What eight million women want Part 7

The next day in court Mr. Muller was fined ten dollars. Instead of paying the fine he appealed, backed up in his action by the other laundrymen of Portland, on the ground that the ten-hour law for women workers was unconst.i.tutional. The Fourteenth Amendment to the Const.i.tution guarantees to every adult member of the community the right freely to contract. A man or a woman may contract with an employer to work as many hours a day, or a night, for whatever wages, in whatever dangerous or unhealthful or menacing conditions, _unless_ "there is fair ground to say that there is material danger to the public health or safety, or to the health and safety of the employee, or to the general welfare...." This is the legal decision on which most protective legislation in the United States has been based.

Several years ago, in Illinois, a law providing an eight-hour day for women was declared unconst.i.tutional because n.o.body's health or safety was endangered; and on the same grounds the same fate met a New York law forbidding all-night employment of women.

So Mr. Curt Muller and the laundrymen of Portland, Oregon, had reason to believe that they could attack the Oregon law. The case was appealed, and appealed again, by the laundrymen, and finally reached the Supreme Court of the United States. Then the Consumers' League took a hand.

The brief for the State of Oregon, "defendant in error," was prepared by Louis D. Brandeis, of Boston, a.s.sisted by Josephine Goldmark, one of the most effective workers in the League's New York headquarters. This brief is probably one of the most remarkable legal doc.u.ments in existence. It consists of one hundred and twelve printed pages, of which a few paragraphs were written by the attorney for the State. All the rest was contributed, under Miss Goldmark's direction, from the Consumers'

League's wonderful collection of reasons why women workers should be protected.

The League's reply to the Oregon laundrymen who asked leave to work their women employees far into the night was, "The World's Experience upon Which the Legislation Limiting the Hours of Labor for Women is Based." It is simply a ma.s.s of testimony taken from hearings before the English Parliament, before state legislatures, state labor boards; from the reports of factory inspectors in many countries; from reports of industrial commissions in the United States and elsewhere; from medical books; from reports of boards of health.

REASONS FOR PROTECTING WOMEN WORKERS The brief included a short and interesting chapter, containing a number of things the League had collected on the subject of laundries. Supreme Court judges cannot be expected to know that laundry work is cla.s.sed by experts among the dangerous trades. That washing clothes, from a simple home or backyard occupation, has been transformed into a highly-organized factory trade full of complicated and often extremely dangerous machinery; that the atmosphere of a steam laundry is more conducive to tuberculosis and the other occupational diseases than cotton mills; that the work in laundries, being irregular, is conducive to a general low state of morals; that, on the whole, women should not be required to spend more time than necessary in laundries; all this was set forth.

Medical testimony showed the physical differences between men and women; the lesser power of women to endure long hours of standing; the heightened susceptibility of women to industrial poisons--lead, naphtha, and the like. A long chapter of testimony on the effect of child-bearing in communities where the women had toiled long hours before marriage, or afterwards, was included.

The testimony of factory inspectors, of industrial experts, of employers in England, Germany, France, America, revealed the bad effect of long hours on women's safety, both physical and moral. It revealed the good effect, on the individual health, home life, and general welfare, of short hours of labor.

Nor was the business aspect of the case neglected. That people accomplish as much in an eight-hour day as in a twelve-hour day has actually been demonstrated. The brief stated, for one instance, the experience of a bicycle factory in Ma.s.sachusetts.

In this place young women were employed to sort the ball bearings which went into the machines. They did this by touch, and no girl was of use to the firm unless her touch was very sensitive and very sure. The head of this firm became convinced that the work done late in the afternoon was of inferior quality, and he tried the experiment of cutting the hours from ten to nine. The work was done on piece wages, and the girls at first protested against the nine-hour day, fearing that their pay envelopes would suffer. To their astonishment they earned as much in nine hours as they had in ten. In time the employer cut the working day down to eight hours and a half, and in addition gave the girls ten-minute rests twice a day. Still they earned their full wages, and they continued to earn full wages after the day became eight hours long. The employer testified before the United States Industrial Commission of 1900 that he believed he could successfully shorten the day to seven hours and a half and get the same amount of work accomplished.

What can you do against testimony like that? The Consumers' League convinced the Supreme Court of the United States, and the Oregon ten-hour law was upheld.

The importance of this decision cannot be overestimated. On it hangs the validity of nearly all the laws which have been pa.s.sed in the United States for the protection of women workers. If the Oregon law had been declared unconst.i.tutional, laws in twenty States, or practically all the States where women work in factories, would have been in perpetual danger, and the United States might easily have sunk to a position occupied now by no leading country in Europe.

Great Britain has had protective legislation for women workers since 1844. In 1847 the labor of women in English textile mills was limited to ten hours a day, the period we are now worrying about, as being possibly contrary to our Const.i.tution. France, within the past five years, has established a ten-hour day, broken by one hour of rest. Switzerland, Germany, Holland, Austria, Italy, limit the hours of women's labor. In several countries there are special provisions giving extra time off to women who have household responsibilities. What would our Const.i.tution-bound law makers say to such a proposition, if any one had the hardihood to suggest it?

