Your vote and how to use it

by Gertrude Foster Brown

FOOTNOTES:

[7] It is hoped that when the Boards of Managers for these county tuberculosis hospitals are appointed, local women will be placed on them.

[8] The number of insane in the State is increasing far more rapidly than the provision which is being made for them. The last report of the State Hospital Commission shows that in hospitals for the insane, planned to accommodate 27,890 patients, there were in June, 1916, 33,873 patients, an overcrowding of 21.5 per cent. The State Hospital Commission urgently requests a bond issue to provide immediately for the construction of new buildings.

XXI
THE PROTECTION OF WORKING-WOMEN

The war has brought a revolution in woman’s work.

Because of the increased demand for labor, trades and all kinds of employment that have been considered exclusively the province of men, have been opened to women. The universal verdict is that they have everywhere made good. Work that demands the greatest exactness and care, specialized technical operations that have been supposed to require a man’s brain, have been done by them quite as well as by men. But their employment in many of the new industries has brought new industrial problems, and they have gone into many new occupations which are not included in the protection extended by existing labor laws.

Even before the war New York State was the greatest industrial State in the Union. More women were at work here than in any other State, and more women were at work in New York City than in any entire State except Pennsylvania.

There were 248 separate manufacturing industries in this State, and women worked in all trades in which over 1,000 workers were employed, except in the manufacture of bricks, tiles, fertilizers, and ice.

They were doing everything, from making cores in foundries, sausages in packing-houses, pickles and candies, to working in human hair, chemicals, and rags.

Women have always done their share of the world’s work, but in the past their labor was in the home. During the early years of our nation there were very few women who did not work or supervise work, but they did this in their homes for their homes, and they were not paid in money.

When the cotton-gin was invented and the use of steam was discovered, it was the dream of the inventors that their machines should be really labor-saving, and that people would have leisure for the development of the wider and deeper things of life. This became true for some people, and to-day there are many women of comparative leisure who can do as they please with their time. But on the other hand, undreamed-of evils and dangers have come to women who toil, and necessity compels women by the millions to seek work in the industrial world. In spite of the fact that the wages of women have been appallingly low, the woman who must earn money in order to live has had to find work outside of her own home.

Number of Women Wage-earners: In 1910, according to the census, there were in New York State 3,291,714 women over fifteen years of age; only 1,793,558 were married, and 1,498,156 were unmarried or widowed; 983,686 of these had to work in order to live, or to support some members of their families. This number did not include the great mass of women who work in their homes.

Clothing Manufacturers: Before the United States entered the war, 184,691 women were working in New York State making every conceivable garment for people to wear. The work is subdivided so that one worker does one thing all day long. There are sixty-five operations in the making of trousers. Twenty to sixty different operations take place in the making of men’s shirts. Women tuck or hem materials for women’s wear hour by hour, driven by the juggernaut electric machine which knows no fatigue and needs no rest.

Laundries: Ten thousand women worked in laundries in this State, where the washing and ironing are done usually by machines. They stand and push down a treadle of the ironing-machine with their feet, making as many as sixty-three to eighty-one foot pressures a minute. In this action a bad twist of the body is necessary, which may result in permanent injury. Clouds of steam rise from the mangles, and when no exhaust hoods are used, the room is filled with steam. Tuberculosis is a common disease among laundry workers. Unprotected machinery is a constant danger.

Restaurant Workers: There were fifteen thousand restaurant workers, waitresses, cooks, kitchen girls, and pantry hands. Until 1917, they were without any protection by law. They worked any number of hours, and seven days a week. They now come under the fifty-four-hour law, in first and second class cities, but the law is difficult to enforce. They often walk five miles a day carrying heavy trays; and varicose veins, flat feet, and pelvic disorders are common.

Textile Operators: In New York State 35,168 women worked in textile-mills making silks, woolens, cottons, carpets, knit underwear, etc. The din of machinery is deafening in many of these factories, and often the machinery is so closely placed that there is difficulty in passing without danger of skirts catching.

The whole development of machinery in industry has been worked out for the purpose of extending trade and output, without consideration of the human factor involved. Machines have been watched so they did not wear out or break, and they have been carefully repaired. Girls and women, the human factor, have been discarded if they wore out; they are of less worth to the employer and can be easily replaced without cost to him. But the cost to the State has been heavy in the toll of hospitals, insane asylums, and homes for destitutes and delinquents.

There is hardly a trade which has not some elements of danger or unhealthfulness in it. Women working in meat-packing plants in sausage-making rooms stand all day at their work on water- and slime-soaked floors. Women work in industries where industrial poisons are used or where they are generated in the process of manufacturing. The pressure of piece-work, the monotony of one single operation, are nerve-racking and nerve-exhausting.

