The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1926-03-20
'PASSAIC women
MUST Toll 20
HOURS EACH DAY
Work at Home and in
Textile Mills

Twenty hours day, one-hundred-
and-twenty-hour week. These are the
working hours of hundreds of women
in Passaic, N. J. They are the young
mothers who work all night in the
mills and all day taking care Of their
families, and who never get more than
four hours of sleep a day.
They are striking now with the
men for living wage for workers, so
that men can make enough to put food
into little mouths without mothers
needing to work all night long for the
few extra dollars that mean enough to
eat.
Young Mothers Toll at Night.
It is the young mothers who work
at night because they cannot leave
their children during the day. Among
100 women who were visited by an
investigator for the New Jersey Con-
sumers' League, 80 had children and
over half the children were under z
years of age. Thirty such mothers
had more than children.
THE mothers are driven to night
work by the low wages Of their hus-
bands" says the official report Of the
investigator They choose night
work in order to be with their chill
dren by day, and they are condemned
to 20 hours Of daily toll, for clearly
no mother with 8, 4, 5 or children
can secure much rest by day. Not
one of the hundred women visited re-
ported getting hours Of sleep. Most
of them slept not more than 4.
Altho the practice Of allowing
women to work at night is repudiated
by the entire civilized world, the
bosses of Passaic are Indifferent to
its evils. "They must like it or they
wouldn't do it." the secretary Of the
wool council told the investigator.
Work crlppIes Health.
But the women do not like II.
Working nights isn't healthy for a
woman. All the time l work at night
can't eat anything" says one Polish
widow who has to support three little
girls.
might time in mill drag SO long,
SO long; day time in home go SO
quick" says Hungarian mother with
five.
when I get home at six in the
morning / fall on the bed, I'm so
tired" Her husband prepares coffee
or himself and the children, and the
older ones go to school. Even the
laby of four is on a diet Of coffee.
When the investigator suggests that
milk would be better, the mother tells
her that since the wage cut milk costs
too much, even for the baby.
After the children go to school
mother tries to sleep again, but the
baby bothers her. "He pulls the bed
clothes" She must get up in time
to clean house, to wash, to iron, mend
and sew, and prepare the dinner.
Perhaps she rests in the afternoon;
often there is too much to do. BY
We O'Clock supper must be ready, for
she must be at the mill at seven.
Life of Slave.
This mother never has time to go
anywhere. She never goes to see
friends. or to a picture show. Gust
to the mill and then home" she says.
But on the holidays she can go to
the cemetery. 81 got some children
up there" she says, "and the same
time l can get some air."
This is the slavery that mothers
endure, and will have to endure again
and a protective union should fail.
This is the heart-breaking, health
breaking kind Of a double job that
starvation wages paid by rich mills
are imposing on helpless women.
These women see only one hope OF
release for themselves, and that is the
success Of the strike. YOU help the
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