Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1904-05-14
WOMEN AS WORKERS
What Leaders Say About
Hours and Wages.
MANY STRONG UNIONS
TEACHERS ORGANIZING.
Woman as striker-Female Clerks in
Department stores-To Better
Their Condition.
MANY STRONG UNIONS

Copyright. 1904. BY Frank G. Carpenter.)
Written for The Evening Star.
What should women do to help their sex
as to labor matters?'
Are trade unions a good thing for wo-
menu?
DO they not tend to unsex them-make
them masculina?"
"Will women stand by their union in
strikesr'
What should be done with the union
girlT'
do you believe in the closed shop?'
What has your union done for women in
your trader
/ viii women ever have the same pay and
hours as men?'
How far will women's trade unions ex-
tend-to factories, to clerks, to typewriters,
servant girls?''
In this letter I give you answers to the
above questions which / have just received
from some Of the most prominent of the
women labor leaders of the United States
Few people realize how rapidly the organ
lied woman worker is invading our indus
trial life. She controls twenty-six different
trades in Chicago, and in that city alone
numbers $4,000 members. She is to be
found in all of our factory centers, and she
Will soon be as many as are the Russian
soldiers in Manchuria. There are now
trade unions in nearly every branch of wo-
mans work, and many of the mems unions
are admitting women members. In Chicago
even the scrubwomen have union.
The sausage girls, who work in the pack
ing, factories are organized, and there are
unions of laundresses, candy workers. tele-
phone girls, horseshoe nail makers, foundry
girls, paper box makers and even school
teachers. Indeed, the Women School Teach
ers Union of Chicago embraces more than
three thousand public school teachers. They
have an organization which has fought the
big corporations which has carried its
wrongs into the courts, and has made the
city increase its salaries A leader OF this
union is Miss Margaret Haley. who gave as
her excuse for not Immediately answering
my questions, that she was aiding in the
conduct of the suit of the Chicago Teachers
Federation in the courts
The Lady Retail Clerks.
One of the fast growing women's organl-
cations of the United States is the Union of
Lady Retail Clerks. Its members are found
in most of our big department stores There
are 1900 of them in Chicago alone, and they
have locals in nearly all the large cities
have a letter before me from Miss Emma
Lamphere, the general organizer of this
union. She has Travelled all over the coun-
try and is welI-known everywhere in labor
circles She says:
II believe that trade unions are good
thing for women, and that they are abso-
lutely necessary to their business and in
dustrial success. This is especially so as
regards retail clerks. The female help in
most stores is uncertain. There is so much
floating help-here today and gone tomor-
row-that it is very annoying to the
merchant and unsettling to the employees.
Many of our salesladies work only for pin
money, thereby keeping out others who are
compelled to depend upon their own re-
sources for living. 1t is necessary that
saleslady should have good, up-to-date
clothes, and she must have good salary to
pay for them, otherwise she must steal or
secure money in other ways. Indeed, hum
dreds of young girls go to ruin yearly
through the low salaries paid by the retail