they worked at a constant nervous tension, for speed is one of their requirements. And they must not only remember a dizzying list of orders, but must fill them quickly and keep their temper under the exactions of the most rasping customer.
Based on such findings, the Consumers’ League of New York caused the framing of a bill by which the hours of women in restaurants were limited to 54 hours weekly, which gave the girls one day of rest in seven, and prohibited their working between 10 p. m. and 6 a. m. In October, 1917, this bill became a law. In a number of other states minimum wage laws have also been secured.
The Consumers’ League of Philadelphia took pains to investigate conditions in the silk mills of Pennsylvania. It was found that besides overwork and underpay there were often other evils, due to an erring as well as inhuman policy on the part of the employers. Like the owners of the department stores many of these men were possessed by the idea that the right to sit down would encourage slow work and laziness. Accordingly the girls in these mills were forced to stand from early morning till late at night, day after day, and month after month.
The secretary of the Consumers’ League, who, under an assumed name, worked for some time in various mills, in order to study conditions, wrote:
“The harmful effect of continuous standing, upon young and growing girls, is too well established a fact to require any elaboration. In addition to the permanent ill effects, much immediate and unnecessary suffering, especially in hot weather, is inflicted by the prohibition of sitting. I could always detect the existence of this rule by a glance at the stocking-feet of the workers, and at the rows of discarded shoes beneath the frames. For after a few hours the strain upon the swollen feet becomes intolerable, and one girl after another discards her shoes.”—
Another harsh and very common practice of employers is to cover the lower sashes of the windows with paint, and to fasten them so that they cannot be raised in hot weather. This is done “so that the girls don’t waste time looking out.”
The cruelty of these unnecessary rules is often aggravated by a most amazing lack of the common decencies and necessities of cleanliness.
One of the most difficult tasks of the Consumers’ League was to overcome the absolute unwillingness of storekeepers to compensate their saleswomen for overtime. If it would be possible to compute the amount of such unpaid labor performed after the regular hours in many stores as well as in the bookkeeping and auditing departments, especially during the Christmas season, the sum would be startling indeed. A circular issued by the Women’s Trade Union League of Chicago some years ago stated that the 3000 clerks in only one department store of that city had been required to work during the holiday season overtime to the total amount of 96,000 hours, without receiving any compensation. At the rate of only ten cents an hour these clerks suffered a loss of $9,600, at the rate of 25 cents an hour a loss of $24,000.
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The first “=Women’s Trade Union League=” was organized in 1875 by =Mrs. Emma Paterson=, the wife of an English trade unionist. While travelling in America, she had observed that women workers of various trades had formed unions, among which the “Umbrella Makers’ Union,” the “Women’s Typographical Union” and the “Women’s Protective Union” were the most prominent. Convinced that the utility of such combinations could be still more increased, Mrs. Paterson, after her return to England, organized a federation of such women’s unions, the “=British Women’s Trade Union League=,” which later on became the model for a similar organization in America. It was founded on November 14th, 1903, for the one main purpose to organize all women workers into trade unions, in order to protect them from exploitation, to help them raise their wages, shorten their hours, and improve sanitary conditions of the work shops. Becoming affiliated with the “American Federation of Labor,” the league gained a splendid victory during the years 1909 to 1911, when a series of huge strikes in the sewing trades spread over the East and the Middle West. Also an agreement was arrived at, that the principle of preference to unionists, first enforced in Australia, should be acknowledged. Under this plan manufacturers, when hiring help, must give to union workers of the necessary qualifications and degree of skill precedence over non-union workers.
