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Woman Worker
WOMAN'S U0LLE3E LIBRARY
CUKE UNIVERSITY
DURHAM, N. C.

NOVEMBER 1938

United States Department of Labor

Women's Bureau

UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF LABOR
Frances Perkins, Secretary

WOMEN’S BUREAU
Mary Anderson, Director

THE WOMAN WORKER
PUBLISHED EVERY 2 MONTHS

Vol. XVIII

No. 6

November 1938

CONTENTS
Page

Federal Wage-Hour Act Now in Force___________________________________

Should Married Women Work?_________________________________________

4
5
6

Findings

of the

Unemployment Census___________________________________

Women in Unions--- --------------------------------------------------------------------------------Rubber workers’ convention—Labor Relations Board decisions—Progress in
organization—Strike notes.

Toward Minimum Fair Wages________________________ _______ ___________
State administrators meet November 9-10—Minnesota order under injunc
tion—California workers aid enforcement—Wage and cost-of-living sur
veys—Recent minimum-wage orders—Other activities in the States.

Government Labor Officials Meet___________________ _________ ______

Reviews of Recent Studies___________________ ____ _____________________

Recent Women’s Bureau Publications___________________________________

Published under authority of Public Resolution No. 57, approved May
11, 1922 (42 Stat. 541), as amended by section 307, Public Act 212, 72d
Congress, approved June 30, 1932. This publication approved by the
Director, Bureau of the Budget.
For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, Washington, D. C., at 5 cents a copy
or 25 cents a year

Federal Wage-Hour Act Now in Force
Women Affected by Wage Laws
4 million women workers today
are looking into the terms of the Fed
eral Fair Labor Standards Act to see if
jobs measure up to its minimum-wage and
maximum-hour requirements. It has been
estimated that about that number of women
work in manufacturing establishments, in
wholesale trade, and in transportation and
communication (including the clerical work
ers in such firms) and hence come under the
jurisdiction of the Federal wage-hour law.
The law went into effect October 24, with
a 44-hour week and a 25-cent minimum
hourly wage for the first year.
Altogether, somewhat over 5 million
women, or nearly half the 10% million in
gainful work in the United States, are
covered by Federal and State minimumwage laws, according to Women’s Bureau
estimates. These include, in addition to
the 4 million in interstate industry, approxi
mately 1% million women not covered by
the Federal act who have the benefit of
State minimum-wage laws, or would have if
all 25 States with such legislation had their
laws fully in force. These women are em
ployed for the most part in laundries, hotels
and restaurants, beauty parlors, and retail
trade.
Where are the other 5% million women
workers? In what occupations and indus
tries are women workers employed that
apparently are exempted from Federal and
State laws ?
First there are the professional workers
and those women employed on their own ac
count, also the supervisors, executives, man
agers, and officials. More than 2% million
are estimated to be in these classes, obviously
not subject to minimum-wage legislation.
Second are the workers left out of the
benefits provided by State or Federal mini
early

mum-wage laws but who need such protec
tion as much as any class of workers. These
are the domestic servants, such as the laun
dresses and cooks in private homes, and the
their
women wage workers on farms. Many mid
wives and untrained nurses, as well as non
factory dressmakers, seamstresses, and milli
ners, may also be placed in the group of
women workers whose wages should be pro
tected by legislation. Altogether, a total of
more than 2 million women in low-income
groups still have no legal protection against
substandard hourly wages.

Textile Wage Board Appointed
Wages in the textile industry, in which
more women are employed than in any other
manufacturing industry, are now under
scrutiny by Industry Committee No. 1, ap
pointed under the provisions of the Federal
Fair Labor Standards Act by Elmer F.
Andrews, Administrator of the Wage and
Hour Division of the United States Depart
ment of Labor. On the committee are
seven representatives of the employees,
seven representatives of the employers, and
seven persons representing the public.
Women on the committee are Elizabeth
Nord, of Manchester, Conn., of the Textile
Workers Organizing Committee, and Grace
Abbott, long-time director of the Children’s
Bureau of the United States Department of
Labor and now with the School of Social
Service Administration of the University of
Chicago.
Jurisdiction of the committee covers the
manufacturing and processing of yarn or
thread and the manufacturing and finishing
of woven fabrics (other than carpets and
rugs) from cotton, silk, flax, jute, or any
synthetic fiber (except the chemical manu
facturing of synthetic fiber); also the
manufacture of batting, wadding, or filling,
and the processing of waste from these
3

THE WOMAN WORKER

fibers; also the manufacture and finishing,
from any fiber or yarn, of pile fabrics (except
carpets and rugs) and of knitted fabrics
(except hosiery or wool and wool-mixed
overcoatings and suitings); also the manu
facture and finishing, from any yarn or
fiber, of braid, net, or lace, and of cordage,
rope, or twine. Thus wool, hosiery, and
worsted woven goods are omitted from this
committee’s jurisdiction.
In 1935 about 1,330,000 wage earners were
employed in the branches of the textile
industry covered by the committee and
383,000 were in cotton textiles alone.

Committee Procedure
All available facts on wage conditions in
textiles will be given to the industry com
mittee, which may also make its own inves
tigation of conditions in the industry. It is
expected that the committee will hold public
hearings in various parts of the country,

summoning witnesses and receiving evidence,
if necessary, as it is empowered to do by
law.
The committee, after considering the
evidence, will recommend minimum hourly
wage rates, not less than 25 cents nor more
than 40 cents, which will not substantially
curtail employment nor give a competitive
advantage to any group in the industry.
When the committee has finished its
investigation it will file a report of its wage
recommendations with the Administrator of
the Wage and Hour Division, who will hold
a hearing on the recommendations and de
cide whether they are in accordance with law
and are supported by evidence received at
the hearing. If he approves the recom
mendations, he will make them effective in
a wage order. If he disapproves the recom
mendations he will return them to the
committee for revision or will appoint a
new committee.

