Work commences at seven o’clock in the morning, and on days when the cannery runs full time the official closing time is half-past five; but in only one cannery did the employes state that there was an earlier closing time than six o’clock. Half an hour is allowed for lunch, this being divided between two shifts from noon until one o’clock. The normal working day is therefore eleven or eleven and one-half hours long, as in the factory world it is the custom to close half an hour earlier when the lunch hour is shortened to half an hour.[[5]]
[5]. Butler, Elizabeth Beardsley; Women and the Trades, page 311.
No skill is required by any of the processes; but the packers must exercise good judgment in selecting slices of the proper grade, else cans marked to contain the best fruit may receive inferior contents and vice versa. The forewomen, of whom there is one at each table in two of the canneries, are responsible for the “pack,” as it is called. If the manager, in inspecting the cans, which he does haphazard, finds careless packing coming frequently from any table, the forewoman is deposed; but there are no fines and no penalties, for the reason that it is impossible to locate the packer responsible for the work. Sometimes two or three are engaged in packing the same grade of slices at the same table.
One cannery reports employing no forewoman because of the unwillingness on the part of any of the women workers to assume this responsibility.
The wages paid as reported by employers vary from five and six cents an hour, paid workers under sixteen years of age, to fifteen cents an hour paid to forewomen. As a result, girls who commence working at twelve years of age and are experienced and efficient workers, receive less wages than an older girl in her first season. The highest rate per hour paid to any but forewomen is ten cents, and the lowest paid to workers over sixteen years of age is seven and one-half cents an hour. One cannery reports paying for eleven hours if the employes work ten hours. Overtime is paid for at the regular rate of pay per hour; and in the case of night work until eight or half-past, the workers interviewed say they either go without supper until they return home or else their supper costs them the greater part of what they earn in the three extra hours. One employer says he pays time and a half for overtime, “when he has to,” and one gives the employes coffee and sandwiches for supper when they work later than 7 o’clock. As coffee and bread is the almost invariable breakfast and lunch—if, indeed, any lunch at all is eaten—the effect on the workers’ health of this overtime, without food, or with the kind of food available, cannot but be injurious.
The cannery owners state that during the heavy season it is necessary to work overtime to take care of the fruit, which deteriorates rapidly and which cannot be packed in cold storage; that the Federal Experiment Station had found no way to prevent waste, once the pineapple is ripe, if it is not canned immediately.
Sunday work, of which only five days are reported by the three canneries, is, however, devoted to labeling, this being done after the fruit is cooked, canned and ready for shipment, so there could be no question of deterioration here. A similar state of affairs, in regard to overtime work, was found in California canneries.
At seven and a half cents an hour—a trifle over the average paid all workers (omitting forewomen)—it is necessary for a girl working sixty hours a week (and being paid for sixty-six according to the one-hour bonus plan) to earn $4.95. Contrasted with the average wage earned by employes in the city and country canneries of California, this shows a much lower rate in Honolulu, the California average being $7.92 a week for 63.8 hours’ work in the country canneries and $7.21 a week for 57.8 hours’ work in the city establishments. (This average also omitted forewomen.)[[6]]
[6]. Bulletin of the Bureau of Labor, No. 96, September, 1911; page 397.
The owner of one of the canneries stated that last year the average wage was $3.50 to $4.00, and that some of the employes who had been with them longest earned as high as $10.50 during the heavy season. This year the rate of pay was raised in all the canneries, due, I was told by several of the girls, to “kicks by the Jap women.”