Men and Things

by Henry A. Atkinson

Before the great war began there was in the United States about one woman worker for every five men. This number has been greatly increased. Of the three hundred specific occupations the census of 1900 enumerated there were only two occupations in which women were not engaged in some capacity. The census of 1910 gives a larger number of occupations, and not one in which women are not employed. Women are on the street-car lines and are line women and telegraphers, riveters, blacksmiths, steam-boiler makers, brass workers, and foundry workers. In fact, no work seems too hard or too heavy for some woman to make a success of it. From the time of the invention of the cotton-gin, which brought more women into the world of industry than any other one machine, to the present day we have the story of women and men gaining larger visions, receiving better wages, and together making the world a more habitable place for us all.

Justice to Women Workers. It would be impossible for us to manage business as we do to-day without the efficient help of secretaries, stenographers, telegraph-operators, and other office assistants, nearly all of whom are women. The question arises as to what treatment a woman should receive. For some reason, when a woman does a piece of work, no matter how well it is done, or howsoever efficient she becomes, we have a feeling that she should receive less pay for the same work than a man would receive. There are many reasons why women are suffering from this injustice. One arises from the conditions which bring a large number of women into industry.

A number of salesgirls, some stenographers, and a great many helpers in different industrial firms live at home and work for what is known as pin-money. They are not primarily dependent upon their wage. The money comes in handy and they can use it to good advantage. They are not forced to work, hence, they can and will accept a lower wage than if they were absolutely dependent upon what they earn. “I receive $3.50 a week for clerking in this store,” said a bright girl in Chicago, “and I don’t take anything from the floor-walkers. Whenever they try to order me around, they have got another guess coming. I don’t have to work, and I let them know it. They are mighty lucky to get me.” This was all right for this girl, but the fact that she was situated so that a salary of $3.50 a week satisfied her made it possible for the firm to set that as a standard wage, and other girls who did have to take bossing from the floor-walkers, and were dependent upon their wages, were forced to accept what the firm offered. A friend of mine who has an interest in a dry-goods store holds that the average girl is not worth more than $6 a week because she works simply to tide her over a few years until she gets married. He said, “I cannot afford to pay more than $6 because my competitors pay this same rate to their clerks; and if I am going to sell goods I have to take into consideration the conditions in the trade.”

Another thing that enters into the situation is the fact that women workers have never been as well organized as men. The points upon which the trade-union movement concentrates are the raising of wages, the shortening of hours, the diminution of seasonal work, the regulation of piece-work (with its resultant speeding up), the maintaining of sanitary conditions, the guarding of unsafe machinery, the making of laws against child labor which can be enforced, the abolition of taxes for power and for working materials (such as thread and needles), and of unfair fines for petty or unproved offenses. Miss Henry tells of a case in a non-union trade which suggests the reasons which make organization a necessity. “Twenty-one years ago in the bag and hemp factories of St. Louis, girl experts turned out 460 yards of material in a twelve-hour day, the pay being 24 cents per bolt, measuring from 60 to 66 yards. These girls earned $1.84 per day. Four years ago a girl could not hold her job under 1,000 yards in a ten-hour day. The fastest possible worker can turn out only 1,200 yards, and the price has dropped to 15 cents a hundred yards. The old rate of 24 cents per bolt used to net $1.80 to a very quick worker. The new rate to one equally competent is but $1.50.

“The workers have to fill a shuttle every minute and a half or two minutes. This necessitates the strain of constant vigilance, as the breaking of the thread causes unevenness, and for this mishap operators are laid off for two or three days. The operators are at such a tension that they not only stand all day, but may not even bend their knees. The air is thick with lint which the workers inhale. The throat and eyes are terribly affected, and it is necessary to work with the head bound up, and to comb the lint from the eyebrows. The proprietors have to retain a physician to attend the workers every morning, and medicine is supplied free, as an accepted need for every one so engaged. One year is spent in learning the trade; and the girls last at it only from three to four years afterward. Some of them enter marriage, but many of them are thrown on the human waste-heap. One company employs nearly 1,000 women, so that a large number are affected by these vile, inhuman conditions. The girls in the trade are mostly Slovaks, Poles, and Bohemians, who have not been long in America. In their inexperience they count $1.50 as good wages, although gained at ever so great a physical cost.”[5] These wretched conditions are not uncommon. Thousands of women who are forced to earn their living and are contributing their full share toward making America the great commercial power she is to-day are laboring under just such injustice.

