Montana labor news., 1936-09-03
BIG TOBACCO FIRMS Business
SCORES LARGE GAINS, But THEY
make NO MOVE TO BOOST WAGES
BY GEORGE l.. KNAPP

Factory workers of the United
States turned out last year 1885,
$50, 900 cigarettes, worth whole
sale, f. o. b. the factory, $717,676,-
100. This is a % per cent increase
in number and a 29.7 increase in
value over the figures of the same
industry for 1888.
At that rate, it shouldn't be SO
long before the Big Four tobacco
companies begin paying decent
wages to their workers, even to
stemmers. Also, it should be pos
sible for tobacco towns like Win
ston-Salem to spend a little more
civilized allotment of money on
their schools.
AS for wages, according to the
Department of Commerce, the total
amount paid for wages in the Gig
arctic industry in 1885 was $18,-
238, 800, an increase of 31.8 per cent
over the wage payments of 1888.
The glad surprise of the reader on
learning that Big Four workers ac-
tually III getting better wages
should be restrained until the reader
gets a few other facts. This is an
increase in WAGE PAYMENTS, not
in wages, and since employment in
the cigarette industry increased 8
per cent in the two years from 1888
to 1885, it is obvious that wages in
creased by a much smaller per cent
than the figures might indicate.
Wage Base M%iserably Low
Next, percentages of increase
don't near much in the pocketbook
when they start from a sufficiently
low base. Ten per cent of a nickel
won't buy anything. The tobacco
industry has the bad eminence of
being the only large industry that
pays worse wages than textiles.
Improvement in tobacco wages
started from so far down the
scale that it would take a hun
bred per cent increase to get them
to a proper level.
For example, take the stemmers,
who separate the leaf Of tobacco
from the stalk and ribs. The Wo-
mems Bureau of the Department Of
Labor found that in 1884, when part
of this much-advertised raise
must have been in effect, SO per
cent of the stemmers in cigarette
factories got less thar 30 cents an
hour. That wage, 80 cents an hour.
was made the minimum wage in the
textile industry when the code was
adopted, as being the lowest or
which a worker could live. So il
appears that in one branch of to-
bacco workers, four out of every
five are getting less than a Lying
wage.
Average Yearly Pay Way Down
For that matter, the report of the
Department of Commerce is an in
dictment of the Big Four when you
analyze it. 1t says that 24,346 per
sons were employed in the cigarette
industry last year. Figures of tota.
employment are always too small
they mean the number of workers
busy on certain days Of the week Of
month; and take no account of the
considerable number who work al
the industry but happen to be alb.
sent when the count is made.
However, let us take those fig.
ures at face value. Divide tota
wage payments for 1885, $685.,
$50, by the number employed, a..
346; and you come out with a little
less than $3.50 as the average yearly
income of the cigarette worker.
But Dividends Keep Up
And all the time, the Big Foul
are paying dividends on stock tina
is not merely watered, but made
from the thinnest air; stock tha'
represents nothing but the ability O
the Big Four to gouge tobacco
farmers, tobacco workers, tobacco
users. And all the time, too, biz
bonuses are being paid to the in.
siders while stemmers in some part
of their plants are working fol
wages as low as 10 cents an hour.