The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1927-06-10

While we wish for peace everywl
peace established by each nation for
winding-frame or drum behind her.
This is driven by machinery which
she stops or starts by pedal with
her feet. Each woman keeps five
sets going, lie. five threads or 30
cocoons.
The operating cocoons are unwind
ing whilst they also float in boiling
water, so that there is ample water
surface to provide steam to fill the
whole shed, besides leaks in steam
pipes, etc. The atmosphere was stiff
ling and would be terrible in summer.
There was absolutely no means of
artificial ventilation for drawing off
the steam or providing fresh air. All
the women were dripping with per-
spiration, the whole shed being full
of hot, damp vapour. There was a
pungent stencil from the dead eocoons
on the floor.
/ saw great many infants and
babies, at least one to every two
women. They were lying asleep on
the floor under reeling drums behind
their mothers backs-thus passing
the early years of their lives in a
good imitation of foul Turkish bath
Wages.-T h e women reelers in
Shanghai get about "A cents per day
(about 101ad) and the children 20
cents NEARLY 3D.
Hours.-They work ~ hours per
day. Seven days per week.
There is no night shift, because the
threads are too fine to handle in ar
tificial light. Unlike the cotton mills,
there is break for the midday meal,
made necessary by the fact that the
work requires both hands.
l received the impression that, bad
as are conditions in the cotton mills.
with their long hours, their night
work and the exploitation of tiny
children and women for incredibly
low wages, conditions in the silk fila
lures are even worse, because of the
great heat and damp and the awful
smell Of dead cocoons in which the
women and children work.
Unorganized as they are, there are
recent signs that the value of the
strike weapon is being learned by the
women. In June, 1926, 800 women in
the Yung Yui Filature. Shanghai,
went on strike, as a result Of the re-
fusal of the management to grant a
10 per cent. increase in wages and an
hours reduction in working hours.
Two days later the women and chill
dren at other filatures declared a
sympathetic strike Then they all
presented four demands: ~ an in
crease Of 10 per cent. in wages, (2)
work to start at am. instead Of
5 am, (3) no wage to be left unpaid
at the end of the month, az no work
er to be dismissed without good
cause.
Match actOries-Tientsin.
Wages.--Men 10 cents to 81 per
day. Women 10 cents to so cents.
Children 10 cents to 20 cents per day.
Working hours.--Daily 10 " hours.
Weekly 81 to 81 hours.
Canned Food Industry
Province of Chilli.
Wages.--Men cents to Is cents.
Girls cents TO IL cents.
Working Hours.--Daily, IL hours.
Weekly, IS hours.
Holidays days per month.
Glass and Glassware Industry
Province of Chilli.
Wages--Men 10 cents to 81. Chill
dren, cents to 20 cents.
Working hours.-Daily to 10
hours per day. Weekly, So to IS
hours.
Time for rest.--2 to 4 hours per
day. days per month. Three
months wages are given in case Of
death due to injury.
Mining Industry.
Wages.--20 to 40 cents per day.
Hours.---In the coal mines at Pos
han in Shantung Province, 24-hour
shifts are worked. These were for
merly German, and are now Sino-
Japanese. In the Kailan Mining Ad-
ministration (Sino- BRITISH there was
n lockout a year or two ago which
drara many miners into the Mukden