The labor world. [volume] (Duluth, Minn.) 1896-current, 1910-12-17

New York are used as sWeatshops
where women and children, under the
age of fourteen, toll on factory work"
and at factory occupations at all
| times of the day and night for a mis-
| cradle wage. Around Christmas the
number Of home sWeatshops mounts
to somewhere between $4,000 and
100000, according to those familiar
with home and child labor in New
York.
This wholesale turning of homes
into factories is done strictly in ac-
cordance with the labor law of the
State of New York, which finds moth
ing demonstrations" in it. All that
the labor law demands is that tene-
ments, where home work is being
done, be licensed.
Every month the bureau of factory
inspection of the New York state de-
| manufacturers with lists of tenements
in the Greater City which are licensed
to receive factory work. For the
| month of October the bulletin shows
there were nearly $4,000. or to be ex-
! act to the figure. 1887 tenements
where goods could legally be taken
LUZ PURPOSES.
Those Unlicensed and Why.
These $4,000 tenements are Of
course located in the most congested
districts Of Manhattan, the Bronx,
Brooklyn and Queens. Thousands of
| other tenements, whose owners have
! applied for licenses to turn them into
| home workshops, have had their re-
quest denied them by the bureau of
| factory inspection, because their SAM
| tary or rather insanitary condition has
been found to be such that even with
out turning the homes in these tene-
ments into legal sweatshops they
were bordering on the pestilential.
These $4,000 licensed tenements
have all the way from six to twenty
tenants or families living in them.
A visit to the offices of the National
Child Labor committee and to the
| office of the New York Child Labor
! committee brought out startling facts
about these home tenements. The
| reasons for the ever increasing num-
| Der of home sweatshops, briefly, are
as follows:
l. The home sweatshops enable
the manufacturer to save large sums
(
their employees work at home.
| 2. Home sweatshops enable the
manufacturers to employ child labor,
for there is no law which can stop
a child from working at home, after
school hours.
| 3. BY fostering home sweatshops
the manufacturer divides the workers
and pays different prices to each and
every one of his employees, since each
one works at home and does not know
what his neighbor gets for the same
| work.
| 4. The home sweatshops keep the
| men, or rather the women, in the
| trade from being unionized
1--WE have been combating the home
sweatshops for years." said Owen r..
Lovejoy, because they are one of the
worst features of present day indus
try, Home sweatshops cannot be in
spected properly. Children can be
worked in these home sweatshops
even more cruelty than in factories
! All arguments to the effect that
nome Industry Is needed by thousands
of families to make ends meet are
pure fallacy. The home sweatshop in
creases the burden of poverty. The
more the manufacturer can have his
work done in the home by women and
children, the less he pays to the man
I who works in his shop. What the
women and children earn is sliced off
the fathers wages"
A Fine Thing for the Boss.
General Secretary Lovejoy charged
that these home tenements are fos-
tered by the manufa cturers because
1t means great saving to them all
around. Rental for business floors in
New York is high. 1t is to the ad-
! vantage of the manufacturer, there
fore, to occupy as small a place as
possible for his factory. Not only
does he save rent, but he saves light
and heat and saves a great deal of
trouble to himself in the way of look
ing after the sanitary conditions of
his establishment.
On the other hand, the things which
the employer saves by distributing his
| work in scores or even hundreds of
homes are things which the people in
| these home sweatshops have to pay
for. From the meager wages which
the woman who takes out garments
! from a shop to finish at home earns,
she has to pay for the gas which she
uses in larger amounts than she would
if she did not have to sew in the even
| ing and sometimes late in the night.
She even pays higher rent, for the
women who take out work from shops
into their own homes generally look
out for fiat where there might be
a convenient nook or corner to put
a machine in or lay down a bundle of
clothing.
The kinds of work which are done
in the home sweatshops and which
come under the consideration of the
labor law are as follows:
| Manufacturing, altering, repairing
and finishing of coats, vests, knee
pants, trousers. overalls, cloaks. hats,
caps, suspenders jerseys blouses
dresses, waists, Wristbands, underwear,
| neckwear fur, fur trimmings fur gar
ments, skirts, shirts, aprons, purses,
pocketbooks, slippers paper boxes,
paper bags, feathers, artificial flowers,
cigarettes, cigars, umbrellas or ar