The Survey, Volume 30, Number 3, Apr 19, 1913

by Various

Transcriber’s Note:

New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the public domain.

The Survey, Volume XXX, No. 3, Apr 19, 1913

THE COMMON WELFARE

THE STRIKE OF THE
JERSEY SILK WORKERS

For seven weeks the 27,000 workers in the silk mills and dye houses of Paterson, N. J., have been on strike for improved conditions and against a proposed change in method that will, they declare, alter the character of the industry.

The strike began with the broad silk weavers as a protest against the introduction of the three and four loom system. They were soon joined by the ribbon weavers and the dye house men, whose demands are for an eight-hour day and a minimum wage of $12 a week. The dye house men have been laboring in two shifts of twelve hours each. Their work is often carried on under unhealthful conditions of dampness, high temperature and poor ventilation.

All the strikers joined the branch of the Industrial Workers of the World which conducted the Lawrence strike. This is one factor which has caused tension in a situation, in which statutes dating back to colonial days have been brought to bear on a modern industrial struggle till a Supreme Court judge denounced the lengths to which the police have gone.

Back of the police incidents and the spreading of the revolutionary doctrines of the Industrial Socialists is a profound economic change involved in the introduction of the four loom system. This is not merely the substitution of machines for skilled men due to invention, but the supplanting of high-grade textile manufacture by low-grade output because of the greater profits in the cheap goods. It is as if a vineyard were giving way to a hay farm—a change which seriously affects the working population of Paterson.

In order to make the situation clear it is necessary to take a brief look at the history of the silk industry in this country. Twenty years or so ago the competition between Pennsylvania and New Jersey for the manufacture of cheap silks was keen, but within a few years the battle was over. Induced, it is said, by real estate companies, the manufacture of cheap silk on a large scale migrated to Pennsylvania. Great factories were built and leased on easy terms, and these were equipped with automatic looms, four of which could be operated by one girl or boy. There the wives and children of the coal miners furnished a cheap labor supply.