Should Married Women Work?
of the vote being taken in several one released. Two-thirds of the husbands
Massachusetts communities this month who were employed at more than merely
on the question of employing married women nominal earnings had salaries falling below
in the public service, the report of a study $2,000 a year, but less than half of the wives
of the same question by the city of Milwau earned less than $2,000. On the other hand,
kee, Wis., is of especially timely interest. a slightly larger proportion of the husbands
This study was ordered in January 1938 by than of the wives earned more than $2,500.
the common council of the city, which sought
Earnings of city employees were very
information on the employment status of small in a number of cases. About onewives and husbands of city employees. It fifth of all women city employees had hus
was made by the service commission of the bands also employed by some government
city through the use of questionnaires, fol agency—Federal, State, county, or municipal.
lowed by a check-up where verification In 20 of 130 such cases the wife’s earnings
seemed needed.
were under $500; in 4, the husbands earned
In the first place, the study shows that less than this amount. In 3 cases the earn
one-sixth of the women employed in the city ings of both husband and wife were $500
service were the wives of men who were but less than $1,000; in 15 cases this was
unemployed or who had only nominal earn true of the wife’s earnings, and in 3 cases
ings. In the second place, it was found that of the husband’s. No tabulation has yet
if the women whose husbands were employed been made of the information collected on
lost their jobs, the family would in many number of dependents in the families of
cases suffer more than if the man were the these women.
n view

THE WOMAN WORKER

Findings of the Unemployment Census
3,167,000 Women Unemployed
report on the enumerative
check conducted as part of the Census
of Partial Employment, Unemployment,
Occupations gives an estimate of 3,167,000
as the number of totally unemployed women
workers in November 1937. An additional
398,000 women were estimated to be working
on W. P. A. and other emergency jobs, making
a total of 3,565,000 women without normal
employment. Another estimated 1,492,000
had intermittent or part-time employment.
These figures are considerably higher than
the numbers actually registered in the
Unemployment Census, which was found in
the check to be far from complete, especially
for women; in the check areas, 43 percent
of women eligible for registration as unem
ployed had not registered.
It is a well-known fact that in times of
depression women who would not normally
work for pay leave their homes in large
numbers to seek employment when hus
bands, fathers, sons, or daughters are unable
to support them adequately. The census
makes an attempt to estimate the extent to
which this had occurred in 1937.
The number of women working or avail
able for work in November 1937 is estimated
at 14,496,000, although only 11,567,000
would have been expected on the basis of
the 1930 census figures with normal increase
from population growth. Thus the esti
mated number of women in the labor market
had increased by 2,929,000 more than was
expected. Accordingly, the number of
women workers actually employed in No
vember 1937 is represented as being about
the same as in 1930, because the number of
he final

unemployed was offset by an approximately
equal number of new additions of women to
the labor market.
andData From Women’s Bureau Study

Interesting in this connection are data
from the few important industrial States
that regularly report employment data by
sex and thus furnish the chief basis of exact
information as to trends in women’s employ
ment since the 1930 census. These have
been analyzed in a recent report by the
Women’s Bureau.
The five States reported upon—New
York, Massachusetts, Ohio, Illinois, and
Virginia—show for the industry groups or
subgroups with figures for both sexes
available, and in most cases over the period
1928 to 1936, that men had fared somewhat
better than women in three-fifths of all cases.
Because the totals for manufacturing in
clude the heavy industries that are not im
portant woman-employers and that suffered
most severely from the depression, women’s
employment in manufacturing as a whole
was found to have declined less than men’s
in three of the five States; in Ohio it had
declined less than men’s even in all lines of
employment combined. But in a number
of industries that traditionally are women’s
special field, men had fared better than
women in all or most of the cases reported—
in all reports for textiles, stores, hotels and
restaurants, and office work, and in most
cases in laundries, men’s clothing, and
confectionery manufacture. In four States
reporting on women’s clothing, men had
fared the better in two States and women
in two.

THE WOMAN WORKER

Women in Unions
Rubber Workers’ Convention
ive women and about 120 men, members
of the United Rubber Workers of
America convened in Trenton, N. J., in
September for a week of comparing notes on
wage rates, seniority rights, overtime and
vacation provisions, strike experiences, and
all the other problems of the industry that
the union is attempting to solve for its
members. In the visitors’ gallery at this
third annual convention of the union sat
IS or 20 rubber workers’ wives, many of
them members and organizers of women’s
auxiliaries.
The small part that women played in the
convention gives no indication of their
importance in the rubber industry. It may
indicate that women have not yet learned
how to meet the triple responsibility of
factory worker, homemaker, and active
union member. Several women had been
asked to attend as delegates, it was reported,
but they had declined, probably not so much
through diffidence or indifference as through
the feeling that they should not leave home
and family for so much as a week’s time.

Women’s Part in the Industry.

According to the Census of Manufactures,
women make up about one-fourth of all
rubber workers in the United States. In
1929 there were 35,000 women in rubber
factories as compared with 114,000 men. In
the international union the number of
women is estimated at more than 11,000
in the United States and Canada, or about
one-sixth of the total membership.
For women, working in rubber may
mean anything from assembling light-weight
tubes to painting the pants on a rubber
Mickey Mouse. It may mean helping to
produce such basic products as belting,
gaskets, and ga6 bags, or turning out such
trifles as balloons and rubber dolls. Foun

tain pens and raincoats, lastex and bathing
caps, golf balls and galoshes, printers’
rolls and garden hose, hospital sheets and
linoleum—such are only a hint of the vast
variety of articles made by rubber workers.
Stressed at the convention was the ne
cessity for establishing some uniformity in
rates of pay and hours and conditions of
work among the various parts of the in
dustry and in different parts of the country
in order to meet the very serious threat of
decentralization.
Differentials in Wages and Hours.

