The Minneapolis journal., 1903-12-02
DRUG CLERKS HOURS
Labor Commissioners Idea Heartily
Approved by Retail Drug
Clerks Association.
Another Effort to Shorten Shifts
Will Be Made in Next
Legislature.

Suggestions offered by State Labor
Commissioner Michael e. Neary that,
in justice to a large class of skilled
wage earners and to the public which
might be endangered by faulty service
the hours OF drug clerks should be
shortened. and the custom of allowing
them to sleep in drug stores should be
discontinued, meets with the hearty
approval of the Minnesota Retail Drug
Clerks association.
rms association, which was formed
in 1901, and now has a membership
II over 200, made ineffectual efforts
- nave the last legislature pass a bill
limiting the drug clerks day to ten
hours. This would have materially
shortened the hours for drug clerks
and would have eliminated that class
OF store where the registered pharma-
cist must sleep in the place he works
SO as to respond to night calls.
There are comparatively few phar-
macies in the city where the drug
clerk has to sleep at his post of duty
all night" said Henry G. Schroeder,
president of the Retail Drug Clerks
association, in commenting to-day on
Mr. Neary.s suggestions. The hours
are long enough, however, and to the
long hours during which drug clerks
are kept at work may be ascribed the
large number of t4Asn who have fre-
quents recourse to drugs and drink,
and who eventually become dope
| f1ends or drunkards. The only drug
stores in the city where the clerk is
kept in the place all night as well as
all day are in the outlying districts.
| but the hours in the downtown stores
are hard enough.
! we are better situated in the phar-
macy work in than most Of the reg
| istered pharmacies are, and yet work
four days in the week from q. m
to 1880 p. m. You can imagine thai
during the last hours of the watch a
man is liable to get sleepy and make
mistakes. 1t is a wonder we do not
make more. yssg
"The average of a days work for a
registered pharmacist or drug clerk
in Minneapolis is thirteen hours while
some of them come down at 8 O'Clock
every morning and stay until 10 each
night. And that is for thirty days ir
| the month. All Of us work seven days
in the week. altho many of us get g
| night or so off.
Drug clerks are not over paid
There are only two in Minneapoli!
who get 500 month. Some of us
get sS5, but the majority do not ge
over $65, and there are registered
pharmacists working in the city fol
/ $40 month. That isn't very much
when you think Of the long hours ant
! the responsibility placed on a mar
who puts up prescriptions. It is no
to be wondered at that some men IL
the business take morphine or whisk,
to keep up at the end of the watch
I'VE attempted to get a bill thru
the last legislature making ten hours
I the limit of registered pharmacist
days work, but the country member
opposed it because it would. interfere
with the cohntry drug store, where
the clerk must sleep among the drug
4 to answer night calls. We will bacl
la similar bill at the next session, max
ling it apply to cities of $4,000 popula
ttion or over.
r "The public should be as much in
Iterested as we are in this movemen
lfor sh hOrter hOllrS.n