The health of women who spend hours a day in factories depends largely upon factory laws and sanitary codes. Light, air, sanitation, overcrowding in factories, mills, and shops, all vitally affect the health of the workers. No one can measure the cost of industry in the life of women. The strength and vitality taken from them will show in the lowered vitality of their children. A low birth-rate, a high death-rate, and an impaired second generation are the inevitable results. Infant mortality where the mothers work in factories is notoriously high.[9]

War and Woman’s Work: With the insistent demand for increased production occasioned by the war, women have been brought into many new positions formerly held only by men. They have gone into the steel-mills; they are employed in large numbers in the munition-factories; they are working on the railroads, in railroad yards, and inspecting tracks, as well as in the ticket-offices and baggage-rooms. The Pennsylvania Railroad has 2,300 women employed as car-cleaners, track-walkers, upholsterers, locomotive despatchers, and machine-hands. Some are operating trains. They are engaged as conductors on street-cars and subways, and as elevator operators.

These new industries are not included in the provisions for women of the State labor laws.

New York State has a nine-hour day for women working in factories and mercantile occupations, and night work is prohibited in these industries; but this protection does not extend into other occupations.

An eight-hour working-day has been given to men in many States and in many occupations, but in only a few of the Western States has it been given to women. After three or four years in most industries, young women begin to wear out, the speeding up and the strain put on their youth begin to tell, their capacity lessens, and their output diminishes. Although the effect of long hours and monotonous occupation is harder on them than it is on men, the protection of the law has been extended to them to a far less extent. In these new industries there is none. Women may work in them twelve hours a day and all night. The demand of some of the street railways is for a twelve-hour night for women conductors (with two hours off for supper). Elevator operators work twelve hours a day, in day and night shifts, and girls employed all night are subject to insult if not actual danger.

Since boys have been difficult to get, girls, including some under sixteen, have been delivering letters and packages in messenger service. The State law prohibits boys under twenty-one being employed as messengers at night, because of the dangers of contamination from the night life of a city. Under present conditions a girl employed as messenger has no protection, and may even be sent to houses of doubtful character.

The new industries for women also include manual work that has heretofore been considered too heavy for them. The high wages paid them, while lower than would have to be paid now to men for the same work, are still high enough to attract women from other occupations where wages have not had the same advance.

While there is an increasing demand that women shall be paid the same wages as a man would be paid for exactly the same work, the idea still prevails that it is only fair to pay men more than women because they have families to support, while women support only themselves. This is not true. On the backs of many women rests the sole support of aged parents, or of younger brothers and sisters. A large proportion of them give up all their earnings to the family needs.

It is no longer a question of the ability of women to do many kinds of work formerly held to be the exclusive province of men; but of the effect of her so doing on the future health and welfare of the race.

Women, like men, must work in order to live, but society and the State owe it to themselves, as a vital matter of self-protection, to safeguard that work, so that future generations shall not suffer from its effects.

The whir of machinery, the noise, the constant standing or the close bending over work, the meager wages, have been the conditions woman has had to meet for years in her struggle for a livelihood; to them are now added the dangers and excessive hours of these new occupations, with their further call on her strength and endurance.

These new industries for women should be included in the laws regulating the hours and condition of women’s work. Public messenger service is too dangerous for young girls to be employed in it.

If the eight-hour working-day is right for men, it is even more needed by women. Laws regulating factory conditions are of little value unless there is sufficient inspection to enforce them, and the number of inspectors employed is always inadequate. Women inspectors are needed for factories in which women are employed; but there are only four women factory inspectors in the entire State.

Several years ago the New York State Factory Investigating Commission made an exhaustive investigation of women’s wages, and found that women and girls were so underpaid as to endanger their health and productiveness. Since then the cost of living has advanced prodigiously, with no corresponding increase in wages, especially among young unorganized women.

A minimum wage bill, similar to the one in force in Oregon, which has been declared constitutional by the United States Supreme Court, is now before the Legislature, drawn on the recommendation of the State Factory Investigating Commission.

If the war continues, the demand, not for more protection, but for the suspension of existing labor laws, will become more insistent. The needs of the country for increased production will be irresistible and will not be satisfied for many years.

The test which the government should insist shall be applied to every occupation in which women engage is this: What effect will it have on the one business in life which is especially theirs, the production and conservation of human life? How can it be safeguarded so it shall not exact too great a toll from their health and vitality?

Every consideration that individuals and the State can give must be engaged in the study of this question. With the vote in her hands, the woman in industry will be able to protect herself better than before, but the responsibility for her welfare rests not on herself alone, but on other women, especially on those who are free from the grinding struggle themselves, and can do as they choose with their time. It is part of their responsibility to see that the most conscientious and careful consideration be given to this question.