Rubber plants in the South and in small
towns in the East and North threaten to
undermine the high labor standards in the
industry, it was pointed out at the conven
tion. A southern delegate reported that
the plant in which he worked was increas
ing its force and working its employees full
time while northern branches of the same
company, located in large centers, had laid
off many of their employees and were work
ing the rest only a few days a week. Wage
rates paid in the southern plant were much
less than those in the northern plants for
the same work.
In another southern rubber factory women
averaged about 26 cents an hour and re
ceived as little as 5 or 8 cents an hour on
piece rates, an organizer reported. Weekly
wages for men and women ranged from #10
to #32 for a full week’s work. Conditions
were chaotic, with sometimes only 1 hour
of work per day and at other times as much
as 15 hours. Speed-up was so intense that
tremendous waste of both labor and mate
rials resulted. Lack of safety devices con
tributed to the high accident rate. The
organizer declared his belief that the com
pany’s poor financial state at the present
time was due largely to inefficiency of oper
ation and waste from speed-up.

WOMEN IN UNIONS
A resolution adopted by the convention
welcomed the National Emergency Coun
cil’s “Report on Economic Conditions of the
South,” and urged the delegates to return
to their locals and plead the necessity for
greater financial contributions for organi
zational work in that section.
Almost equally bad conditions, however,
were reported in small plants on the eastern
seaboard. In a Massachusetts factory,
women working on sundries were reported
to be earning 20 or 23 cents an hour on
piece rates. Raincoat stitchers were being
paid as little as $7 to #12 a week for 40 hours
of piece work. Men earned #16 to #17
for 40 hours.
Contrasted with conditions in the sweated
sections of the industry were those in the
great tire plants of Ohio, Indiana, Michigan,
and California. Here women have a guar
antee of anywhere from 50 to 72 cents an
hour and in some operations are able to
make as much as #1 an hour. They work no
more than 6 hours a day and 36 or 40 hours
a week. They have vacations with pay.
Production speed is under control, since any
attempt to increase the load is regarded as a
wage cut, and the workers are prepared to
strike against any cut.
Union and Nonunion Conditions.
An example of differences in wage rates
between organized and unorganized plants
is in the golf-ball industry. In a union plant
it was reported that women were paid #1
an hour for making golf balls. In non
union plants wages were as low as 27 to 35
cents an hour.
Women who had worked for 15 to 20 years
in Akron tire plants told what organization,
begun in 1933, had done for them. Wages
had been good up to 1929, and workers

flocked to Akron from the West Virginia
hills to take advantage of the high rates.
With the depression came sharp wage cuts
and lengthening of hours. By 1933 women
were getting only 30 cents an hour and were
working 9 hours a day, sometimes even 12
hours a day. It was not uncommon for
girls to be ordered to work 18 hours out of
24, in two shifts. When the workers began

to organize, wages were gradually increased
and hours shortened until today the wage
rate is more than double what it was
5 years ago, the 8-hour day is the absolute
limit, and the 6-hour day and the 36-hour
week are the usual standards.
The depression of 1937, which hit the tire
industry particularly hard, brought prob
lems of lay-offs and of short time for the
workers who remained employed.
How
ever, in the new depression, it was reported,
the workers in the big plants maintained
their wage scale and maximum-hour limits
as they had been unable to do in previous
depressions when they had no union. In
some places they even won wage increases
during the past year.
Today all over the country in the or
ganized section of the industry the 40-hour
week is standard except where the 36-hour
week has been introduced. The minimumwage rate for women in plants where the
workers are organized is rarely less than
35 cents an hour, according to informa
tion furnished by locals to the international
office of the union. Figures collected
semiannually by the United States Bureau
of Labor Statistics and analyzed by the
Women’s Bureau probably represent the
unionized section of the industry to a large
extent, since they are obtained from the
larger and more efficient firms, and since the
union strength is also in the larger firms.
For March 1938 these figures showed an
average of 70 cents an hour for women
in the tire and tube industry, 48 cents in
rubber boots and shoes, and 45 cents in
other rubber goods.
In many plants the union has signed
agreements providing time and a half for
overtime beyond 40 hours; double time on
Sundays and holidays; vacations with pay
after 1 or more years’ service; and a cer
tain amount of pay for days on which the
worker is asked to report for work and is not
assigned to a job. Seniority provisions tend
to protect the older worker.
Equal Pay for Equal Work.;

’ In the rubber industry there are “men’s
jobs” and “women’s jobs.” 'Rates of pay,

THE WOMAN WORKER

as established in union agreements, are
usually at least one-fifth lower for women’s
jobs than for men’s jobs. Generally the
difference can be accounted for by the
lighter nature of the work performed by
women or by some other factor other than
a pure and simple sex differential. In
the few cases in which the job employs
both men and women, the pay rate is the
same unless some other factor enters in.
Union representatives said they were
attempting to narrow the differential be
tween rates of pay on men’s and women’s
jobs, but had been unable as yet to do away
with it altogether. Exceptional was the
agreement in a New Jersey pen factory,
where both men and women were guaran
teed a minimum wage of $15 a week.
The practice of replacing men with women
at lower rates of pay had been followed by
the factories in the past but would not be
permitted in the future in the well-organized
plants, union delegates said. One woman
who was paid $5.40 for a 6-hour day, or
90 cents an hour, working on tubes, said
this work was formerly done by men who
were paid more than $10 for a day of
8 hours. Another case was reported of
women being brought in to work on safety
or “lifeguard” tubes for tires. Men had
formerly made 24 tubes for $8. After
women were brought in, production was
speeded up and the rate dropped to $6 for
52 tubes.
Immediate Problems in the Industry.
The immediate pressing problems of rub
ber workers are short time and lay-offs. A
partial protection in well-organized plants
has been share-the-work plans, by which the
company is persuaded to postpone lay-offs
until hours have been generally reduced to a
certain figure, perhaps 30 or 24 a week. At
least 3 days* notice before lay-offs is required
in some agreements.
The guaranteed annual' wage is being
considered as a solution for irregular em
ployment. The convention directed the
union’s executive board to study the ques
tion of the guaranteed annual wage and
prepare proposals for future action.

