The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1918-02-16
WHAT WOMEN EARN.

The minimum wage legislation is
an attempt to make employers pay
their employees more than they earn"
This statement embodies a wide
spread opinion that women workers in
industry at present are paid what
they earn, and that the purpose to
fix Legal minimum wage is simply a
dig down into his charity fund and
make a present to certain employees
of subsidy beyond what they are
worth to him. That this common
opinion, like many others of the same
class, is without foundation in fact |
may be seen from the two following |
considerations: first that no minimum
wage law in existence, or ever seri- |
ously proposed, required any employ |
er to keep in his employ for single |
hour any incompetent worker or any |
worker who is not worth the pre- |
scribed minimum to him; secondly, |
that secrecy and chaos have charac- |
terized the wage scales of women work |
ers: consequently that no standards
have been observed in fixing wOmen's |
wages, and the assertion that women
are paid what they earn is COM
bination of words without a. ray of in
telligible meaning.
If wage legislation undertook to
compel an employer to hire or keep
in his employ, at the rate of $3.50 a
week, a woman, who was worth only
! $500 a week to his business, there
would be legitimate ground for COM
| plain. But no such cOmpulsion is pro-
| posed 1t may very well be that there
are women workers in some estab-
| lishme1ts, who will never be compe
tent employees in that particular line.
| Many women enter millinery shops,
| who have no native capacity for the
work. Will the minimum wage law
come along to the milliner and say to
him: You must pay these girls, who
have no sense of color and who never
will be able to build hat, enough to
pay for their room, board and cloth
ing, sum which investigation reveals
to be in the neighborhood of $3.50 a
\ week." By no means. 1t says to him
gently: you must not keep mis-fits
in this shop. Yonder sturdy lass, who
is mystified by questions of form and
color, and to whom you rightly grudge
S2.75 a week, can quickly learn to
operate a power seWing-machine in
the garment factory across the way
and will soon be receiving 1915 a
day." One of the best features OF
wage regulation is that it calls atten
ton to the insists in industry-and
that is the first step towards system
attic vocational direction, by which
workers will find the jobs for which
they are fitted, and employers will be
rid of the burden of chronic incom
petents.
There is a general impression thai
wages and earning are now correlat
ed by some mysterious power, so thai
woman workers get substantially
what they are worth All inyestiga
tons reveal the fact that there are nc
standards whatever in the fixing oil
women's wages. In competing estab
lishmentS in the same city, expert
enced women employed in similar
tasks, turning out the same daily
amount and value of product, are
found to be receiving widely varying
| rates of pay. This astonishing varia
ton in the rates of women's wages
has been commented on in every sec
ton of the United States. The Uni
ted States Bureau of Labor Statistics
in it's Summary of the Report on the
Conditions of Woman Wage Farmers
: (1915), has this to say:
/ When it comes to the question Of
earnings, the lack of standardization
seems to reach its height. In the
main, the women were wholly unor
i ganized and seemed to have no idea
} in regard to wages beyond taking
what they could get. The determin
ing factor seemed not SO much what
) their services were worth or what the
industry could afford. as the indiyid
ual entploseF's attitude upon the mat