The weaving process is not laborious and can be carried on in the open air. Patience and care are required, however, in selecting and moistening the dried leaves for weaving.
If this industry could be placed on a sound basis it would not only give continuous employment to a corps of workers, but would serve the interesting purpose of keeping alive a characteristic folk-occupation.
Also, as Miss Addams has so often pointed out, in speaking of the national museum of occupations in Hull House, the stimulation of the workers’ respect for their own national occupations is always healthy.
COFFEE SORTING AND PACKING
Coffee sorting and packing employs between 60 and 70 women workers, the former occupation lasting from October to June, and the latter all the year round.
A number of the cannery employes find work here after the close of the pineapple canning season.
The work is sorting coffee beans of two grades, the better grade paying forty cents, the poorer grade fifty cents a hundred pounds.
Some of the experienced workers earn as high as $7.00 a week, but the majority of credits on the time book are between $2.50 and $4.50 a week.
The hours are from 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., and the workroom is in a light, airy, first-story room. Both the sorting and packing operations are carried on seated, the workers being arranged in groups of two or three.
Here, as in the canneries, the majority of workers are Hawaiian, with Japanese and Portuguese second and third in number. There are also Porto Ricans and Filipinos, but the highest wages are earned by the Japanese.