SCABS
In C—— in 1910 thousands of workers in the clothing industry struck for better wages. They were mostly newly-arrived immigrants, all of them skilled workingmen, and though the manufacturers were making millions and advertised that they employed only the best skilled labour, the workers, men and women, and their families, starved.
A shameful system of task work was established, whereby contractors sublet their work to sub-contractors, and these to other contractors, and the workers were kept at piece work. Many of them worked from six A. M. until midnight, in dirty, dingy sweatshops and at the end of the week they received seven or eight dollars. Even this small sum was not assured. It happened more than once that the sub-contractor, for whom the men worked, simply disappeared with the pay of all the men. As they were not engaged by the firm they could not ask the manufacturer to pay them, and had to go hungry, they, their wives and their children.
Such conditions lasted a good many years, until at last, in 1910, the men organised and struck to abolish the sub-contracting system and the piece work which led to it. The men struck for a minimum wage, a fixed working hour and sanitary factory conditions. They also wanted to know for whom they were working. To obtain such necessary and elementary rights they were compelled to stay out several months, entailing great suffering from hunger and cold.
In every strike the manufacturers use strike-breakers. Sometimes, in America, the students of the colleges go to scab, to protect the right of free labour, they claim. In the clothing industry skilled workers are used. The students could not execute the work, and among the skilled tailors there was not one mean enough to scab.
Each charity institution also keeps an employment bureau. The men and women they send to work are always paid the most wretched wages, and they work to the last notch of their endurance. For work that has hitherto been paid twelve dollars per week the man who comes recommended by the charities receives not more than six dollars. Of him twice as much work is expected. He is not supposed to lift his head or speak or smile. He must always look humble, wretched, submissive. He must make it appear that his work is worth much less than he gets. He must look to his employer as to the Saviour, because he has been sent by the charities. The fact that he appealed to the charities is a proof that he is a failure, also a proof that the man has nothing to depend upon; no brother, sister or friend that could help. The employers demanding help from the employment office are all "subscribers"—they contribute a certain sum to the institution. For this and other services rendered, they are given a little white plate with black letters to nail on the door, which reads: "Member of organised charity." This acts like a talisman. It drives away the hungry and needy.
If you were to stay a half hour in the private sanctum of the manager of the bureau you would hear such telephonic conversation:
"Is this Mr. So and So?"