If this law had not been upheld by the United States Supreme Court the women of no State could have hoped to secure further legislation for women workers. As it is, women in many States are preparing to establish what is now known as "The Oregon Standard," that is, a ten-hour day for all working women.

Nothing in connection with the woman movement is more significant, certainly nothing was more unexpected, than the voluntary abandonment, on the part of women, of cla.s.s prejudice and cla.s.s distinctions. Where formerly the interest of the leisured woman in her wage-earning sisters was of a sentimental or philanthropic character, it has become practical and democratic.

The Young Women's Christian a.s.sociation has had an industrial department, which up to a recent period concerned itself merely with the spiritual welfare of working girls. Prayer meetings in factories, clubs, and cla.s.ses in the a.s.sociation headquarters, working-girls' boarding homes, and other philanthropic efforts were the limits of the a.s.sociation's activities. The entire policy has changed of late, and under the capable direction of Miss Annie Marian MacLean, of Brooklyn, New York, the industrial department of the a.s.sociation is doing scientific investigation of labor conditions of women.

In a cracker factory I once saw a paid worker in the Young Women's Christian a.s.sociation pause above a young girl lying on the floor, crimson with fever, and apparently in the throes of a serious illness.

With angelic pity on her face the a.s.sociation worker stooped and slipped a tract into the sick girl's hand. The kind of industrial secretary the a.s.sociation now employs would send for an ambulance and see that the girl had the best of hospital care. She would inquire whether the girl's illness was caused by the conditions under which she worked, and she would know if it were possible to have those conditions changed.

WOMEN'S CLUBS STUDYING LABOR PROBLEMS Nearly every state federation of women's clubs has its industrial committee, and many large clubs have a corresponding department. It is these industrial sections of the women's clubs which are such a thorn in the flesh of Mr. John Kirby, Jr., the new president of the National Manufacturers' a.s.sociation. In his inaugural address Mr. Kirby warned his colleagues that women's clubs were not the ladylike, innocuous inst.i.tutions that too-confiding man supposed them to be. In those clubs, he declared, their own wives and daughters were listening to addresses by the worst enemies of the Manufacturers' a.s.sociation, the labor leaders. By which he meant that the club women were inviting trade-union men and women to present the worker's side of industrial subjects. "Soon," exclaimed Mr. Kirby, "we shall have to fight the women as well as the unions."

The richest and most aristocratic woman's club in the country is the Colony Club of New York. The Colony Club was organized by a number of women from the exclusive circles of New York society, after the manner of men's clubs. The women built a magnificent clubhouse on Madison Avenue, furnished it with every luxury, including a wonderful roof-garden. For a time the Colony Club appeared to be nothing more than a beautiful toy which its members played with. But soon it began to develop into a sort of a woman's forum, where all sorts of social topics were discussed. Visiting women of distinction, artists, writers, lecturers, were entertained there.

Last year the club inaugurated a Wednesday afternoon course in industrial economics. The women did not invite lecturers from Columbia University to address them. They asked John Mitch.e.l.l and many lesser lights of the labor world. They wanted to learn, at first hand, the facts concerning conditions of industry. Most of them are stockholders in mills, factories, mines, or business establishments. Many own real estate on which factories stand.

"It is not fair," they have openly declared, "that we should enjoy wealth and luxury at the cost of illness, suffering, and death. We do not want wealth on such terms."

The Colony Club members, and the women who form the Auxiliary to the National Civic Federation, have for their object improvement in the working and living conditions of wage earners in industries and in governmental inst.i.tutions. A few conscientious employers have spent a part of their profits to make their employees comfortable. They have given them the best sanitary conditions, good air, strong light, and comfortable seats. They have provided rest rooms, lunch rooms, vacation houses, and the like.

No one should belittle such efforts on the part of employers. Equally, no one should regard them as a solution of the industrial problem. Nor should they be used as a subst.i.tute for justice.

Too often this so-called welfare work has been clumsily managed, untactfully administered. Too often it has been inst.i.tuted, not to benefit the workers, but to advertise the business. Too often its real object was a desire to play the philanthropist's role, to exact obsequience from the wage earner.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MRS. J. BORDEN HARRIMAN President of the Colony Club, New York, the most exclusive Women's Club in the country]

I know a corset factory which makes a feature in its advertising of the perfect sanitary condition of its works; when visitors are expected, the girls are required to stop work and clean the rooms. Since they work on a piece-work scale, the "perfect sanitary conditions" exist at their expense. In a department store I know, employees are required to sign a printed expression of grat.i.tude for overtime pay or an extra holiday.

This kind of welfare work simply alienates employees from their employers. It always fails.

It seems to the women who have studied these things that proper sanitary conditions, lunch rooms, comfortable seats, provision for rest, vacations with pay, and the like are no more than the wage earner's due. They are a part of the laborer's hire, and should be guaranteed by law, exactly as wages are guaranteed. An employer deserves grat.i.tude for overtime pay no more than for fire escapes.