The wage-hour act (Fair Labor Standards
Act) was welcomed as a step toward Federal
responsibility for “eliminating antisocial
practices of certain employers.” A resolu
tion adopted by the convention warned,
however, of the lower wages which will
result under the act in those sections of the
industry that have been employing workers
for more than 44 hours a week unless the
hourly rate is increased. Even in the
unorganized sections of the rubber industry,
minimum wages are generally higher than
the 25 cents an hour required in the Federal
act, but hours are often much more than 44.
Unless workers can organize and enforce
wage increases they will suffer a reduction of
weekly wages through reduction in weekly
hours of work under the act.
For this and other reasons, the union
found its paramount problem to complete
the organization of the workers, both North
and South. At present the industry is twothirds organized as a whole and 90 percent
organized in Ohio.
To control decentralization, the union has
had introduced in Congress the Bigelow bill,
H. R. 10277, which would require manufac
turers to get permission from the Federal
Government before moving their factories
from one State to another.

Labor Relations Board Decisions
Women Clerks Denied Separate Unit.

An important trend away from the policy
of organizing men and women in separate
unions is indicated in a ruling by the
National Labor Relations Board on Sep
tember 15. The Board ruled that the
employees of an Ohio publisher should be
organized in one unit, rather than in sep
arate units for men and women employees;
it certified one union as exclusive bargain
ing agent for all 90 employees in the plant.
The 14 women in the mailing and ship
ping departments of the plant had an inde
pendent organization of their own which
contended that it should be considered a
separate bargaining unit. The Board found
that “In general the only difference between
the work performed by the male and

WOMEN IN UNIONS

female employees ... is based upon the
degree of physical difficulty involved, the
women doing a lighter class of the same
type of work performed by the men.”
Orange Packers Get Protection.
Is an orange packer for a growers’ asso

ciation an agricultural laborer or a factory
worker? The answer to this question makes
all the difference between protection and no
protection under various laws, since agricul
tural laborers are generally excluded from
protective labor legislation, such as the
National Labor Relations Act, unemploy
ment compensation acts, the Federal wagehour act, and most State minimum-wage
and maximum-hour laws.
A decision of the National Labor Rela
tions Board, made last spring and recently
published, found that certain California
citrus fruit packers employed by a growers’
association could not be classed as agricul
tural laborers and were entitled to protec
tion under the National Labor Relations
Act. The decision is of particular interest
to women since they are generally employed
for grading and packing the fruit.
The growers claimed that the women
packers and graders in times of severe frost
were sent out to groves with hot coffee and
sandwiches for the men at work on heating
and smudging. The Board found that such
emergency work did not make these women
agricultural laborers.
The growers also claimed that the pack
ing-house workers were agricultural laborers
because they worked on truck farms and
in the walnut industry during slack seasons
in citrus. The Board found, however, that
the citrus-house packers had about 8 months
of steady employment a year in the citrus
houses, returning season after season, and
that such work as they did in the slack
season was of a temporary and odd-job
nature.
The Board also found that the graders
and packers had to have experience and
training before they could perform their
duties. Their work was distinctly mecha
nized and quite different from the operations
in the orchard.

The Board, furthermore, quoted defini
tions of “agricultural laborer” as formu
lated by various Federal agencies and all of
which agree in effect with the Bureau of
Internal Revenue’s opinion of July 1936.
This states in part that—
The fact that an individual is engaged in handling
farm products does not of itself make the services per
formed by him “agricultural.” ... It is the opinion
of the Bureau that services performed by an employee in
connection with the processing, packing, packaging,
transportation, or marketing of farm products consti
tute “agricultural labor” within the meaning of section
907 (c) of the Social Security Act only when those services
are performed by an employee of the owner or tenant of the
particular farm on which the product in its raw or natural
state was produced. Where such services are performed
by individuals who are employed by an association of
producers, even though the products in connection with
which the services are performed were produced by the
members of the association, the services of such employees
are not excepted under section 907 (c) of the Social Security
Act as “agricultural labor,” since the individuals are
employees of the association and not of a particular
producer. [Italics by Women’s Bureau.]

Progress in Organization
Recent Textile Agreements.

A textile organizing drive which began in
the summer is bearing fruit in many renewed
agreements and some new agreements,
judging from reports received by the
Women’s Bureau. Minimum weekly rates
of 313 up to 325 for some occupations are
provided in several cases. Wage increases
as high as 16 percent, no wage reductions, a
workweek of 40 hours or less, overtime pay,
and vacations with pay are some of the other
terms agreed upon. Child labor has been
limited in at least two agreements. Limita
tion has been placed on decentralization of
industry in one agreement.
Among the larger firms which have
recently renewed agreements is a New
Jersey silk and rayon factory, employing
800, where the union has established an
8-hour day, 40-hour 5-day week, time and a
half for overtime, no changes in workload
without union consent, a general 314
minimum weekly wage, and rates providing
320 for weavers and smash fixers and 325
for warpers and twisters. In another New
Jersey silk-weaving plant, employing 500, a

