In C---- in 1910 thousands of workers in the clothing industry struck
for better wages. They were mostly newly-arrived immigrants, all of them
skilled workingmen, and though the manufacturers were making millions
and advertised that they employed only the best skilled labour, the
workers, men and women, and their families, starved.
A shameful system of task work was established, whereby contractors
sublet their work to sub-contractors, and these to other contractors,
and the workers were kept at piece work. Many of them worked from
six A. M. until midnight, in dirty, dingy sweatshops and at the end of
the week they received seven or eight dollars. Even this small sum was
not assured. It happened more than once that the sub-contractor, for
whom the men worked, simply disappeared with the pay of all the men. As
they were not engaged by the firm they could not ask the manufacturer to
pay them, and had to go hungry, they, their wives and their children.
Such conditions lasted a good many years, until at last, in 1910, the
men organised and struck to abolish the sub-contracting system and the
piece work which led to it. The men struck for a minimum wage, a fixed
working hour and sanitary factory conditions. They also wanted to know
for whom they were working. To obtain such necessary and elementary
rights they were compelled to stay out several months, entailing great
suffering from hunger and cold.
In every strike the manufacturers use strike-breakers. Sometimes, in
America, the students of the colleges go to scab, to protect the right
of _free labour_, they claim. In the clothing industry skilled workers
are used. The students could not execute the work, and among the skilled
tailors there was not one mean enough to scab.
Each charity institution also keeps an employment bureau. The men and
women they send to work are always paid the most wretched wages, and
they work to the last notch of their endurance. For work that has
hitherto been paid twelve dollars per week the man who comes recommended
by the charities receives not more than six dollars. Of him twice as
much work is expected. He is not supposed to lift his head or speak or
smile. He must always look humble, wretched, submissive. He must make it
appear that his work is worth much less than he gets. He must look to
his employer as to the Saviour, because he has been sent by the
charities. The fact that he appealed to the charities is a proof that he
is a failure, also a proof that the man has nothing to depend upon; no
brother, sister or friend that could help. The employers demanding help
from the employment office are all "subscribers"--they contribute a
certain sum to the institution. For this and other services rendered,
they are given a little white plate with black letters to nail on the
door, which reads: "Member of organised charity." This acts like a
talisman. It drives away the hungry and needy.
If you were to stay a half hour in the private sanctum of the manager of
the bureau you would hear such telephonic conversation:
"Is this Mr. So and So?"
"How is our man getting on?"
"Well, if he does not suit you we'll send you another one."
"We have plenty of schnorrers (beggars) around here."
"That's how they all are--lazy. They want money, not work."
Five minutes later another man is sent. The employment office is not for
the benefit of the poor, but to be of service to the rich, to lower the
pride of the workingman. During the strike of the cloak makers the
telephone of the bureau was continually ringing. The manufacturers
demanded help. When any one applied for charity the first question put
was: "Are you a tailor?" And they did not believe the man or woman who
said "No." If they discovered a tailor there was rejoicing in the
Institution and Mr. X. or Mr. Z., a clothing manufacturer, was called up
and told the glad tidings. "We are sending you a man."
Thus does organised charity work to break a strike of men who are
demanding living wages; a strike where the poor suffer so that their
children may live a decent life.
The records of the institution were looked up, and every man and woman
who was thought to have had a connection with the needle at any time of
his life, or who could operate a sewing machine, was singled out and the
order to "cut off" was given. A few days later, men old and broken, sick
and worn out women and consumptive girls, were thronging the halls of
the institution. They cried and begged and showed handkerchiefs red with
the blood of their wounded lungs. There they were with their swollen
eyes and hands crippled from the toil of former years. But like the herd
of cattle from the slaughter-house, serving only one purpose as far as
the man with the long knife is concerned, so were they all, slowly but
surely, driven upstairs to the employment office, from where they were
escorted to the shops, to finish their days slaving at the machine to
enrich the donors of the institution and help in the good work of
starving into submission their brothers and sisters on strike for living
wages.
When I protested and asked why this was done they said:
"Is this institution kept up by the poor, by the workingman, or by the
donations of the rich manufacturers?" And then again I asked:
"But _for whom_ is it kept up?" to which I was answered by sneers and
shrugs and laughter.
And the thousands of workers knew not from where these poor starved men
came and they fought against them and blood was spilled--blood that
otherwise trickled slowly away on the handkerchiefs, on the waste, and
was wiped off the mouth with the linen from which garments were
manufactured.
When the strike was at an end and the victorious workingmen returned to
their places, the scabs were sent away. Again they were restored to the
pension list or sent to the sanatorium, but in a few months, when the
leaves began to fall from the trees, the list was reduced to half--men
and women had gone to their graves.
But the charity institutions had their subscription list increased, for
the rich had learned to know what a strong support they had in
organised pity. Walk now through the clothing district of a city, and
on each and every door you will see the white enamel sign, with black
letters: "Members of the organised charities." It is written with
blood--with the same red, bloody letters in which the sign of the house
on the road is written:
"Ye poor of the land come and warm your bodies."
Only, instead of the stove, there is a sewing machine, a pressing iron,
a drilling machine, and the devil laughs and laughs and shows his white
teeth.
"Has ever man built a better place for me!"