The Knoxville independent. [volume] (Knoxville, Tenn.) 1894-current, 1917-03-10

operatives VoTN ~HIy NSSoA 'WVhey
Weeks In the Year-During the Dull
Periods There 10 Practically No La
Dor Done--DiffiouIty of Fixing Wage
Scales Satisfactory to Both Sides.
The cloak and suit industry, which
Is worth S10OO00OOO year, says the
New York World, and which was tied
up for many weeks by lockout and
strike involving originally 10000 men
and women and at no time less than
$4,000, 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
lives, 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
March Is and the other from July Is
to Sept 80.
During these two ten week periods
the piece workers, who comprise near
" Is per cent of the industry, earn,
the manufacturers say, from $50 to
| $40 a week. The average, according
: to the union, is $35, 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
earned under the scale Is higher than
admitted by the union. By piece work
ers are meant finishers, operators and
piece tailors.
The other 25 or 80 per cent of the
operatives, who work by the week, are
paid salaries ranging from $11 for skirt
flnishers to $27.50 for cutters. The
salaries between these figures are:
Part pressers, $3.50; skirt basters,
SIS; skirt underpressers, $18; jacket
underpressers, sol; REFER underpress-
ers, $21; sample tailors, $23; skirt up
perpressers, $23; skirt cutters, $3.50;
REFER upperpressers, $25; 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 l.
per cent of the total number Of oper'
atives in the industry are women OF
girls. About Is per cent Of the oper
atives are Italians; the balance, IS pei
: 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 mex
busy season the shops have almost NJ
work at all, owing to the fact that thu
designers are working up styles ant
only samples are required.
Thus the wages earned In twenty t.
thirty weeks have to be spread owe
fifty-two weeks in estimating the year
ly average earnings. There is so littl
. work in the dull seasons that an Op
, erative may hang around the shop, &C
, cording to the union, and not pick VI
more than 30 cents or a dollar whel
some little hurry up order drifts in.
There are several hundred dihferen
! scales of wages in the cloak industry
for the reason that there are severa
thousand different styles of cloaks an,
suits, all mostly piece work. 1t take
an expert calculator to figure out, il
each big shop, just how much is to b
paid the sewers for making this, tina
or the other cloak or this, that or tn
other part Of cloak or suit. The basi
: wage price is based on the amount O
work an operative can do in a day
7 and the hundreds of different wag
A prices are based on the number @
4 particular pieces or parts Of the gal
4 ment that can be sewed In day.
The great strike preceding the recer
8 one drove some Of the biggest man,
: facturers out of business and resulte
3 in establishing all over the Jewish dil
0 tricts, but particularly In Brownsville
D and Williamsburg, small shops emplo!
: ing from three to twenty-five SEWN
3 machine operators. They cut into th
t trade of the big manufacturers, an
. one of the objects of the recent loci
/ out and strike, SO far as the member
: Of the Manufacturers Protective ass
citation is concerned, was to drive thes
. outsiders out of the trade and resto1
( the $100,000O0O year industry to II
D former centralized condition.