THE WOMAN WORKER

renewed agreement provides an 318 mini
mum for weavers. A minimum of 318 for
both weavers and warpers is provided in a
renewed agreement with a Pennsylvania
broad-silk company for all its plants,
employing 550.
After a strike of silk workers in Paterson,
N. J., in September, an agreement was
tentatively reached by 25 shops organized in
a silk and rayon manufacturers’ association
and about 1,000 workers organized in an
industrial union. Rates agreed upon include
a 314- and 318-a-week minimum for weavers,
325 for loom fixers, 322.50 for warpers, and
313 for auxiliary helpers.
The ban on child labor is raised from 16
to 17 years in a renewed agreement with a
New Jersey textile plant employing 130.
In a Pennsylvania silk plant, employing
150, the age limit against child labor is
raised from 16 to 18 years.
Advances in the South are reported. A
new agreement was signed in Alabama
with a cotton mill employing 200. This
provides the 5-day 40-hour week, time and
a half for overtime, and union consent to
any change in the workload. An attempted
wage reduction in a Kentucky cotton mill
was met with a 3-day strike, which ended
when the two parties agreed to arbitrate
the question of wage reduction, and the
company agreed to a 40-hour week, 8-hour
day, and time and a half for overtime.
Wage Increases Won in Clothing.

Organized hat workers won wage increases
of from 35 to 40 percent on children’s
matched hats in New York City after a
general stoppage. Coat and suit manu
facturers who purchase matched caps signed
agreements that they would confine such
purchases in the future to cap manufacturers
having contractual relations with the union.
All caps must bear the label of the Millinery
Stabilization Commission. About 700 work
ers are affected.
In Boston, after a 13-day strike, a group
of women’s-clothing manufacturers agreed
to cut hours from 48 to 35 and to increase

wages 20 to 40 percent. The terms directly
affect 1,000 workers in open shops but also
help workers in closed shops. When the
agreements expire February 15, 1939, the
union reports, it is planned to write a
collective agreement for the entire market.

Strike Notes
Saleswomen Strike in San Francisco.

The city-wide strike of several thousand
department-store clerks in San Francisco,
Calif., which began September 7, was still
unsettled a month later. Thirty-five depart
ment and branch stores had refused to
negotiate a new contract with the union.
Women and girls picketed the stores, which
remained open with nonunion labor. Under
the expired contract the San Francisco sales
clerks had a 40-hour week, unusual among
retail-store employees.
Tobacco Strike Won.
The strike of tobacco workers in Rich
mond, Va., reported in the September issue
of The Woman Worker, was won with a

31.25 weekly pay increase, check-off of dues,
seniority rights, improvement in health
conditions, and vacations with pay. About
300 Negro stemmers and cleaners were
affected.
Minimum Penalty for Sit-Down.

The 30 girl employees of a Rhode Island
worsted mill who “sat down” in the plant
for 3 days following their discharge in July
(reported in September issue of The Woman
Worker) were not striking but were guilty
of misconduct, according to a ruling of the
Rhode Island Unemployment Compensa
tion Board. Penalty for striking is an
extension of 8 weeks in the waiting period
before employees can obtain unemployment
compensation. For misconduct, however,
the penalty may tea waiting period of from
only 1 to 10 weeks. The Board gave the girls
the minimum penalty, a 1-week waiting
period, in addition to the 2 weeks normally
required before obtaining compensation.

THE WOMAN WORKER

Toward Minimum Fair Wages
State Administrators Meet Nov. 9-10
HE Women’s Bureau has called the
Eighth Minimum Wage Conference to
be held in Washington November 9 and
1938. Commissioners of labor and minimum-wage administrators of the 25 States
which now have minimum-wage laws, and
of the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico,
have been invited to attend.
Among the subjects to be discussed is the
relationship between the Federal Fair Labor
Standards Act, which went into effect
October 24, and State minimum-wage laws
and their administration.

Minnesota Order to be Revised
Suits against the Minnesota State Indus
trial Commission were dropped October 25
when the commission agreed to exempt the
complaining industries from the blanket
wage order of July 11 and to issue separate
orders for these industries. The complain
ants were a laundry, a cafe, a telegraph
company, and a group of needlecraft manu
facturers. Until separate orders are set up,
a former wage order providing at the most
$12 a week will apply to these industries.
When it asked the court for a permanent
injunction against enforcement of the order,
the telegraph company claimed that it should
be exempt from the order because its busi
ness is interstate in character, subject to
regulation by the Federal Fair Labor Stand
ards Act of 1938 but not subject to State
laws.
The wage order, effective July 11, was a
general one applying to women and minors
in any industry, business, or trade in Minne
sota and calling for minimum-wage rates
as high as $15 a week, depending on size
of community, for experienced women
workers 18 years of age and over, and lower
rates for learners, apprentices, and minors.

(See May Woman Worker for details of
order.)

California Workers Aid Enforcement
10,More than $77,000 in back wages was
collected for women and minor workers in
California during the 2-year period ending
June 30, 1938, according to the biennial
report of the division of industrial welfare
of the State department of industrial rela
tions. The money represented the differ
ence between the wages received by the
workers and the minimum required by law.
Slightly more than half of this sum was
collected following complaints by the work
ers, the remainder following routine pay-roll
inspection. While the amount collected
declined from the first to the second year,
the collections due to complaints of workers
increased in relative importance.
Other evidence of worker activity facili
tating the work of enforcing the legal mini
mum wage was found in fruit and vegetable
piece-rate canneries where pay rolls of
women and minors had increased 39 percent
from the first to the second year, largely due
to union agreements. Whereas the mini
mum-wage order for the industry requires
that half of the women and minor workers
on piece work must be paid rates averaging
33% cents an hour, many piece-work plants
had adopted a basic rate of 44 cents, usually
under union agreement.
Altogether, piece-rate adjustments in the
fruit and vegetable canning and nut cracking
and sorting industries amounted to $394,417.78, which brought the total collections
and adjustments for this biennial period up
to approximately $472,000.

