Besides the value to the workers of the spirit of the shirt-waist strike, they gained another advantage. This was of graver moment even than an advance in wages and of deeper consequences for their future. They gained shorter hours.

What, then, are the trade fortunes of some of those thousands of other women, other machine operatives whose hours and wages are now as the shirt-waist makers' were before the shirt-waist strike? What do some of these other women factory workers, unorganized and entirely dependent upon legislation for conserving their strength by shorter working hours, give in their industry? What do they get from it? For an answer to these questions, we turn to some of the white goods sewers, belt makers, and stitchers on children's dresses, for the annals of their income and outlay in their work away from home in New York.

FOOTNOTES:

[12] Union Label Bulletin, Vol. 2, No. I, p. 1.

[13] This expense would at this date probably be heavier, as the working girls at one of the St. George's Working Girls' Clubs estimated early this summer that shoes of a quality purchasable two years ago at $2 would now cost $2.50.

[14] Constance Leupp, in the Survey.

[15] The circular of advice issued a little later by the Union reads as follows:—

RULES FOR PICKETS

  1. Don't walk in groups of more than two or three.
  2. Don't stand in front of the shop; walk up and down the block.
  3. Don't stop the person you wish to talk to; walk along side of him.
  4. Don't get excited and shout when you are talking.
  5. Don't put your hand on the person you are speaking to. Don't touch his sleeve or button. This may be construed as a "technical assault."
  6. Don't call any one "scab" or use abusive language of any kind.
  7. Plead, persuade, appeal, but do not threaten.
  8. If a policeman arrest you and you are sure that you have committed no offense, take down his number and give it to your Union officers.