The examiner must be an experienced operator on the garments, and should have had enough experience at examining to know the various styles and designs.
How Men are Paid
In the clothing industries men are paid either by time or by piece. The difference in these two systems of payment amounts to very little. Under the time system wages remain unchanged from day to day even though the product varies, and under the piece system as the product increases wages increase proportionally. But the minimum and maximum amount of work insisted upon in one instance by the employees and in the other by the employers make the actual difference in wages received under the two systems almost negligible. The tendency is to base all wages upon time, as this does away in some degree with the dangers of speeding up and with the difficulties of adjustment.
The quantity and quality of the work is so important in the garment trades that it is characterized by a range of wages rather than by a fixed rate. The highest paid men are the designers, who make from $50 a week in the smaller shops to $12,000 a year in the shops of custom tailors. Foremen are paid $25 to $75 a week. Cutters receive wages ranging from $20 to $50 a week. The average cutter receives $35 a week. Pressers make about $33 a week, and machine operators $25, though some shops report wages up to $60 a week for some of their operators, which means much speeding up and overtime work.
Workers on women’s clothes are better paid than those who work on men’s.
How Men Are Trained
Not much attention has been given to the training of garment workers, though many employers are realizing the necessity for the workers to have a knowledge of English, an understanding of the fundamental principles of arithmetic, and some industrial information.
Factory schools have been organized in some instances and workers are allowed to take some of their working time to attend the classes.
Adaptability, general intelligence, skill, precision, and speed are important in the making of a good workman.
The designers, who have been called the “autocrats of the trade,” need, in addition to a native gift of creative art, some knowledge of the technical processes of cutting and sewing, and a course in drafting. Schools of design give courses, but the majority of designers are foreigners, and but few Americans enter this trade.