Wage and Cost-of-Living Surveys
Arizona—Service Industries.
Many of the women in service industries
in Arizona were earning less than enough to
support themselves independently in the

THE WOMAN WORKER

winter of 1937-38, according to a report of
the minimum wage division of the Arizona
Industrial Commission, based on a survey
made in cooperation with the Women’s
Bureau.1 The great majority of the 3,000
women studied, who were employed in
stores, hotels, restaurants, hospitals, laun
dries, and dry-cleaning establishments, failed
to earn the amount shown in a carefully
prepared budget as the minimum necessary
to insure a woman living alone adequate
food for health, decent living quarters, and
other items essential for health and effi
ciency.
The cost of this budget, as determined
from a price survey in various parts of the
State, averaged #19.87 a week. In con
trast, the average earnings of all regular
store employees in the State were #14.20,
and 88 percent earned less than #20.
Women working in laundries and dry-clean
ing plants had average earnings of #11.20,
and only 1 out of 20 was paid as much as
#18.
The budget allowed the following amounts
on an annual basis:
Food (meals at restaurants)......... ..... ........... 2345. 80
Housing (room rental)__________________
223.00
Clothing_______________________ _____
160. OS
Other living essentials__________________
304.49
Medical costs______________ 245.37
Transportation_____________ 36. 50
Personal care_______________ 42.25
Education and reading_______ 10.00
Recreation-------------------------- 44.00
Contributions______________ _ 17.00
Occupational expense________ 15.00
Laundry___________________ 52.80
Stationery and postage_______
3.25
Insurance and emergency fund. 38.32 ----------1,033. 34

Connecticut—Cleaning and Dyeing.
About 2 out of 5 of the 373 women whose
hourly earnings were recently reported in
the cleaning and dyeing industry in Con
necticut had earnings of less than 30 cents
an hour, according to a survey made by
the minimum-wage division of the State

labor department. Nearly two-thirds had
less than 35 cents and more than threefourths had less than 40 cents.
1 Report of the Minimum Wage Division of the Industrial Com*
mission of Arizona on Cost of Living Survey and Wage Studies,
1937-38 (printed).

The survey was representative in that it
covered 70 percent of the firms in the indus
try in the State, from which were collected
wage data for 514 women in a busy week
and for 434 women in a slack week late in
1937 or early in 1938.
Half of the women covered by the study
were receiving clerks, who usually work on
a daily or weekly salary in small branch
stores. They had steadier earnings than
others, but made an average of only #13.55
in both seasons. About one-fourth of the
women were pressers on a piece-rate or
hourly-rate basis. In the busy season their
earnings averaged #15.71; in the slack season
they averaged #12.
In the busy week more than four-fifths
of the women in the industry earned less
than #18, whereas the Consumers’ League
of Connecticut recently found between #18
and #20 the amount necessary for girls
living alone in five cities of the State with
populations of 12,000 to 165,000.
New Hampshire—Retail Stores.
Three important problems in retail em
ployment and how to meet them are point
ed out in a report recently issued by
the minimum-wage division of the New
Hampshire Bureau of Labor. The prob
lems are part-time employment, long hours,
and inventory and counter work after
closing time.
In this study, more than one-fifth of the
women and well over half of the girls under
21 had worked less than 37 hours a week.
Nearly one-third of the girls had worked
less than 13 hours a week, a period often
representing only one day’s employment.
Two ways by which a wage board might
meet the problem of part time are sug
gested: A guaranteed minimum wage for a
standard week for all who are employed; or
a higher minimum rate for part-time em
ployment, with a proviso that no employee
shall receive less than 1 full day’s pay in a
week.
The problem of long hours may be due to
a need, but often merely to a custom, of
keeping stores open long hours for the con
venience of customers, it is pointed out.

MINIMUM WAGE
In 18 cities and towns in New Hampshire
in the spring and summer of 1937, stores
customarily remained open Saturday night
until 9, 9:30, or in some cases even 10
o’clock. In seven cities, stores stayed open
late on one other night in the week.
For the individual worker, however, long
hours seemed the exception. Only 15 per
cent of the women and minor employees
had worked as long as 49 hours, although
the law allows 54. To check the tendency
of a few employers to keep their workers
long hours and to prevent unfair competi
tion, the report suggests a higher minimumwage rate, possibly time and one-half, for
over 48 hours a week.
Work after closing time should be paid
for at the minimum-wage rate fixed for the
industry, the report contends. Such over
time work consists of quarterly inventories
and the straightening of counters at night,
with perhaps some rearrangement at the
end of each week. No record of such work
was found on the pay rolls, and no extra
pay appeared to be given for it.
Pay-roll records were taken during the
spring and summer of 1937 for 2,260 women
(21 and older), and 652 male and 741 female
minors. Nearly half of the women had
earned less than 28 cents an hour and less
than #13 a week. Half of the girls had
earned less than 22 cents an hour and less
than #7 a week. The girls’ lower weekly
earnings were due chiefly to the large num
ber of them among the part-time workers.
New York—Gandy Factories.

The effect of seasonality on the candy
worker is shown in a study of the industry
made by the division of women in industry
and minimum wage of the New York
Department of Labor. Pay rolls were
copied for nearly 3,500 women for the first
week in December 1937, the peak of the
busy season. Only somewhat more than
one-half of the women had worked as much
as 50 weeks in the past year. Women who
had less than 44 weeks of employment in
the year studied were interviewed in their

homes. Of the 151 women in New York
City whom it was possible to reach, 126
stated that they had been unable to get
work of any kind in the periods when they
were not employed in the candy factory.
In general, earnings were not enough to
permit any savings. They averaged #16.12
for regular workers for the sample week in
December 1937, while only #12.59 was the
weekly average for the women who had
worked at least 26 weeks during the year.
Pennsylvania—Hotels.

