The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1917-01-23
CLOAK AND SUIT
WORKERS WAGE
Much Lower Than 1t Appears
to the Casual Observer
LARGELY A SEASONAL TRADE
\ Operatives Work Only About Twenty
Weeks In the Year-During the Dull
Periods There Is Practically No La
Dor Done-DifficuIty Of Fixing Wage
Scales Satisfactory to Both Sides.

Dor Done-DiffcuIty OF Fixing Wage
Scales Satisfactory to Both Sides.
The cloak and suit industry, which
is worth $1OO,OOO,OOO year, says the
New York World, and, which was tied
up for many weeks by lockout and
strike involving originally 60,OOO men
and women and at no time less than
As 1000, is a peculiar and seasonal trade,
quite out of range, of the general infor-
nation of the public. The wages de-
handed by the workers, practically all
Of whom are sewing machine opera
tives, appear, for this reason, to be
much higher than they really are.
A majority of the workers are stead
lily and intensively employed about five
months a year, divided into two busy
seasons, one extending from Jan. to
to Sept. 80.
During these two ten week periods
the piece workers, who comprise near
~ rs per cent of the industry, earn.
the manufacturers say, from $50 to
$40 week. The average, according
to the union, is $50, not more than 10
per cent receiving over that figure.
AS a matter of fact, the earnings of
this class is in sharp controversy as
to the general average wage, the man
ufacturers claiming the average wage
no I'D In Ia 10 hi oh fbov
admitted by the union. By piece work
ers are meant fnishers, operators and
piece tailors..
The other % or 30 per cent of the
operatives. who work by the week, are
paid salaries ranging from $11 for skirt
fnishers to $3.50 for cutters. The
salaries between these figures are:
Part pressers, $3.50; skirt basters,
SIS; skirt underpressers, $1S; jacket
underpressers, $21; REFER underpress-
ers, $21; sample tailors, 1913; skirt up
perpressers, 1913; skirt cutters, $23. so:
REFER upperpressers, sos; jacket up
perpressers, $25. AS to the wages of
the by-the-week workers there is no
controversy.
During these intensive seasons in
normal years every available hand is
employed, the workers being mostly
young men. Approximately 10 to -
per cent of the total number of Oper-
atives in the industry are women or
girls. About Is per cent of the oper-
atives are Italians; the balance, IS per
cent of them, are Jews.
At the tail end of each season there
are three or four weeks when there
is a considerable volume of work. but
not enough to keep it from being dull.
Between the tail ends and the next
busy season the shops~have almost no
work at all, owing to the fact that the
designers are working up styles and
only samples are required.
Thus the wages earned in twenty to
thirty weeks have to be spread over
fifty-two weeks in estimating the year
ly average earnings. There is so little
work in the dull seasons that an op-
erative may hang around the shop, ac
cording to the union and not pick up
more than 80 cents or a dollar when
some little hurry up order drifts in.
There are several hundred different
scales Of wages in the cloak industry,
for the reason that there are several
thousand different styles Of cloaks and
suits, all mostly piece work 1t takes
an expert calculator to figure out, in
each big shop, just how much is to be
paid the sewers for making this, that
or the other cloak or this, that or the
other part Of cloak or suit. The basic