Testimony gathered from all sources by the Consumers' League, women's clubs, and women's labor organizations has proved beyond doubt that good working conditions, reasonable hours of work, and living wages vastly increase the efficiency of the workers, and thus increase the profits of the employers.

The New York Telephone Company does not set itself up to be a benevolent inst.i.tution. Its directors know that its profits depend on the excellence of its service. There is one exchange in the Borough of Brooklyn which handles a large part of the Long Island traffic. This traffic is very heavy in summer on account of the number of summer resorts along the coast. In the fall and winter the traffic is very light. Six months in the year the operators at this exchange work only half the day, yet the company keeps them on full salary the year round.

"We cannot afford to do anything else," explains the traffic manager.

"We cannot afford operators who would be content with half wages."

[Ill.u.s.tration: MISS ELIZABETH MALONEY]

The old-time dry-goods merchant sincerely believed that his business would suffer if he provided seats for his saleswomen. He believed that he would go into bankruptcy if he allowed his women clerks human working conditions. Then came the Consumers' League and mercantile laws, and a new pressure of public opinion, and the dry-goods merchant found out that a clerk in good physical condition sells more goods than one that is exhausted and uncomfortable.

The fact is that welfare work, carefully shorn of its name, has proved itself to be such good business policy that in future all intelligent employers will advocate it; public opinion will demand it; laws will provide for it.

It used to be the invariable custom in stores--it is so still in a few--to lay off many clerks during the dull seasons. Now the best stores find that they can better afford to give all their employees vacations with pay. A clerk coming home after a vacation can sell goods, even in dull times. More and more employers are coming to appreciate the money value of the Sat.u.r.day half-holiday in summer. Hearn, in New York, closes his department store all day Sat.u.r.day during July and August. The store sells more goods in five days than it previously sold in six.

THE FILENE SYSTEM OF DEVELOPING EFFICIENT WORKERS There is one department store which has demonstrated that it is profitable to pay higher wages than its compet.i.tors, and that it pays to allow the employees to fix the terms of their own employment. This is the Filene store in Boston, which has developed within the past ten years from a conservative, old-fashioned dry-goods business into an extremely original and interesting experiment station in commercial economics.

The entire policy of the Filene management is bent on developing to the highest possible point the efficiency of each individual clerk. The best possible material is sought. No girl under sixteen is employed, and no girl of any age who has not graduated with credit from the grammar schools. There are a number of college-bred men and women in the Filene employ.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A DEPARTMENT STORE REST-ROOM FOR WOMEN]

Good wages are paid, even to beginners, and experienced employees are rewarded, not according to a fixed rate of payment, but according to earning capacity. Taken throughout the store, wages, plus commissions, which are allowed in all departments, average about two dollars a week higher than in other department stores in Boston.

No irresponsible, automatic employee can develop high efficiency. She does not want to become efficient; she wants merely to receive a pay envelope at the end of the week. In order to develop responsibility and initiative in their employees the Filenes have put them on a self-governing basis. The workers do not literally make their own rules, but the vote of the majority can change any rule made by the firm. The firm furnishes its employees with a printed book of rules, in which the policy of the store is set forth. If the employees object to any of the rules, or any part of the policy, they can vote a change.

The medium through which the clerks express their opinions and desires is the Filene Co-operative a.s.sociation, of which every clerk and every employee in the place is a member. No dues are exacted, as is the custom in the usual employees' a.s.sociation. The executive body, called the Store Council, and all other officers are elected by the members. All matters of grievance, all subjects of controversy, are referred to the Store Council, which, as often as occasion demands, calls a meeting of the entire a.s.sociation after business hours.

For example: Christmas happens on a Friday. The firm decides to keep the store open on the following day--Sat.u.r.day. There is an expression of dissatisfaction from a number of clerks. A meeting of the a.s.sociation is called, and a vote taken as to whether the majority want the extra holiday or not; whether the majority are willing to lose the commissions on a day's sales, for, of course, salaries continue. The vote reveals that the majority want the holiday. The Store Council so reports to the firm, and the firm must grant the holiday.

All matters of difficulty arising between employers and employed, in the Filene store, are settled not by the firm, but by the Arbitration Board of Employees, also elected by popular vote. All disagreements as to wages, position, promotion, all questions of personal issue between saleswomen and aislemen, or others in authority, are referred to the Board of Arbitration, and the board's decision is final. There is no tyranny of the buyer, no arbitrary authority of the head of a department. Every clerk knows that her tenure is secure as long as she is an efficient saleswoman.

Surely it is not too much to hope that, in a future not too far distant, all women who earn their bread will serve a system of industry adjusted by law to human standards. In enlightened America the courts, presided over by men to whom manual labor is known only in theory, have persistently ruled that the _Const.i.tution forbade the State to make laws protecting women workers_. It has seemed to most of our courts and most of our judges that the State fulfilled its whole duty to its women citizens when it guaranteed them the right freely to contract--even though they consented, or their poverty consented, to contracts which involved irreparable harm to themselves, the community, and future generations. The women of this country have done nothing more important than to educate the judiciary of the United States out of and beyond this terrible delusion.

CHAPTER VI

MAKING OVER THE FACTORY FROM THE INSIDE