The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1917-01-19
GAVE UP CANDY STORE JOB FOR
 FACTORY WORK
Investigator Tells of Condi- tion in Connecticut Els
 tablishments.

The 1916 report of Charlotte M. Holloway of New London, industrial 1 investigator of the bureau of labor statistics contains many new fea- lures.
 The report, bearing on conditions in department and and 10 cent stores says: Never in the history of the existence, did the department
 and other stores of the state do so
 much and so profitable a business as during the year 1916.
 According to the report the high , est percentage of advance in wages was in Bridgeport and Hartford, ranging as high as 46 per cent. in
 the Park City, and being almost ! uniform 25 per cent in this city. As To Laundries
 Under the head of Practices in
 Laundries Which Should Be Abolish ed,' the report says, in part While treating of the defects ! which exist in Chinese laundries, note
 must be made of some practices fol- lowed by @ few which can scarcely
 receive unqualified endorsement. In- deed when these were made known it
 was hard to accept the statement It is that a few laundries, scattered throughout the state, are doing the work of tuberculosis sanatorio.. The statement was made by the older help, who mortally dislike to have anything to do with the clothing and other work.
 "A short time spent in one of the laundrieS on a day on which the work came from a tuberculosis sanatorium showed it. delivered by team which did not belong to the laundry; car- ried in by a man and boy; dumped
 on the floor where a great deal of
 other stuff was lying and imnNediate- 1y the women and men who handled the mess set to work getting it ready for the wash. It might been disin-
 fected. and there is a chance that it might not have been, as experience has proved that unless constant vigil lance is exercised over the attend ants at all public institutions, some of them are likely to grow careless and shirk as much work as they can. Women in Munition Plants "Women have been working for years in munition plants in Connecti- cut, though it is only since 1915 that the greater part of the public seem to have gained knowledge of the fact.' , according to the report on munitions factories. Continuing the report says: "Men in other industries were offer | ed such wages that they forsook their firms and their places had to be fill | ed. Many women entered work which i had hitherto been beyond them. Wages were stated to be so attractive and 1 so easily earned in the rnunition in- dustry that in Bridgeport girls even left the candy stores to swell the ranks. Wages were undoubtedly a great factor in drawing girls to this | work, but, with the scarcity of labor in other branches caused by the de- lection of their workers there was
 general advance in all wages and some were induced to return to their former lines. However, not in suffi- cient number to prevent other em- ployers from facing a very serious situation which greatly impeded their
 output and gravely menaced their gen. eral prosperity. The Remington Arms Company in Bridgeport has the largest number of women workers in,
 the state, employing 4,oOo. Special att tention is paid in the report to this company. The housing problem comes in for it's share of comment
 Hotels
 "All hotels restaurants and dining rooms take excellent care of the dish washing. There is up to date machin- cry in the greater part. Tn Bridge port, there are, or were, between 300
 and 400 restaurants. The hotels have
 doubled their sanitary precautions. Some eating houses are not yet quite
 up to the mark. Summing up the re-
 suits of the Investigation are salu-
 tary and an improvement over the
 conditions noted in 1914.
 "Japanese labor, which began first
 in seaside resorts near New Haven,
 was resorted to as a last expedient,
 but it has proved admirable, in the
 opinion of it's users. Before this
 Japanese servants were rare in Con-
 necticut. By next year, domestic con
 ditions may be changed and they may
 not improve in the line Of general
 plentifulness of domestic labor.
 Whether the European war ends then
 or later, there is no ground for be-
 1ieving that this country is to be
 thrown into immediate surplus of la
 bor, for Europe will have to be de-
 pendent on America for a good three