At all times ready to express the sentiments and voice the aspirations of those who toil, the “Women s Trade Union League” represents to-day over 100,000 working women. While it has had a wonderful effect in improving standards of wages, hours and sanitary conditions in what was originally an underpaid and unhealthy industry, it also has become the pioneer in another direction, that of education in the labor movement. At the initiative of a group of girls an educational movement was started which has extended into organizations including some half a million workers, men as well as women. In public schools of New York, Philadelphia, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, and other cities educators of national reputation are co-operating with teachers and delegates from labor unions in giving lecture courses for adults on such subjects as social interpretation of literature, evolution of the labor movement, problems of reconstruction, social problems, trade unionism and co-operation, etc. At the same time a movement for co-operative housing has been developing. “The New York Ladies’ Waist and Dressmaker’s Union” for instance has bought in 1919 at a cost of several hundred thousand dollars a magnificent summer home for the exclusive use of its members. This “Unity House” at Forest Park, Pennsylvania, has accommodations for 500 guests. Situated at a beautiful lake, surrounded by shady forests and green lawns, provided with tennis courts, a library and reading rooms, it is an ideal recreation ground of first order. The money for this estate was brought up by the 30,000 members of the union, each contributing one day’s wages.
In New York City also a co-operative “Unity House” has been established with quarters for fifty girls. A great extension of this movement in the city is planned. The Philadelphia group of the same union is following these examples and has acquired a fine estate worth $40,000.
At present the various woman’s organizations of the United States as well as of other countries aim at the following issues:
=1.= =To limit the working day for women to eight hours.=
=2.= =To demand for women equal pay with men for equal work.=
=3.= =To establish for all the various occupations minimum wage scales, sufficient to grant all women workers an adequate living.=
=4.= =To secure safe and sanitary working conditions, and clinics for the treatment of diseases resulting from certain industrial occupations.=
=5.= =To secure industrial insurance laws.=
=6.= =To secure for all women full citizenship with the right to vote in all municipal and national elections.=
As woman’s future position will depend on the realization of these demands, their discussion is of utmost importance.
THE MOVEMENT FOR AN EIGHT-HOUR DAY.
As has been shown in a former chapter, innumerable valuable lives of workmen, women and, in former years, children have been sacrificed through the unreasonable exploitation by employers, who in their greed for profits had lost all consideration for the welfare of their fellow-men. Hundreds of thousands of laborers have been slowly worked to death as no sufficient amount of time for recuperation was granted them.
The only possible excuse for such incredible waste of human lives is that neither the employers nor the law-makers of those bygone days realized that the physical and mental abilities of the large laboring classes belong to the resources of a nation just as truly as do the water-power, the soil, the mineral deposits, the forests, and other natural means. Moreover, nobody was aware of the fact that it is one of the supreme duties of a wise government to guard these resources, so fundamentally necessary to the prosperity of a nation, from unscrupulous exploitation and possible destruction.
The danger of the reckless exploitation of laborers, especially of women workers, has increased considerably with the improvement of many machines, the greater speed and output of which demand far greater attention and strain than before on the part of the men or women operating them.
This is what Newton D. Baker, Secretary of War, said in 1917 at the annual meeting of the National Consumers’ League:
“Machinery has given us one great delusion. People have imagined that when a machine was operated by a steam engine or by an electric motor, the steam engine or the electric motor actually did all the work, and the people who were attending it while it operated were more or less negligible. As a consequence, we indulged in the very unfortunate and often fatal belief that unlimited hours of labor were possible because it was the machines which were doing the work. We overlooked the fact, which we have lately begun to appreciate, that the person who tends the power-driven machine is far more susceptible to exhaustion, is far more open to fatigue and to the poisons that affect the system and that come from over-exertion than ever before.”
Mrs. Florence Kelley, the able General Secretary of the National Consumers’ League, who studied woman’s occupation in the sewing trade, states that of late years the speed of the sewing machines has been increased so that girls using these improved machines are now responsible for twenty times as many stitches as twenty years ago, and that many girls and women, not capable of the sustained speed involved in this improvement, are no longer eligible for this occupation. Those who continue in the trade are required to feed twice as many garments to the machine as were required five years ago. The strain upon their eyes is, however, far more than twice what it was before the improvement. In the case of machines carrying multiple needles this is obvious; but it is true of the single needle machines as well.
