The labor journal. [volume] (Everett, Wash.) 1909-1976, 1909-08-06

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feel that you belong there, and to be
turned out without word, without the
boss even saying good bye-well, it
comes hard. "If he'd only said, Pm
SORRY" mother kept repeating; "if he'd
only said, I'm sorry"
1t made me bitter to Sc how old she
grew after that. wouldn't take her
place, even though the boss offered it
to me, and as there was no other work
that l could do in Brooklin, we moved
to New York, where an East side fac
tory had advertised for girls.
Hat trimming is piece work, you
know. l can't tell you just how much
a girl earns, because the scale is higher
in union than in non-union shops and
the work is steadier. Where / work, in
a nonunion shop, the scale for binders,
as the girls who bind the "stiffs" or
Derby hats are called, runs from 25 to
35 cents a dozen. This is all hand work
and takes skill before it can be done
neatly. But a girl who has been at it
long can bind nearly six dozen hats per
day. That is, if she has good luck and
her needles and thread don't break. The
trouble is she don't often get full DAYS
work. In non-union shops a fifth
more girls are kept on the payroll than
are needed. It's good for the bosses, l
suppose, because it keeps the scale down
but it's not fair to the girls. We have
to be in our seats every morning at s
o'clock, and wait and wait. The hours
l waste in just waiting are sometimes a
third of my week.
In union shops there is no such sys.
tenn. Enough girls are employed to
give each a full days work, and during
the slack season the hats are divided.
so that each girl has a few hours work.
She knows beforehand at what hour this
work will be ready, and can plan To
spend the rest of her day as she pleases
You see what help the union is.
My work commences when the bind
ing is done, for | am trimmer |
have to sew in the the lining and the
leather band, and put on the ribbon
and make and sew in place the bow. OF
this work the leather band is the fussi-
est. Take any mans hat and count the
number of stitches in one inch of the
band. In the first grades there are as
many as sixteen stitches TO the inch
These stitches are so even that you
might think thy were machine work
But they are not-every one is made by
hand. wish you could see the num-
Der of needles that break on these stit-
ches-they cost me, with the thread, al.
most 20 cents a week. That's another
thing the union does for the girls. In
organized shops thread and needles are
furnished by the boss. And he pays
more for his work, too, the union scale
running higher per dozen than non-un-
ion. In Newark, where the girls have a
strong organization, "trimmers can
make as much as sixteen and twenty
dollars a y, sh. But in our shop III, re
is no such money. Our scale runs fray,
10 crats to dollar per dozen. NV.
could trim from two to theree
dozen day, bw | don't set the Chance
n, ,tou LrCy that, though my aviage
wage is about dollar 4 day, i hntc
made as little as little as 35 cents
This makes living an awful problem
because You never know what to de-
pend upon.
think was seventeen before felt
the need of an education. Before that
| had been doing as the other girls in
the factory, going TO parks and dances
and taking walks in the evening. One
night when | came home late | founC
my mother sitting by the table witt
my little old reader in her lap. Sh'
was crying. When | asked her what