Saturday, 5 July 2014

Bad working conditions in Clothing Factories.

*THE WORKER*
Brisbane, March 16, 1895.


The Editorial Mill.

Our Motto: “Socialism in our time.”


The par in last week's WORKER: “ That trousers are let out in Melbourne by notorious Semitic middlemen sweaters at the rate of 21/2d. per pair,” is a forcible illustration of the position the unfortunate clothing workers have come to in the “Queen City” of Australasia. But why raise our eyes in pious and holy horror at the wrongs of our brothers and sisters in the South, when in this fair land, at our very doors, the same degrading and humiliating state of things exists – the same canker worm is eating the very hearts out of our own. And the vipers that are making this havoc amongst us are not altogether of the Semitic race, but business men who pretend to be Christians – religious and God-fearing pillars of our churches and ornaments of society- men whom our little children are told to look up to, to honour and respect, and whose footsteps are to be followed as those of men who walk in the straight and narrow path of moral rectitude.

* * *

When the Shops, Factories and Workshops Commission inquired into the conditions under which work was done in the conditions under which work was done in the shops, factories and workshops of Queensland, although the Commission elicited that the sanitary accommodation in many cases was bad, and the wages low and hours long, there was little to show that “ sweating,” in the sense understood and described by Charles Kingsley, was carried on extensively in Brisbane. Perhaps if the members of the commission had had power to summon and compel witnesses to give evidence, their report might have been of a different character. As it was, however, the members who sat on the commission in the interests of the workers, discovered enough to make them issue a warning that the germs of the disease had already made their appearance; that the soil was so favourable the sweater would increase and multiply to such an extent that the awful state of affairs described in “Alton Locke” might be repeated in this city.

* * *

It is only four years since the Shops, Factories and Workshops Commission conducted its inquiry, yet to-day, if a commission vested with power to compel the attendance of witnesses and receive testimony on oath, a state of things would be revealed which would shock the entire community. Under both Government and municipal authorities, capitalists large and small, grasping and greedy middlemen, the sweating evil has grown so strong and powerful, affecting almost every trade and occupation of the wage-earners, that Brisbane is now a sweaters' head-quarters. Evidence can at any be procured from many sources in proof of this. Take the price list of one of our large wholesale firms as an example of sweating prices: Men's trousers; Making and finishing combined, 4s. per dozen pair; workers to supply their own thread which amounts to from 1s. to 1s. 3d. for each dozen pants, leaving the magnificent sum of 23/4d. per pair for making. Coats average from 1s. 6d. to 2s. 6d. each; vests, 3d. to 8d. Each; dungaree pants, 1s. 9d. to 2s. 3d. per dozen; women's chemises, with ten and twelve tucks, 1s. 6d. to 1s. 9d. per dozen; blouses-print and muslin-1s. 6d. to 3s. per dozen; children's and women's white bonnets with frills, lace and rows of cording, 6s. to 9s. per dozen; men's shirts, with collars, buttons and button holes, from 1s. 6d. per dozen night dresses, from 2s. per dozen; tweed coats, from 24s. per dozen vests, from 4s. per dozen; flannel undershirts, 1s. 9d. per dozen; in fact almost every garment worn by men and women in this city pass through the sweaters' hands, and with few exceptions every article we use or consume is the product of this system.

