The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1934-06-05

- 6i The wives are moi
Erqkire CaIdwou considered to be
even the neces-
sary ilnpedimenta of the worker
these persons are the trimmings
the shavings, the waste of auto
mobile production.
But the manufacturer has not
shut them completely from his
vision. He has discovered that in
the production of light work he
can prof1tably employ girls be-
tween the ages of is and 20 at
half the wage men receive for the
same type Of work. For the hun
dreds Of girls employed, there are
thousands unemployed, and it is
this threat of being replaced that
binds a girl to small pay, I'M
healthy working conditions. and
submission to the suggestions of
foremen and bosses. If a girl pro-
tests, she has only to look outside
the plant window and see hun
dreds waiting and eager to take
her place.
S7-S8 PER WEEK
Wages paid girls throughout the
city, no matter how highly skilled.
no matter how productive. will
always be found to be half or less
than the scale paid male workers.
If a girl receives 25 cents an hour
doing press work stamping on
small fittings, investigation shows
that men working beside her re-
ceive at least twice the pay.
Seven and eight dollar week
wages paid to girls in many cases
must support an entire family. In
working-cl Detroit families to-
day there are always UNEMPLOYED
fathers, mothers, brothers. and
sisters. The absence of sick ben
fits drives girls to stay at their
Jobs when hospital care is needed,
because if they remain away on
account of sickness one day or
SIX, when they return to the
plant, the possibility that they
have been replaced is usually a
certainty.
THE case Of girl employed at
an automobile products plant
is typical of many. She was sup
porting family of four, and the
loss of even one days pay would
have been disastrous. During
the Commute lunch-hour period
she gave birth to a baby in the
wash-room, and returned to her
machine two hours before faint
ing. When she was being carried
ont of the plant on a stretcher,
the foreman forced her to remain
long enough to punch her card on
the time clock.
The working conditions In all
plants where girls are employed
are in keeping with the rate of
pay. Some plants, notably Hud-
sons, require girls to eat their
lunches in the toilet rooms. And
even though conditions are be-
coming worse, there is no attempt
being made, save by the Auto
Workers Union to better them.
Girls who retain their jobs do
SO with all the odds against them.
A days absence because of sick
ness is seized upon by the fore
men as an excuse to fire them if
they have ever complained
against the speed-up and working
conditions. And if a girl refuses
to accept her bosses advances.
her job is not worth 5 cents from
that moment on.
ALLEYS FOR HOMES"
Outside the automobile plants,
the Detroit working class girl has
an even harder life to live. The
few sweat-Shops absorb only a
small percentage of the unem-
ployed; the stores offer little to
the masses; there still remain
thousands who are forced from
their homes with the necessity of
making a living. The streets, the
parks, and the alleys are their
homes day and night.
The one-product city that is
pointed to with pride BY the
sWivel-chair industrialists has
never. neither in boom times nor
IN depression years, afforded en-
ployment to more than one of
It's each four inhabitants. The
father of the working-class family
perhaps found employment at one
time or another; the mother, the
son, and the daughter are the
py-products whose numbers and
economic values have never been
tabulated in census charts under
the proper heading.
Detroit finds itself TODAY with
tens of thousands of young men
VINO nave no jobs, and no prospect
OF one under the hit-and- miss
system of industry. These bows
and young men are too old to be
returned to school, even if there
were room for them; and thew are
not OLD enough yet to be enrolled
IN the Over Forty-Five Club. II
was because of these boys walking
the streets that Detroit, the first
city in America to do so. insti-
tuted the police scout car. Today
the cars, containing two heavily
armed police, cruise the city in
hundreds, keeping eyes on the
unemployed and inactive Young
men that Detroit does not know
what to do with.
DUT Detroit has a constructive
- policy toward its thousands of
girls between the ages of Is and
Is who are without homes and
jobs. Detroit again was not
caught mapping. It was the first
city to place police scout cars on
the streets to dog the heels of
boys whose fathers had moved to