Working Girls Must CooperateBy Pauline M. Newman(Organizer of working women. Former organizer for the International Garment Workers’ Union. In “Life and Labor.”)
By Pauline M. Newman
(Organizer of working women. Former organizer for the International Garment Workers’ Union. In “Life and Labor.”)
All those who work are aware of the fact that conditions today—insofar as the working girl is concerned—are not what they should be....
Now, what is wrong? To begin with, the work day is too long, the wages are too low. Good sanitary conditions are a rarity. Laws to protect the livesof women and children workers are scarce—in reality.... There are enough laws on the statute books, but very few are enforced. Labor laws intended to protect women are constantly being violated. Why? Simply because the women have, thus far, failed to cooperate with one another in order to enforce them.
Nearly eight million working women are subjected to the conditions described above. According to investigators—the writer of these lines having been one of these—the average wage of these women does not exceed seven dollars a week. A wageproveninsufficient to live on. Such wages shape the lives of the women, and those dependent upon them. What kind of a life, then, can they lead? A life which is a mere existence, that is all. Because they are compelled to do so, they substitute cheap amusement for something more refined. They live on a five-cent breakfast, ten-cent lunch, and a twenty-cent dinner; live in a dingy room without air and without comfort; wear clothes of cheap material, trying hard to imitate those who are more fortunate than they. Their whole life is cheap from beginning to end. Deprived of sunshine and fresh air, no time for recreation, no time for rest, they have only time forwork.