The need of a minimum wage for women
and minors employed in hotels and other
lodging places is shown in a sample study
based chiefly on an investigation of the in
dustry, as of January 1938, by the Penn
sylvania Department of Labor and In
dustry.
More than two-thirds of the 1,545 full
time women employees in year-round hotels
received neither room nor meals, and earned
on an average #11.44 a week in cash wages.
One-eighth of the entire group received one
meal a day and averaged #10.61 a week.
The small group receiving full maintenance
averaged #6.84 a week. The 1937 annual
cash earnings, reported for only 882 full
time workers, averaged #559, #518, and #400,
respectively, in the three groups mentioned.
The hours worked by full-time women in
year-round hotels show the benefits of the
State 44-hour law for women. Only 13 per
cent had worked more than 44 hours, prob
ably in some cases because of the overtime
provisions in the law, and in other cases
because of violations. More than onefourth of the women had worked less than
40 hours.
Evidence available on tips received by
both year-round and seasonal employees in
dicates that relatively few received tips
amounting to more than #1 a week. Size of
community appeared to make little differ
ence in earnings of women hotel employees.
Those in towns of 100,000 to 500,000 had
smaller earnings than those in towns of
25,000 to 100,000.

THE WOMAN WORKER

Recent Minimum-Wage Orders
Massachusetts—Millinery.

A minimum rate of 35 cents an hour for
experienced workers in millinery occupations
became effective in Massachusetts October
1. No apprenticeship period is provided for
workers on men’s and women’s wool-felt and
fur-felt hat bodies. For other workers a 10
weeks’ learning period is allowed at 25 cents
an hour.
Massachusetts—Paper Boxes.

A directory order effective August 1 re
quires that women and minors with 6
months’ experience in manufacturing paper
boxes must be paid at least 35 cents an
hour; those with less than 6 months’ ex
perience must be paid at least 30 cents an
hour.
Oregon—Nut Industry.

Effective November 15, the State welfare
commission has ordered a minimum wage
of 30 cents an hour for women and minors
employed as time workers in cracking,
shelling, processing, bleaching, grading, and
packing of nuts. Piece workers employed
in cracking and shelling must receive a
rate such that at least 35 percent of the
total number of women and minors on
piece work can earn 30 cents an hour.
Women and minors engaged in cracking
and shelling may not be employed more
than 8 hours a day and 44 hours a week,
except that in emergencies women may be
employed longer at time and a half the
usual hourly rate. For women engaged in
processing, bleaching, grading, and packing,
maximum hours are 10 a day and 60 a week,
with provision for overtime in emergencies
at time and a half the usual rate. Home
work in cracking and shelling is prohibited
except for growers who crack and shell their
own crop.
Pennsylvania—Laundry Industry.
The first minimum-wage order issued
under the Pennsylvania law of 1937 went
into effect October 1. It is a directory order

providing that women and minors in the
laundry industry, including production,
maintenance, office, and store workers, shall
be paid at least $9 a week if they work over
16 to 30 hours, and as much as #13.20 a week
if they work a full 44-hour week. That is,
for hours worked above 16 up to and in
cluding 30 a week they are guaranteed 30
hours’ pay at 30 cents an hour; the same
hourly rate applies for hours worked above
30 up to and including the legal limit of 44
a week. Employees who work only 16 hours
or less must be paid at least 33 cents an
hour. No differentials are provided for
beginners, for occupations, or for regions.

Other Activities in the States
In the District of Columbia the enforce
ment of the 8-hour-day law for women was
transferred September 1 from the health
department to the minimum-wage board.
This means that the hours worked and the
wages paid can be checked simultaneously.
In Kentucky, Clay A. Copeland has been
appointed supervisor of minimum wage for
women and minors under the State depart
ment of industrial relations.
The minimum-wage division in New
Hampshire is securing pay rolls from all
textile factories in the State, including wages
and hours of men as well as women.
Miss Kate Papert has been appointed
acting director of the division of women in
industry and minimum wage of the New
York State Department of Labor to succeed
Miss Frieda S. Miller, now State commis
sioner of labor. Miss Papert was formerly
chief of the research bureau of the division.
In her 11 years in the New York labor
department she organized and directed
some of the most extensive and important
research projects handled by the division of
women in industry and minimum wage.
The order for the laundry and drycleaning industry in Rhode Island became
mandatory September 12, 1938. It had
been directory since May 2.
The Industrial Commission of Wisconsin

MINIMUM WAGE
has appointed an advisory committee on
woman and child labor, consisting of IS
members with equal representation of em
ployers, employees, and the public. This

committee will consider, among other mat
ters, revision of the minimum-wage rate,
also possible revision of orders relating to
women’s hours.

Government Labor Officials Meet
State labor departments attention to observing accepted techniques
do to improve conditions of women in issuing and administering wage orders.
It was pointed out that since the constitu
workers now that the Federal Government
in the wage-hour law has accepted responsi tionality of minimum-wage laws for women
bility for minimum standards of those in and minors under the United States Consti
tution is now established, those opposed to
interstate industry?
This question was considered at the the minimum wage are seeking to find flaws
twenty-fourth annual meeting of the Inter in the administrative procedure, or trying
national Association of Governmental Labor to claim that the law is not in accord with
Officials in Charleston, S. C., in September. State constitutions.
Following are the texts of the resolutions
The following recommendations made by
the Women in Industry Committee may be adopted on minimum wage and industrial
home work:
summarized as follows:

hat should

First, labor officials in States with minimum-wage
laws should issue more wage orders and more adequate
wage orders to protect women not benefited by the
Federal act;
Second, in extending hour and wage legislation to
men, States should formulate separate laws, so that
the laws for women and minors, already found consti
tutional by the United States Supreme Court, will not
be jeopardized by inclusion of provisions for men
which may be challenged in the courts;
Third, States should expand the coverage of their
wage-hour laws to include groups that are now ex
cluded from the benefit of both Federal and State
laws. Most important of such groups are agricultural
workers and household employees.