When a girl cannot keep the pace she is thrown out. A comment frequently made by the girls about such an unfortunate comrade is: “She got too slow. She couldn’t keep up with her machine any longer.” It amounts to this, that the girl can earn a living wage, if she is unusually gifted, =until she is worn out=.
The nerve strain caused by innumerable rapid-working machines of the present day has become obvious in many cases. As the compressed air-hammer has shattered the nerves of many robust men, so the latest machines used in the sewing and other trades have impaired the health of many women. “Such nerve strain,” says Rheta Childe Dorr, “cannot be regulated. It is a Gordian knot that cannot be untied. The only thing to do is to cut it. The only solution of it is a shortened work-day. This is true for men as well as for women, but, in all probability, not to the same degree. Nerve strain affects men, certainly, and it demands, even in their case, a progressively shortened work-day as an alternative to a progressively shortened work-life. But with women the case becomes infinitely more urgent, infinitely more tragic, in exact proportion as woman’s nervous system is more unstable than man’s and more easily shaken from its equilibrium.”
The advantages of an eight-hour day with rest at night for women and children have been summed up as follows:
1.—Where the working day is short, the workers are less predisposed to diseases arising from fatigue. They are correspondingly less in danger of being out of work, for sickness is in turn one of the great causes of unemployment.
2.—Accidents have diminished conspicuously wherever working hours have been reduced.
3.—The workers have better opportunity for continuing their education out of working hours. Where they do this intelligently they become more valuable and are correspondingly less likely to become victims of unemployment.
4.—A short working day established by law tends automatically to regularize work. The interest of the employer is to have all hands continuously active, and no one sitting idly waiting for needles, or thread, or materials, or for machines to be repaired. Every effort is bent towards having work ready for every hour of every working day in the year. In unregulated industry, on the contrary, there are cruel alternations of idleness and overwork.
5.—For married women wage-earners it is especially necessary to have the working day short and work regular. For when they leave their workplace it is to cook, sew, and clean at home, sometimes even to care for the sick.—
In the movement for an eight-hour day for the women workers its advocates have already succeeded in Australia, Great Britain, Germany, Denmark, Porto Rico, and Mexico. The eight-hour day has also been secured for all employees of the U. S. Government and for the women and workmen of a large number of the states.
EQUAL PAY FOR EQUAL WORK.
That women are entitled to equal pay with men for equal work, was recognized by the ancient Babylonians five or six thousand years ago. The justice of this demand is so self-evident, that it would hardly seem to need any discussion. Notwithstanding all labor organizations have been compelled to place it on their program, as many factory owners employed the cheaper woman- and child-labor only in order to underbid and reduce the wages of the male laborers. As female laborers have been much more poorly organized than men, they have been less capable of maintaining their claims.
The first equal opportunity and equal pay laws were passed in the State of Washington. In 1890 a section was added to her Labor Laws reading as follows: “Hereafter in this state every avenue of employment shall be open to women; and any business, vocation, profession, and calling followed and pursued by men may be followed and pursued by women, and no person shall be disqualified from engaging in or pursuing any business, vocation, profession, calling or employment on account of sex.”
Section 5 of Industrial Welfare Commission of the State of Washington, Order of September 10, 1918, is the first general equal pay law: “That women doing equal work with men in any occupation, trade, or industry in this state shall receive the same compensation therefor as men during work of the same character and of like quantity and quality, the determination of what constitutes equal work to rest with the Industrial Welfare Commission.”
THE MEANING OF THE MINIMUM WAGE.
The interests of every community demand that all workers, male as well as female, shall receive a fair living wage, to save them from pernicious effects upon their health and morals. The dangers to the health of women have been found to be twofold: lack of adequate nourishment and lack of medical care in sickness. Careful investigations as well as statistics have proven that with insufficient wages food is necessarily cut down below the requirements of subsistence, and health inevitably suffers. In order to meet unavoidable expenses for lodging and clothing, workingwomen reduce their diet to the lowest possible point.
