The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1927-10-28
Working Conditions in the Paper Mills Are Bad
(By a Worker Correspondent.

HOLYOKE, Mass, Oct. 27.-About
20 per cent of the city workers de-
rive their livelihood from the paper
industry here. Thirty-four different
paper-making companies are located
here. The American Writing Paper
Co. is the largest, occupying 28 build
ings. Some of the buildings are
closed now due to an unemployment.
The work is especially bad for wo-
men workers in the rag rooms. The
rags used in the paper mills are of
many grades. Some are clean mill
cuttings, but the greatest majority
are old and soiled: worn clothes,
overalls, burlap bags and stained
rags, most likely from hospitals. The
women have to sort these rags by
hand on tables covered with coarse
wire netting to remove buttons,
pieces of rubber and any metal that
might be in them. For that purpose
long knives resembling scyathes are
attached to the tables. With these
knives they also have to open seams
and cut up the larger pieces. Often
thru hurrying they cut their fingers.
Then after the rags are sorted and
cut, that is, after the women handle
them, they are fed to the busters"
where the loosely adhering dirt, dust,
etc., is removed.
Many of the women in che rag
rooms are .expectant mothers. They
breathe rag dust and thus poison 5heir
unborn offspring. Many women con-
tract some disease. Eventually this
work undermines the health even Ct
the most sturdy women, and for it
they get SIT per week.
Increase Exploitation.
Speed up is constantly introduced
in different departments. Once two
men worked on cutting machines, now
belts are attached so they carry the
rags to the busters and boilers, and
man attends to this. The same man
also watches the boilers, where be-
fore another man worked. The work
ers here labor in a perpetual mist of
dust from rags and papers. They get
only $22.50 per week.
The rags and paper stock comes
from bleach boilers to washers. The
smell of alum and other chemicals
used in bleaching is very bad The
workers have to work on wet floors
all day. The pay is $24.
Beaten men who mix the washed
pulp, sulphite, wood pulp, size, alum,
etc, have very important and strenu-
GUS work. They get about the high
est pay in the mill $45 to $50 per
week. Their helpers get only $23 to
S25, although their work is hardest.
They have to push the mixed pulp
with spades made for that purpose.
Every muscle of the body is strained
doing it. The smell and dampness is
sickening.
Best Is Dangerous.
| Machine rooms where the paper is
completed or assembled have the best
jobs. But the work here is very dan
gerous and the workers often get
their fingers crushed in the colanders
and driers. It is very bad on account
of the heated colanders. Workers can
wear little clothing and many are
barefooted. The floors are Of concrete
with boards over them in the aisles.
1t is always wet, and the workers
have to walk barefooted on these wet
planks all day. Usually one such as
sembling machine requires a machine
tender who gets $35 to $45 per week,
back tender, getting $50 per weel.
and three or four helpers getting 1928
to $24.
In the finishing rooms the major
ity of the workers are women. Paper
is counted into reams by hand and
put in piles. The experienced women
workers here get $50 to $25 per week.
The work in the cutting and trim
ming rooms is very dangerous, be-
cause very frequently the workers cut
their fingers.
| They Want Speed.
Meters are being installed in all
machine rooms, pulp machines and
boiler rooms. If the machine stands
idle even for a minute it registers in
red on the meters. 1t has to be fed
all the time or otherwise the workers
have to fill out paper telling why
the machine has been idle. That way
the company checks up on the work
ers time, SO that he could not waste
even minute.
Slack Period.
Paper mills are not running full
time now. with the exception of the
Chemical Paper Co. Other mills have