The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1927-03-21
In CATHERINE b. H. CANT.

BY CATHERINE Il. II. CANT.
THE most important event, for the
L whole labor movement, of the
year that has passed since last wo-
mems day has been the seven months
lockout of the British miners. But
when we are marshalling the lessons
of the past year to teach us what
must be our tasks in the future we
should consider how women have en-
tered not only into the recent strike,
but into the coal industry every
where.
In its early days the industry en-
ployed thousands of women under
ground. In some pits it was neces-
sary for them to work almost naked
crawling in 24-inch passages,
drawing the heavy trucks of coal by
chain fastened to a belt round their
waists.
Work Underground in Bengal.
These conditions have been abol-
ished by the struggles of the work
ers from British pits. Nowadays,
the only women actually employed in
the industry are the 10000 or so "pit
head girls" who sort and trim" the
coal Women must never forget, and
international women's day is the day
for remembering, that tho the efforts
of the organized workers have abol-
ished such work in the mines of
Great Britain, women and little
children are still slavinb under even
work for the same capitalists, in the
pits of India and China. For in
stance, of over 100000 miners of
Bengal who tried to organize a strike
in aid of the British miners, over
$4,000 were women working under
ground in the pits.
The mine owners make them work
sometimes 80 hours at a stretch to
save the cost of bringing them up
and sending them down the shaft.
These women out of their wages of
something like 16 cents per day con-
tributed more than S3,750 to the re-
lief of the miners in the strike.
In 1921 a long strike resulted in
the bringing down of the standard of
the miners to a bare subsistence
level. Since then the conditions UNI
der which the miners and their wives
have had to live have been a disgrace
to civilization. Their average wage
in the best districts was $12.15 per
week-in the worst which were the
largest, S7.27. Out of this the wife
had to do everything clothe,
and house her family. The houses
which generally belong to the colliery
company were left unrepaired, often
nearly ruinous. In most cases they
were overcrowded and very often
condemned as unfit for human habi.
tation but still inhabited because of
the lack of others. The rent was
usually S2.49 to $685. per week.
Infant Mortality High.
In such conditions, living on such
food as can be bought for such
wages, after all deductions for rent,
coal, hospital, ETC., are made, it is
no wonder that the infant mortality
and the mortality of women in child
bed was higher by far in the coal
fields than in any other area,-that
the rate of deaths from tuberculosis
in these areas was so great. Such
were the conditions in the coal fields
before the strike Of 1926. When it
came, the women of the mining areas
threw themselves into it with the en-
ergy of despair. They were threaten
ed with the loss of from 20qo to 1870
Of those starvation wages on which
they were already existing and they
simply could not face this prospect.
The role which they played in the
conduct of the strike could hardly be
overestimated in Importance. Last
women's day was remarkable for the
holding in the centre of the Midland
coal field at Mansfield of big dele
gate meeting-one of the most i'm
portant recent developments of Com.
munist work among women.
Three hundred women delegates
from various organizations attended
and after the position was discussed
were given the task of preparing fol
the strike. When the strike actually