Word: waged
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Dates: during 1920-1929
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...Passaic, N. J., 10,000 workers are striking for the right to live a decent life. Their strike is specifically the outcome of a ten percent wage out, forced upon their employers by weight of competition. The demands of the workers to return to the old wage were met by curt refusals, on the part of the mill owners. The workers' delegates were summarily discharged. The workers struck and now demand recognition of their union, sanitary working and living conditions, a 44-hour week, and a ten percent increase over the old wage...
...wage cut may not ordinarily be considered unusual, but to this group of workers it meant absolute destitution and starvation wages Even on the old basis the average wage for able-bodied men ranged from $15 to $22 a week. Only a very few highly skilled operators such as the loomfixers received more than $25. Their number is insignificant. The vast majority of workers fell below $20 a week. It must be borne in mind that these workers are heads of families which average about six. Even a smaller family could not be maintained on such a wage...
...obvious result of this insufficient wage is to recruit the aid of all members of the family of working age in the support of the family. Fifty percent of the workers in the mills are women...
...upon women that the greatest hardship falls. They are forced as a rule to do night work. They are worked from 7.30 o'clock in the evening to 6 o'clock in the morning with 15 minutes off for dinner at midnight. For them the average wage is from $12 to $17 a week, though they do the same work as the men. After they return from the mills they must do housework and try to snatch some rest during the day while caring for their youngest children under school age. They work up to the last months of pregnancy...
...truth the situation that produced the strike bears close resemblance to the industrial evils that succeeded the advent of the factory system in the nineteenth century. By failing to pay a living wage to the heads of families the Passaic mills had drawn women and minors to them. A law designed to remedy this had been suspended. And it was the refusal of the manufacturers to allow their employes to organize that precipitated the walkout...