The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1932-09-01
FAMINE WAGE
PAID IN SHOPS
ON u. 5. WORK
Uniforms Made by Skilled
Help Drawing as Low
as 1896 Weekly.
LAW CITED AS EXCUSE
Government Must Award
Jobs to Lowest Bidder,
Secretary Says.
BY HERB LITTLE
Times STAFF Writer

WASHINGTON, Sept. Uni
forms for the army and pajamas for
hospitalized war veterans are being
made under government contract by
skilled workmen who are paid near
starvation wages. ranging from
SO SO to S13 week. in a New Jersey
factory.
Weekly pay slips, listing such
payments, gathered by an indepen-
dent investigator from employees of
the plant of Sigmund Eisner, at Red
Bank, thirty miles from New York
have been placed before the assist
ant secretary of war, Frederick H
Payne, by Scripps- Howard news
papers.
Payne and other war department
officials said today that although
the war department has deprecated
and discouraged sweatshop condi-
tons and wages, the law allows no
recourse in such cases as this, ex-
cept to award contracts to the low
est qualified bidder.
Law Asks Change
The Eisner factory, one of the
leading uniform plants of the coun-
try, has a contract for $4,000 army
breeches at an average price of Sc
cents each, and $4,000 service coats
at $1.40 each, totaling $24,732. 1t
also has a $4,000 veterans admins
tration contract to supply pajamas
to all of the Sixty-fivc or seventy
veterans hospitals and soldiers
homes.
Officials of both departments ex-
planned that the law permits them
no latitude in such case, but en-
phaSized that precautions are taken
to insure an adequate and satisfac-
tory product.
Secretary Payne explained that
the department frequently inveSti-
gates bidders to determine if their
factories are adequate, both as to
method and working conditions.
Investigation has shown that the
Eisner plant, which has been filling
government uniform contracts for
more than twenty years, is a mod
ern up-to-date factory.
Excuse to Cut Pay
Authority for government con-
tracts to require payment of pre-
valling wage rates on construction
work and other public works was
voted by congress several years ago,
and thirty-hour week for such
works was specified in the Wagner
Garner relief act.
Prevailing wages in the garment
industry which range from SO to
100 per cent above the rates re-
ported by the investigator at the
Eisner plant, are paid by the gov
eminent itself in its nucleus plant
at the Philadelphia quartermaster's
depot. The government workers are
under civil service.
The investigator at Red Bank was
informed by workers that the Els
ner factory was using the fact that
it has government contracts as an
excuse to reduce the rate paid for
piecework.
The guarantee of steady work.
even at lower pay, was cited by fac
tory officials as an inducement to
work in the Eisner plant, rather
than in other garment factories,
which operate in slack times for
only two or three days a week, with
frequent layoffs.
May Bring House Probe
The cloth-cutters, most highly
skilled, were reported by the inves-
tigator to get an average of $21 a
sweek, with pay ranging from $13
to S29-about $1,050 a year. In New
York this class of workmen are paid
from $50 to $50 a week, averaging
more than $40.
A congressional airing of the
situation may result from the visit
of the Shannon house investigating
committee, which is interested pri-
marily in government competition
with private business, to New York.