RESOLUTION ON MINIMUM WAGE
Be it resolved, That all States not now having mini
mum-wage legislation for women and minors draft
such legislation in conformity with the standards
approved by this association and present such bills to
the next session of their legislature; and
Be it further resolved, That although the constitu
tionality of the Federal wage-hour law has not been
tested in the courts, the States nevertheless extend the
application of minimum-wage legislation to men. It
is recommended that this be done by the introduction
of new legislation which will not endanger present
minimum-wage laws for women and minors; and
Be it further resolved, That States having minimum-

Difficulties of enforcement of labor laws
in such fields as agriculture and domestic
service “should not entirely block the way
of experimentation and progress,” the report
of the Women in Industry Committee urged.
It declared that the States should find some
method of raising the wage levels of the
2 million women agricultural workers and
household employees who are “among the
lowest paid of all workers and not covered
by any law.”
The report on minimum wage urged the
State administrators to give most careful

lishing minimum-wage standards for industries which
are interstate in nature; and
Be it also resolved, That this association urge that
adequate appropriations be granted for the enforce
ment of minimum-wage legislation.

wage laws be urged to take concerted action in estab

RESOLUTION ON INDUSTRIAL HOME WORK
Be it resolved, That the Administrator of the Wage
and Hour Division and the Chief of the Children’s
Bureau be urged to take every step possible to insure
application of the wage, hour, and child labor provisions
of the Fair Labor Standards Act to the home-work
practice, and that the Administrator be urged to include
in each minimum-wage order issued under the law a
provision prohibiting industrial home work in the
industry or industries covered.

J§ hi WrtfciUi

THE WOMAN WORKER

AllSOMfl

Reviews of Recent Studie^^an 393TM) s.wwom
Consumer Incomes in the United States,
Their Distribution in 1935-36. Na

tional Resources Committee. Govern
ment Printing Office, Washington, D. C.
1938. Price 30 cents.
There is now a new byword in America—
one-third of the families of the Nation live
on less than #780 a year. This important
report of the National Resources Committee
for the year 1935-36 shows that President
Roosevelt spoke accurately when he said
that one-third of the Nation is ill-housed,
ill-clothed, and ill-fed.
It shows that the lower one-third of the
Nation gets just over one-tenth of the na
tional income. It shows that 1,600,000
unattached women not on relief rolls live
on less than #780 a year. For relief and
nonrelief groups taken together, 29 percent
of unattached women had less than #500
in the year 1935-36.
These are just a few of the striking facts
to be found in this report, which presents
the first estimates of income distribution to
appear since the Brookings Institution esti
mates for 1929, published in “America’s
Capacity to Consume.” The study was
made possible through a Nation-wide sam
ple survey of consumer purchases by some
300,000 families, conducted with Works
Progress Administration funds by the United
States Bureau of Home Economics and the
United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, in
cooperation with the National Resources
Committee and the Central Statistical Board.
Material from various other sources, includ
ing the Women’s Bureau, was used to build
up income estimates for all the Nation’s
consumers. The study was directed by Dr.
Hildegarde Kneeland.

as compared with those required under the
Federal Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938.
The act was passed by Congress at about
the time the session opened, and immediately
wages and hours became the central theme
of the curriculum at the school.
The report on the study made by the girls
shows that union organization had done
much more for them than the Federal wagehour act could do at present. Of 62 stu
dents, all but 6 were union members, and
practically all were extremely active in their
unions.
Three-fifths of the women, chiefly in the
clothing industry, had hourly earnings of 40
cents or more. Only one-quarter of the
group worked as much as 44 hours. (In
this group one domestic worker reported
working at times as much as 70 hours a
week.) Only 2 girls of the 62 expected to
be affected by the provisions of the Federal
wage-hour act—a 25-cent minimum wage
and a 44-hour maximum workweek—during
its first year of operation. The others either
had better conditions, were in industries not
covered by the law, or were students from
foreign countries.
Recent Women’s Bureau Publications 1

Hours or Women Workers
1938. Hewes-Fagin Unit, Bryn
Mawr Summer School. 1938.

Trends in the Employment of Women, 1928-36.
Bui. 159. 1938. Price 10 cents. 48 pages.
The Legal Status of Women in the United States
of America, January 1, 1938. Latest reports issued
are Delaware (Bui. 157-7) and Idaho (Bui. 157-11).
1938. Price 5 cents each.
Hours and Earnings in Certain Men’s-Wear
Industries.
163-1. Work Clothing; Work Shirts; Dress
Shirts. 1938. Price 10 cents. 27 pages.
163-2. Knit Underwear; Woven Underwear.
1938. Price 5 cents. 10 pages.
163-3. Seamless Hosiery. 1938. Price 5 cents.
8 pages.
163-4. Welt Shoes. 1938. Price 5 cents. 9
pages.

A practical and timely project in workers’
education at the Bryn Mawr Summer School
this year was the study made by the girls
themselves of their own working conditions

1 Bulletins may be ordered from the Superintendent of Documents,
Washington, D. C., at prices listed. A discount of 25 percent on
orders of 100 or more copies is allowed. Single copies of the bulle
tins or several copies for special educational purposes may be secured
through the Women’s Bureau without charge as long as the free
supply lasts.

Wages

and

(I. S. COVERNHENT FRINTINC OFFICE: tSSS

Full text of The Woman Worker : November 1938, Vol. XVIII, No. 6

FRASER