On the moral side, authorities agree in the opinion that, while underpayment and the consequent struggle to live may not be the primary cause for entering upon an immoral life, it is inevitably a highly important factor. When wages are too low to supply nourishment and other human needs, temptation is more readily yielded to.
The discovery that inadequate wages menace the morals of women and through them the interests and the good name of the community in which they work, has had much to do with the adoption of minimum-wage laws in America as well as in other parts of the world.
In the United States the first minimum-wage orders were those of the Oregon Industrial Commission, which fixed $8.64 as the legal weekly minimum for manufacturing establishments, and $9.25 for mercantile establishments, in the City of Portland. These rates were based upon the testimony of workers and employers gathered by the Oregon Consumers’ League. The testimony had shown that the prevailing wage for beginners in department stores was $3.00 a week; that nearly half of these girls and women employed were receiving less than $9.00, and that female clerks never received above $10.00 a week, no matter how long the term of their service.
After learning from the employers what wages were actually paid, the Oregon investigators sought to determine the amount necessary to protect the health and morals of the women workers through an examination of market prices and a careful study of the actual expenditures of the workers. One hundred and sixteen department-store workers furnished the information for the following table of averages:
Living at Home Adrift Rent $315.51 $118.00 Board 196.25 Carfare 31.20 23.42 Clothing 161.36 139.63 Laundry 24.28 16.27 Doctor and Dentist 29.23 23.82 Lodge and Church 12.19 9.72 Recreation 21.48 36.62 Books, etc. 10.11 6.69 ——————— ——————— Total Expenses $605.36 $570.42
The total wages received in the average: Total Wages $459.50 $480.57 ——————— ——————— Deficit $145.86 $89.85
These figures show that a majority of these women actually received less than it cost them to live.
Investigations carried on in order to find how these women met the difference, disclosed that many of them, whether living at home or boarding, did extra chores in the morning before going to work and after work-hours in the evening. Others went into debt. And still others became “charity girls”—that is, they kept company with “gentlemen friends,” who came up for the balance, sometimes under promise of marriage when these “friends” should feel able to set up a household. That such promises are not always kept and that the girls quite often sink to lower levels, are facts well known.
The first law embodying the principle of the minimum wage was enacted in New Zealand 25 years ago. From there it spread gradually to the other Australian States. In 1896 Victoria, the largest industrial State of Australia, passed the first act providing for special boards to fix minimum wages in different trades. Beginning with a few sweat-shop industries, the movement has grown by successive special acts, until, in 1916, there were about 150 trades or occupations in which minimum wages were set by special wage boards.
The same general plan was followed by Great Britain in the trade boards act of 1909. This bill, introduced in Parliament by delegates of the English Anti-sweating League and of the National Consumers’ League in January, 1909, was passed and signed in time to take effect at New Years, 1910.
In the United States, up to the end of 1918, minimum-wage laws had been enacted in Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Kansas, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nebraska, Oregon, Utah, Washington, Wisconsin and in the District of Columbia, guaranteeing a living wage to women workers, especially in unorganized trades.
EFFORTS TO SECURE SAFE AND SANITARY WORKING CONDITIONS AND CLINICS FOR THE TREATMENT OF DISEASES RESULTING FROM INDUSTRIAL OCCUPATIONS.
When in the industries human power began to be supplanted by steam-driven machines, when competition grew fierce and fiercer, it was found that with the ever increasing speed of the whirling wheels the dangers that threatened the workmen increased enormously. The use of almost every machine has brought with it some peculiar peril, this one crushing a finger or cutting a limb of the person in charge; that one tearing out an arm or killing the operator if for a fraction of a second his thoughts strayed from his work, or if he became drowsy after long hours of work.
It was also found that many persons, engaged in certain occupations, became afflicted by peculiar diseases, unknown before and strictly confined to the persons doing that special work.
According to conservative estimates, of the 38,000,000 wage earners of the United States, in every year 30,000 to 33,000 are killed by industrial accidents. In addition, there are approximately 2,000,000 non-fatal accidents.