* * *

Well may our “business” men endow churches, contribute handsomely to the minister's stipend, support rescue brigades and charitable homes, when they thus sweat the labour of their piece-work employ'es. A woman or girl to earn 12s. has to make and finish three dozen pairs of trousers or 108 men's shirts. How is it possible for anyone to make a living within reasonable hours at these absurdly low and criminal prices? Christian man and woman, Agnostic, Free-thinker and Pagan, you owe it to your man and womanhood to raise your voices against a continuance of such a shameful system. You dare not permit the evil to grow, for you and yours may at any time-such is the uncertainty and instability of our competitive system – become victims to it. You have for too long been content to dismiss the painful subject of low wages with the thought that the rate of pay must and should be regulated by the number of workers competing for employment, and it is time this hellish doctrine was consigned to the grave of other exploded theories. Children who should be enjoying bright and happy school days are having their young bodies poisoned by the foul and reeking atmosphere of the stuffy houses in which the “sweating,” misnamed “home work” is being carried on – children who would be at school but for the circumstance that their fathers are thrown out of employment by the very system which enslaves their offspring. There would appear to be only one method of entering an effectual protest against the infamous sweating practices of the church attending business firms of the city. Clergymen may denounce from the pulpit the cruel wrong, the press may appeal to the “consciences” of the captains of industry to deal fairly with those in their employ. All moral suasion goes in one ear and passes out the other. The Legislature is the body to settle the question. Not the present Legislature, for those M.L.A. Who are in favour of the abolition of the practice are confined to the seventeen Labour members and a few of the Opposition. The members of the present Government, who have it in their power to pass a Shop and Factories' Act containing proper provisions are either sweaters themselves or friends of the sweaters. A clean sweep of the whole clan of people's enemies must be made at the ballot box. Then, and then only, may we expect a redress of a fearful grievance which is a foul blot on a people the majority of whom claim to be able to read and write.

* * *

Wage-earning ratepayers have hitherto been very neglectful of the opportunities presented by the municipal councils for raising the standard of wages and abolishing the contract system. The enormous power of the property vote admitted, the wage earners who pay rent still have in their possession a force which, if directed intelligently, can disturb the old municipal rats who, having worked their way into the municipal barn, want to make their nests there for all time. Most of the aldermen who gain their seats through their wealth of coin and fat are in favour of the “glorious principle” of freedom of contract and low wages. They see no objection to allowing their personal friends to obtain contracts at a high price and sublet them to other middlemen at a lower figure, the work being done by wage-earners at about a third the sum that is paid by the council in the original contract. For the council to employ the workers direct or let the contract to groups of bona fide workers and thus distribute the cost more equitably over a larger area would be a gross interference with the liberty of boodling aldermen; and boodling aldermen – against the more magnanimous notions of the up-to-date councillor – fight with tooth and claw. The example of an important body such as the London County Council – a council which has amongst its members some of the best brains to be found in the chief city in the world – is lost upon the cramped understandings of aldermen who never read anything but dairy produce quotations. London, with its six millions of inhabitants, may have its municipal work done on the minimum wage plan and the co-operative system, but Brisbane, with its 30,000 of a population, must still hang on to unjust and wicked old-time notions proved to be wasteful and unnecessary hundreds of years ago.

* * *

Addressing itself to the wages question the Melbourne Age thus refers to the action of the London C.C.; “The London County Council has inserted the union prices for each trade in its schedule of wages. The council therefore pays the same rate as the leading employers in each trade, and in no case less than 6d. an hour to adult men, or 18s. a week to adult women. With unskilled labour the case is somewhat different, for here there is no trade union rate to serve as a guide. But the council has adopted a minimum wage of 24s. for men and 18s. for women, and it has proved so successful that even the Moderate or Conservative element in the council, who at first bitterly opposed it, are now quite satisfied, and would not change the existing system had they the power. The minimum wage as thus established is based upon the calculation of Mr. Charles Booth, a well-known authority on labour questions, who fixes the actual “poverty line” in London at regular earnings of 21s. a week. It is interesting to find that the adoption of the minimum wage has not increased the burden upon the ratepayers of London to any great extent, if at all. In 1889 the average pay of the wage staff was £75, and in 1894 this average had risen to £78 a year, an increase of only 4per cent, which was considerably less than the rise in wages of several trades. There are, however, other considerations which must be taken into account in computing the cost to the ratepayers. The council rate is somewhat higher than that paid by many large employers of unskilled labour, but it is obvious that the council must for that reason get the very pick of the working men, and thus obtain more efficient labour, which naturally turns out better and larger results. Again, it must be remembered that while a private employer may justify his payment of starvation wages on economic principles, the State cannot do so without losing in another way by making the unfortunate who are “sweated” burdens upon the poor rates in England, or, with us, throwing the onus of partially supporting them upon charitable institutions or private individuals, so that there is no actual saving in the long run.”

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