The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1929-08-07

The Daily Worker yesterday
published letter from a working
woman in a Bulgarian textile mill.
She described the unbelievable
slavery under the white terror
there. Today we print a letter
from a woman worker in Polish
textile mill, sent to the worker
correspondence department of the
Daily Worker with the request
that American working women be
enabled to read it.
In Poland there is an urban and
rural proletariat numbering three
and a half millions. This includes
nearly 100000 workers in large
scale industry and nearly one mil
lion in small-scale industry. Wom-
en- made up % per cent of the total
employed in large-scale industry
and nearly 35 per cent in the whole
of industry.
The textile trades employ $4,000
workers including $4,000 women,
i.e,, SO per cent. In some cotton
mills the percentage of women
climbs up to as high as so. In the
food and drink trades there are 40
900 women, i.e., so per cent; the
women employed in tobacco facto-
ries make up so per cent of the to-
tai. There are 10000 women or so
per cent employed in the chemical
industry. In the clothing industry
5000 women are employed go per
cent?, and in the paper industry T.
900 women $50 per cent?.
Female labor is, on the whole, paid
at rates 40 per cent below those
paid for men, women workers in
agriculture getting rates even be-
low this percentage. We may here
give few examples of the wages
paid men and women workers for
purposes of comparison.
In the textile industry women in
spinning mills get 1858, 1886 and
400 zlotys per day and the men
GIL to 8,79; while the woman work
er in the dyeing side of the trade
gets 1852 to 800 zlotys a day and
the dyer A.24 to $40 zlotys.
In the ore mines a woman gets
80 zlotys for a months work, a man
1913 to 205 zlotys. In the Dombrov
district a woman gets 2.31 to FAT
zlotys a day and an unskilled work.
er 4.29 to 495 zlotys. In Upper ST.
lesia women in the birck works get
500 zlotys day and men 5.52 zlo-
tvs.
According to official figures, the
living minimum in the towns for a
small working class family Of three
to four persons is ten zlotys. From
these wage figures it is to be seen
that even if two persons in the fam
lily are in employment, even then
they are not in a position to meet
the minimum requirements of their
family with the earnings they make.
In the countryside land girl
earns IL to 2.5 zlotys day, a land
laborer % to 80 zlotys; which is a
beggarly pittance considering the
sixteen and seventeen hours day
they have to work.
In July 1924 the Diet (Sejm)
passed law relative to the protec-
ton of female and child labor: night
work was forbidden, as was at be-
ginning of 1929. During the LODI
strikes the women workers were
very active indeed and out of the
100000 workers on strike 55 per
cent were women. The women work
ers took a big part in the strike
committees, thy guarded the Com
munist M. P's. at meetings, pre-
vented the Polish Socialist Party
people from using the platform and
so on. At the Widzew mill they
went in a mass delegation to the
mayor and procurator.
Their deputed delegate, woman,
was instructed to demand that
permission be at once given to use
the money sent by the Soviet work
ers. Their woman delegate was ar
rested together with the whole
strike committee, she was beaten up
and otherwise intimidated, but she
held herself courageously.
During the strike at the "Wolia"
textile mill in Warsaw the women
workers demanded higher wages, the
organization of day nurseries, and
the recognition of the mill delegates