[5] Alice Henry, The Trade Union Woman.

Women and Unions. Most of the union leaders have viewed with alarm the increasing number of women that are being drafted into industry each year. The reasons for this are clear to all who know the history of trade unionism and know how the workmen greet the coming into industry of any new group of available workers. The war has made labor conditions chaotic; and the shortage in certain lines has given opportunity for the employers to substitute women for men, because women for the most part are economically defenseless and, therefore, can be secured for a lower wage than men. Women are more easily exploited than men because they have not been so long in the industrial struggle with its keen competition. They are less able to appreciate the value of cooperation for mutual protection. One union leader said, “I look upon the large number of women who are being drafted into industry as a real menace to the women themselves, to society, and to labor.” The situation presents itself something like this: Organized labor has a very close relation in its feeling to all labor and to all the different groups of workingmen organized and unorganized; and it regards an injustice to an unorganized worker as being indirectly an injustice to itself. The reason for this sympathy is of course primarily selfish, for the union man knows that if his fellow laborers in another trade are unprotected, and an injustice is practised upon them, it will be only a short time until the same thing will be attempted upon the organized worker. If women go into competition with men under present conditions they will be employed rather than men because they can be secured for a lower wage. Look, for instance, at some of the cotton-mills in the South, where the whole family, father, mother, and two or three children all work, and the total wage of the family group amounts to just about what is considered a living wage.

The attitude of organized labor toward women workers is about the same as its attitude toward cheap foreign labor, and the reason for the feeling is due wholly to the fear that the women brought into the industry will lower wages and bring down the standard of living of the entire group. The attitude is dictated as a defense measure in behalf of the standard of living for all. The attitude of union labor is indefensible except as a measure of self-defense. It should be said, however, that union labor is not a unit in this attitude. There are a large number of broad-minded men in the ranks of the organized workers who recognize present conditions, and see that it is inevitable that larger numbers of women shall be employed in gainful occupations in the future. Instead of putting up the bars and attempting to keep women out, those who have given the matter most thought are putting forth their efforts to organize the workers. The Women’s National Trade Union League, of which Mrs. Raymond Robbins is the president, has rendered great service for the women workers of the nation. Legislation has been secured and minimum wages established in some places. But best of all this movement has been teaching the women workers the necessity of organization in order that they and other women may be protected, and that the women drafted into industry may not become a menace to the American standard of living which has been built up at such great pains and through such toilsome efforts. This league voices the protest of American working women against the notoriously bad conditions surrounding the work of women and children.

Women have always been taken into some of the men’s unions, but the growth of certain trades—such as glove-making, coat- and suit-making, shirt, collar, and shirt-waist manufacturing—employing women almost exclusively made such cooperation impossible. These trades were organized after much effort on the part of the leaders of the Women’s National Trade Union League. This organization has conducted several strikes in big cities in the last ten years, and in nearly every case has won. Girls strike just as hard as men. They have more persistence; are more willing to sacrifice and suffer and generally show more intelligence in conducting their affairs. They make good pickets and because of their aggressive, earnest work are successful. Their resources are not so great and when they are out of work they have more difficulty in getting temporary jobs. Another important feature of their problems is that the supply of non-union workers to take their places is almost unlimited.

Women and the Church. Women in all the Christian ages have recognized the church as their friend and in appreciation of what it has done they have worked unceasingly for its success. There is a big task before the church in behalf of women, and especially in the interests of the women laborers in industry. There is the opportunity for the church groups to influence the individual employer to improve conditions pending regulation by the community. In addition to the question of wages and hours the demands of the churches must involve the abolition of the speeding-up process by which, under the piece-work system, the amount of work required for a specified task is constantly increased. The fastest worker is used as the pace-maker, so that the wage of the slower worker continually drops, and the amount of work done by the fastest workers continually increases. The law may specify a minimum wage, but it cannot specify the amount of work to be done in each particular trade.