The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1927-08-11
Wages and Working Conditions in China

to all sorts of sub-middlemen, so that
the coolies get about half what has
actually been paid for the work.
was told of instances which the
Union had investigated, where the
coolies had received less than 20 per
cent. The average earnings of an
able-bodied young coolie is SIS per
.month-when employed.
UNEMPLOYMENT, a terrible
scourage for all kinds of labor in
China, is especially chronic among the
coolies, on account of the constant
flow of peasants, driven from the
land, coming into the cities.
Old and infirm coolies live from
hand to mouth on the few coppers
they pick up here and there from
odd jobs,
HAVE seen in Canton, great heavy
carts loaded high with cans bearing
the "Socony" (Standard Oil Co. of
New York; label, being pulled thru
the streets by gangs of men, women,
and children, evidently families,
starved-looking, gaunt and exhausted,
stralning with all their might at the
ropes-and earning an average of Is
cents each for twelve hours labor, to
| the greater profit of Standard Oil.
1t made me understand more clearly
why Rockefeller prizes his Chinese
business, and why capitalists every
where are determined that the "Bol-
shevik" trade unions of China must
be destroyed.
III.
BHE clerks, in stores, shops, and tea
houses, form another large group.
In canton about $4,000 are organized
IN the trade unions. There are still
traces IN Canton of the semi-slave.
seml-teudal conditions under which
THIS class works still in most places
q, IN China. The unions have. however
abolished many of the worst abuses,
such as corporal punishment, I'M
limited hours, etc. Gradually order
and system is being brought even in
to the lives of these miserable shon
clerks.
IN Canton, after a long strike, the
hours of clerks in the big depart
ment stores was limited to 10 per
Gay In the small stores hours are
SUN 10 to 10 per day. In some of the
tea houses the hours are IL, because
they keep open night and day and
Ghe Union will no longer permit the
"a hour shift that used to prevail.
when the workers slept at odd mo-
ments when there were no customers
but had to be present at all times
ready for work.
Almost all of them live and eat in
the shops, their lodgings usually con-
! slsting Of shelf under a counter. or
beneath staircase, and their food
the' inevitable bowl of rice. with
bit of pork on feastdays. They begin
work as apprentices with no wages,
which only start with the fourth year
Wages in the small and poorer
shops average $40 per month; in the
big stores and the richer establish
( ments, the average is SIS per month.
WOMEN and child labor is even
more exploited than that of men.
Generally their wages are from 30
per cent to so per cent of that of
men, Besides ordinary coolie labor,
they are found principally in the
small factories (matches, hosiery,
silk, food preparation, etc). There
are $4,000 women members in the
trade unions of Canton, which the
union leaders claim is 80 per cent
of the women workers. The hosiery
workers are 100 per cent organized,
the match factories 70 per cent. Wo-
men and children have relatively made
the greatest gains from trade union
organization.
| AYGENIC conditions are indescrib
Ia ably bad| That is. Of course. true
for the entire population, including
employers, for sanitation in a modern
sense is only in its beginnings. Only
in the modern industries, the Govern
nient plants, big department stores, is
there a beginning of sanitation and
hygiene. These also have dispensa-
ries with modern medical attendance
for the workers.