The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1924-01-31
Youth NieDs
The Penalty Cor Being Young.
By HARRY CANNES

AlC Cld1Ly TOT DClnS AOuH8s
It seems that capitalism purpose
ly levies a penalty on strong, healthy,
capable young workers, whether male
or female. What could be harder
work than that met in the laundries!
Read Jack London's description Of
this kind of slavery in Martin
Eden" and you will wonder why so
many young girls continue to work
in these torture chambers. The can
factories employ almost exclusively
youth labor. While young workers
are the foundation on which the large
mail order houses have been built.
Yet in all these industries wages are
the lowest. The hardest, most mono
tonous kind of labor is the lot Of the
American young people, their chances
for development or advancement are
the least. Is it any surprise that the
criminal class is composed mainly
OF young people around the age Of
16 to 25?
Every issue of the Young Worker,
semi-monthly newspaper issued by
the Young Workers League Of Amer
lea, contains letters from young
workers in industry. They tell Of
bitter tales of exploitation, bad work
ing conditions, miserably low wages
and increasing unemployment.
just the other day a letter came
to my attention which is illustrative
of the lives of millions of young
people in the United States who are
forced to create profits for some boss,
who are forced to subjugate all their
desires, their ambitions, their dreams
to the will of a petty foreman; and
yet at the end of the week the wages
are not enough even to exist on
decently.
quote parts of this letter:
II have been working in a cracker
factory-hours from to 5, packing
crackers, which means / must stand
up all day long. My hands were
swollen and cut and pretty nearly
worn out at the end of the first week
of it. got $11.00 week (and car
fare alone to the job is $1.80). After
the second week in this place, the
girls have the option of continuing
at the same rate or going on piece
work, but as only the very skillful
can make $11.00 a week at piece
work flor one thing, they hold back
the crackers on the piece workers,
so the others get more) very few
girls take the chance. And / thought
there was a minimum wage law in
Massachusetts"
incidentally, Massachusetts is the
state represented by the bearded wiz,
Senator Lodge who is foremost in
anti-Soviet Russia propaganda and
cannot think of the idea of any
organizations like the Workers Party
or the Young Workers League TAX
ing the initiative in lining up the
workers militantly against such con-
ditions as described in the letter
quoted.
What becomes of a great number
of the girls whose wages are as low
as those given here (and this is rot
merely an isolated instance) has been
shouted from the house tops. The
Illinois Vice Committee in 1914 put
down Glow wages" as the primary
factor in prostitution.
There is a remedy.
Fight for these demands: Equal
wages for equal work for young and
adult workers. Minimum wages
ranging from the subsistence mini
mum upwards. Establishment Of a
six-hour day and five-day week for
all youth labor with full pay. Adolf
ton of all overtime and night work
for youth labor up to 20 years of
age. Abolition of the piece work
and speed-up system. Prohibition Of
young workers up to 20 years being
employed in shops and industries in
furious to their life and health
(mines, chemical mills, steel indus
try, glass works, etc. And finally:
Organization of all young workers
into the existing unions, trade and