"This, then, is the situation in general for women workers in the commercial laundries. With respect to sanitation, the heat is excessive wherever ironing is done by machinery. Many of the rooms are full of steam. Some of the laundries have insanitary toilet and cloak rooms. With respect to danger of injury, in a large proportion of places there is unguarded or inadequately guarded machinery. In respect to hours of labor, these often extend over the sixty-hour limit in rush seasons. The hours are not only long, but irregular. A twelve to fourteen-hour working-day is not infrequent. In a few places closing on Mondays and Saturdays, or open for short hours on Mondays, the working-day runs up on occasions to seventeen hours. Almost all the laundry work is done standing. Wages for the majority of the workers are low."
The League's conclusions in regard to legislation will be placed at the close of the following accounts of the laundries of the large New York hospitals and hotels, the first report being written by Miss Elizabeth Howard Westwood, the second report by Miss Mary Alden Hopkins.
II
"By a decision of the District Attorney, hotel and hospital laundries, provided they do no outside work, do not come under the jurisdiction of the Department of Labor. Women may work far beyond the sixty-hour limit on seven days of the week without any interference on the part of the government. Nor is there any authority that can force hospitals and hotel keepers to guard their machinery.
"While the hospitals did not, as a rule, exceed legal hours, were excellent as a rule in point of sanitation, and paid better wages than the commercial laundries to all but the more skilled workers, the machinery was adequately guarded in only one of the eight hospital laundries where I worked.
"In some, the belt that transfers the power was left unscreened, to the danger of passing workers. In others the mangle guard was insufficient. In all the hospitals I heard of casualties. Fingers had been mashed. A hand had been mashed. An arm had been dragged out. Unguarded machinery was, of course, a striking inconsistency, more inexcusable in the hospitals than in hotels or in commercial laundries. For hospitals are not engaged in a gainful pursuit, regardless of all humanitarian considerations. On the contrary, they are not only avowedly philanthropic in aim, but are carried on solely in the cause of health.
"The living-in system prevails in the hospitals, and wages are paid partly in board and lodging. The laundry workers share the dormitories and dining rooms of the other hospital employees. The dormitories were in every case furnished with comfortable beds, and chiffonniers or bureaus and adequate closet space were provided. Miss Hopkins and I did not sleep in, but had our beds assigned us, and used our dormitory rights merely for a cloak room. Here we lingered after hours to gossip, and here we often retired at noon to stretch out for a few minutes' relaxation of our aching muscles. The dormitories varied in size. Each hospital had several large and several small ones. In most cases these dormitories were on upper floors. In one they occupied the basement. Here, however, a wide sunken alley skirted the house wall and gave the windows a fairly good access to the air.
"In all but two hospitals the food was excellent and the meals decently served. There were eggs and milk in abundance. The soups were delicious, the meats of fair quality and well cooked. There were plenty of vegetables, and the desserts were appetizing. We sat, as a rule, at long tables accommodating from ten to twenty. Sometimes we had table-cloths and napkins; sometimes a white oil-cloth sufficed. We were waited on by maids.
"In most of the hospitals there is a fifteen or twenty-minute rest in the morning and in the afternoon, when milk, tea, and bread and butter are served. These oases of rest and nourishment were of extraordinary value to us in resisting fatigue. Their efficiency in keeping workers in condition is a humane and practical feature of the laundries which should be sharply emphasized.
"There was little variation in wages between the different grades of workers. As a rule, only two prices obtained—one for all the manglers and plain ironers, another for the starchers and shirt and fancy ironers. In one laundry the wage fell as low as $10 a month. In the others it was $14 and $15 for the lower grade of work, and $16 and $20 for the higher. One of the laundries gave board, but no room, and here the universal price was $20 a month.