The Bridgeport evening farmer. [volume] (Bridgeport, Conn.) 1866-1917, 1917-01-06

liked to work at night better than il
the daytime in summer because il
was cooler in the factory; but in the
| opinion of most of the others GOODNESS
does not compensate for the disad.
vantages and discomferts. Sufficien
sleep is hard to get. Noises in the
street and the ordinary household
happenings make it deublef difficult te
become accustomed to the unusual
hours. Women in some departments
were changed back and forth from g
night shift te day shift every tive
weeks, and under these conditions II
is even harder to acquire the habit
of sleeping by day. The unusual mea
| times often mean loss of appetite ano
| INDIGESTION. To timid women, whe
go to and from their work in the late
hours of the night and in the early
morning, the dark and lonely streets
seem a perpetual menace.
The only ones to whom the nigh,
shifts seemed a bonanza were married
women who wanted to take advantage
| Of the chance to earn good pay ir
''the shops as the cartridge factories
were usually called, but who had
homes and families which needed their
! care in the daytime. Often the house
hold duties are neglected, for several
1 of the hours of the day must neces-
sarily go toward an effort to sleep
Sometimes older children have tC
bear the brunt of the work at home
and take care of the younger children
besides One little girl of eleven
| whose mother worked on an all-night
shift swept the rooms, washed the
dishes and took charge Of three young
| er children. including baby of two
years, while the mother slept. In spite
! of the industry Of the young care
taker, the house was dirty and the
children sickly-looking and peevish.
| Occasionally more unusual demes-
tic arrangements were evolved. In
one case, that Of large family con-
! sisting of a man and his wife, their
! four children, his widowed sister-fn-
| law, the latter's three-year-old son,
and a man lodger, the care of the
| house was divided between the two
women. The wife worked in the fac
| tory from three in the afternoon until
| eleven at night, and the sister-in-law' S
| factory hours were from seven in the
morning until three. This arrange
ment left one or the other Of them at
| home all Of the time to get the meals
and take care Of the children, and
| they could meet at the factory at
three o'clock and talk over family
plans for few hurried minutes. Such
routine is possible only in a family
in which some kind of communal do
kmestic arrangements are in force, and
oh >oo1 oh y>c< for. IF
night work for women. 4
| The foreign-born women, like the
wives with home responsibilities, usu-
ally had fewer occupational openings
than single wage-earners of native
birth and had to take their work
, when. they could get it. Consequent
/ 1y many OF them became night work
ers. - - ~
In its official position toward night
work the. United States may have a
lesion to learn. from England. In
the early days of the war England set
aside the labor laws in order to expe-
dite the production of munitions Of
war. Excessive hours of labor, night
work and Sunday work became COM
| mon in the English Factories. In
spite of the patriotic fervor with
which English women entered the
workshops and undertook the manu-
facture of munitions, fatigue, accumu-
lated with the long hours and hard
work and dissatisfaction, fermented.
For these and other reasons the out
put was unsatisfa Glory in quantity. At
last the government officials, facing
the fact that the probable end of the
war was becoming further and fur
Their removed and realizing that Eng
lands working force at home must be
conserved for a long period Of time,
took up the problem from another an
gle. In September, 1915, a commit
tee was appointed under the Ministry
Of Munitions '+to consider and ad-
wise on questions Of industrial ia
tigue. hours Of labor and other mat
physical efficiency of workers in mu-
milton factories and workshops"
Throughout the ensuing investigation
the governments chief concern was
the supreme need of increased output.
In its report the committee went on
record as opposing night work on the
following grounds: G) that it is I'M
economical, because Of the higher wa
ges and lower output; CD that super
vision at night is often unsatisfactory;
(3) that adequate lighting is difficult
to arrange; "a that workers cannot
secure the necessary amount of sleep;
and (5) that workers digestion is de-
ranged by unwonted meal hours. The
committee pointed out that If the in
creasing stress Of the progress of the
war should make night work unavoid
able, adequate rest periods must be
provided of an hour and one of
a half-hour On the long shift, and a
minimum Of half an hour on the short
or eight-hour shift.
+ IN the United States, the workshop
in which vast amounts of war mate.
rails are being manufactured for the
same conflict, though without the pa
triotic motive, no governmental re-
view has been made of the new indus
trial conditions, except that a study
of cccupationa1 diseases connected
with the munitions industry, is now in
progress by the Federal Bureau La
Dor Statistics. This does not, how
ever, include wages and hours.
For purposes of profit. n1anufactu-
rers here are producing with fever
ish haste by methods which have been
declared wasteful by the English In
vestigators. Employers here are ar
guing that the work Of women asywell
as men at night is the only way to
reduce the cost Of maintaining the
plants themselves SO as to yield max
IA