Montana labor news., 1933-01-19

De ana SUBJECT TO SUI
fering and i'll health. Family life
would be broken
Every citizen Of the state would
rush TO the relief of such a city, Mr.
Aide says, but because the denizens
Of his imaginary town are scattered
throughout the state their plight is
the more easily forgotten. "Thirteer
cities and six counties are already un-
able to provide even 60 per cent Of
the cost of relief" he adds according
to a press report of November II
1882.
Buffalo:
More than 32h per cent of Buffalo's
male population liable and willing tc
work" cannot find jobs, and almost
23h per cent are employed part-time
Francis Perkins, New York State In
dustrial Commissioner says, in a re-
port of preliminary results of the
fourth annual study of Buffalo unem-
ployment. Fifty-six per cent were
thus unemployed or "under-employed.'
Unemployment has been of con
siderably longer duration in 1882 than
in 1884," Miss Perkins adds. OF the
jobless in 1881, four-fifths had beer
out of work 10 weeks or more; in
1882 nine-tenths had been jobless ter
weeks or more. A little more than
one-third of the men out of work in
1882 had been unemployed two years
or more. Working women showed
25.4 per cent iobless.
New Jersey:
From Trenton, New Jersey, comes
the report that sweat shops are grow
ing. Garments such as shirts, under
wear and dresses are sent out from
New York all cut. With a little cap
ital, an employer sets up a shop and
hires women and girls to make up the
cut garment. The average wage foI
full time is from $3.50 to $3.50 a week
for hundreds of workers. The wage
runs as low as $1.00. From 500 A.
M. to 500 P. M. is the long hard shift
and rarely pays over 81 a week. A
~seven-day week is the rule for all
employees.
Organized labor estimates that there
are 10000 sweated workers in New
Jersey. There are instances of en-
ployers who hire learners" who serve
without pay for two or three weeks
in order to learn the business. AT
the end of that time the girls are dis
charged and other learners" take
their places. In this way the EN-
ployer gets much of his work done
for nothing. There are other in
stances of workers complaining of toe
little money in the pay envelope at
the end of a full weeks work, where
upon, if the mistake in pay" is rec.
titled, they are discharged. Thus
the workers are virtual slaves through
fear of no work at all. A business
which pays less than a living wage is
a parasite on the community.
(-From Bulletin Consumers Lea
que Of New Jersey, December, 1922
Pennsylvania:
An investigation by the Pennsyl-
vania Department of Labor and In
dustry reveals conditions in the coal
mining sections of the state:
The majority of the operators con
tinue to cut wages at regular inter
walls. "In addition, these companies
are making excessive charges for rent,
light, fuel and explosives from pay
envelopes already fearfully low" Gov
ernor Pinchot said. "They charge
much higher than average prices for
food and clothing in company stores.
Employees living in a company house
pay as much as 10 cents a kilowat
hour for power that costs no more
than one cent. Miners pay several
times as much for house coal as the
company is able to sell it for to rail-
roads and other big users"
An average pay envelope, given as
an example, covered a 12-day period
in which the miner gained nothing to
support his family save rent, which
went to the company. The miners
family has no money, purchasing pow
er or credit. There is no chance Of
employment elsewhere and in many
cases the worker is so deep in debt
to the company store that he could not
move his household goods from the
company house even if he got another
job. Miners who have a cash balance
due on pay day are forced to take
store scrip or due bills. At many
tipples miners, lacking a checkweigh-
man since they lost the union, are
shortweighted as much as a third of
the weight. At many mines work