The fact that all the steam laundries are comparatively new has perhaps been the reason why the newer machine models, obviating the strains mentioned by Miss Butler, have been installed.
There is, however, the same tendency to exact long hours of work in times of stress which is found everywhere in this business, one laundry reporting 87 hours of overwork in one month during the tourist season, making a thirteen-hour day, and as all work must be performed in a standing posture, this strain is unduly severe. The customary overtime is two evenings a week until nine or nine-thirty o’clock.
Work commences in all the laundries at seven or seven-thirty in the morning and continues until five or five-thirty in the evening. Saturday is usually a half holiday.
Processes are uniform in all the laundries. The bundle of laundry first goes to the marker, who gives it its distinguishing family or personal mark. It is then separated into white, colored and woolen articles, after which it goes to the washer, and is boiled in the large vats occupying one corner of the room. The washing is done by men—mostly Chinese—with the exception of the woolens and fine pieces, which are washed in another part of the room by the starch girls. The floors were wet about the washing machines, but there was no standing water, the drainage being good in all the laundries.
After the clothes are washed they are put into the drying machines, huge metal vats with perforated inner baskets revolving rapidly and throwing out the water by centrifugal force. Accidents have been reported in other places caused by the uneven distribution of clothing in these inner baskets, which breaks them under the great force with which they revolve. They in turn cause the outer metal covering to break loose and whirl into the workroom. There is no record of such an accident, however, in Honolulu.
The clothes are next shaken out ready for the mangling or starching, and on the shaking out process and mangling the beginners are started, earning $3.50 to $5.00 a week, in one laundry; $3.00 to $4.50, in another; and $17.00 a month in a third. In all the laundries an upright board about six inches high is used to protect the hands of the operators from being crushed between the rollers of the mangling machines. These machines are near the corner where the washing is done, and are constructed of framework supporting steam-heated metal rolls, placed horizontally and covered with wool and canvas. Between these rolls sheets, towels, napkins and other flat work receive their final drying and pressing. Two operators work at either side of the roll on sheets, table-cloths and other large pieces; but the smaller ones are fed into the roller by one worker.
Here, as in all other processes, the motor is gauged to a low rate of speed, for managers all agree that the girls cannot work as hard here as they do on the mainland.
The starched pieces go from the drying machines to the starchers. The starching is done by hand in two laundries and by machine in one. The starch girls have a corner to themselves as a rule, with a sink for washing fine pieces and flannels. The starching process, even when done by machinery, is very simple, and the girls earn even less than the mangle operators. They are paid from $3.00 to $4.50 a week, according to length of service, in one laundry the head starcher receiving $20.00 a month, after three years of service.
The drying-room, where the starched pieces are sent before being ironed, is partitioned off from the main workroom, and in one case the process is entirely automatic, the articles being suspended from the hooks of a traveling chain and carried through the closed drying-room, which is heated to a high degree, from which they are automatically dropped into a basket for ironing. In the other two laundries the pieces are suspended from a chain, drawn by the starch-girl into the drying-room, in which they are left for a certain period of time and are then taken out in the same manner.
The ironing is done by the most experienced workers, this being the last stage of promotion, and the wages paid are from $1.00 a day to $35.00 a month and overtime. It is possible with overtime to earn $10.00 a week, about a dozen women in all reaching this figure, but the most common rate of pay for the normal day is $1.00, with an unpaid-for half-day on Saturday, averaging $5.50 a week for a ten-hour day. One laundry pays $35.00 a month to its most experienced workers for a ten-hour day. All overtime is paid for at regular day rates. The rate is rather under that paid on the mainland, where ironers earn $15.00 and $18.00 a week when working long hours.