The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1928-05-31
WORKER GETS
SIG AFTER 5 YEARS
a Worker Correspondent
full the Autostrop Safety Razor Co
these applicants realize under what conditions they

will be forced to work.
Beginners receive the nominal
amount of $12 per week. For this
they work as hours a week. Their
working day begins at 7:45 a. m. and
ends at 5 p. m. with a relief of one
half an hour for lunch.
The company maintains a lunch
room at which they claim to sell food
at cost price. The restaurant, how
ever, is not any more reasonable than
others which the workers would or
dinarily patronize. The food is so
poor that the majority of the workers
bring their own lunches. Those who
do eat the food generally leave half
of it in disgust.
Murmurs of discomfort are heard all
around, but because of the shortness
of the lunch period little can be-
done about it. What is the reason
for only one half an hour for lunch
So that we workers have no oppor-
tunity for coming together to voice
our discomfort? Or is it so that we
will not be able to come into contact
with other workers from neighboring
factories and so discuss our terrible
conditions?
Cut Hands.
There are different kinds of work
in this plant, such as blade examin-
ing, packing, and machine work. The
lot Of the blade examiners is indeed
hard They work under very strong
lights which we all know have harm
full effects on the eyes. Also the work
is very dangerous and requires the
constant use of peroxide, iodine and
other first aid treatment.
1t is not at all unusual for US to
see girls walking around with ban
daged hands or even fainting. The
reward for exposing themselves to
these conditions is the measly sum of
from $14 to $18 per week.
The Autostrop Co. requires its
workers to work one hour and Is
minutes overtime Excuses to be re-
leased from working overtime are
seldom accepted. If we workers are
excused we must work on Saturday
to make up our share of the nightly
overtime.
Time and half is paid for the first
hour while the other Is minutes is
paid straight. We workers, however,
are led to believe that we are being
paid for time and a half for the whole
time. This adds a bit to our poor
salaries Of course. but in the end our
wages amount only to a few dollars
even with the nightly overtime. We
workers are certainly exploited to the
greatest extent possible.
Pay For Fun.
One of the company's devices is to
conduct an annual outing. You would
expect to hear that we get paid for
the half day spent on the excursion,
but this is not so. The company is
mean and cheap enough to deduct
two hours pay out of the four. This
cut naturally diminishes our already
small enough wages.
To add to the above grievances
there is the fact that advancement is
very slow if at ALL AS an example.
] will take the case of a Miss. X This
girl has worked in the Autostrop Co.
for five years. AS beginner, she
was packer, earning $12 a week.
Now after so many years, Miss X.
is still packer, but receives SIG a
week, This is an average raise of
less than one dollar year. rs this
what they call advancement?
Knowing that The DAILY WORK
FIR is a paper which fights for the
interests Of oil the worlrcrs. orr9 riZad