The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1928-11-02
z2-16 HOUR DAY:
So MONTH IN CHINA

Inc Chinese worker lives and la
bors ~under inhumanly hard condi-
tons. The European or American
worker could hardly imagine that
such conditions actually exist,
The Chinese worker, as a rule.
works from II to Is hours a day and
sometimes more. In Shanghai for
instance, in the silk industry in the
summer time, when the new cocoons
are ready for Keeling off silk, the
hours reach up to 20, while in the
SILK industry, mostly women and
children are working. In the mining
industry, there exists a double shift
OF II hours each. Often it may hap
pen that the miner works within the
bowels of the earth all the "a hours
and sometimes he remains there az
hours and more at a stretch. ONLY
IN few enterprises a break of half
an hour for meals is allowed. and
IN many enterprises even that break
does not exist, so that the worker
IS obliged to eat while the machine
is running at full speed not having
seconds rest from work.
Sleep On Ground.
Such lonG working day in adj
ditlon to being semi-starved exhausts
the man to such an extent that often
ne is unable to go home, if he has
one, and falls asleep somewhere on
the pavement near the factory. A
large number of workers are obliged
TO sleep in the street, in the dust.
under the open sky. Not only be-
cause of exhaustion are thew unable
after work to walk four or five miles
to the workers barracks but often
the reason is also that they have
no money to pay for shelter because.
as we shall see below, their wages
do not enable them to obtain cover
even in dirty, sinking and over
crowded den which would neverthe-
less still be a shelter. MANY. and
especially workers with families.
who attempt to improve these hor-
rlble conditions, are building for
themselves on the outskirts of the
cities some bamboo huts and thew
asleep there on the ground, but still |
they are under cover, until the police
set fire to whole streets of such
bamboo huts for sanitary" reasons.
The women who are working in
the factories, whose percentage in
Chinese industry is very high, have
no place to leave their tiny tots and
therefore take them along to the
factory and hang them in cradles
over the machines and leave them
there until late at night until thew
finish work. Dust, dirt. noise of the
machines, blows, hunger-are the
conditions in which the workers
children are growing up. The CAP
ltallsts in China are very widely re-
sorting to child labor. Thus, for in
stance, in Shanghai children under
the age of IL in Chinese enterprises
make up 10 percent of all the work
ers, IN the British enterprises II per
cent, and in the italian and French
enterprises as percent of all the
workers. In China, the capitalists
find it easy and simple to resort to
extreme exploitation of the workers.
Starvation Wage.
The wages of the Chinese work
ers are extremely low and do not
cover the physically necessary mini
mum of life.
1t is calculated that if in family
of A imam, wife and 2 children) there
are working man and wife, which
happens very seldom, then they earn
on the average only from SIT to s18
month I'll and y. In order to sub
slst at least in a semi-starved con-
dition, such family has to purchase
30 kilogrammes of rice, which cost