CHAPTER IV.

WORKING CONDITIONS.

Hours worked per day and per week-Frequency and methods of wage paymentsRegularity of employment-Accidents in the steel works-Company houses—The company-store system-Hospital and medical service-The immigrant and organized labor-Employment of women and children-Segregation at work-[Text Tables 436 to 439 and General Table 231].

HOURS WORKED PER DAY AND PER WEEK.

The effect of the panic of 1907 upon the immigrant population of Community C has already been discussed. It has been pointed out that the demand for labor decreased from 7,000 or 8,000 to about. 4,000 men."

In normal times employment in most departments of the works is regular. The hours per day vary considerably in the several departments, as will be shown below, but in general they were only slightly affected by the depression of 1907 and 1908. The irregularity of work which resulted was due to the entire closing of a department for some weeks or months or to running it for the full time each day for less than the full number of days per week.

Not only was the work irregular but the number of employees was reduced during the year of the depression to about 55 per cent of the number employed a year previous.

With regard to the hours prevailing in the principal departments the following facts are submitted:

TABLE 436.-Hours worked per day and per week in steel plant of Community C, by

The number of hours placed opposite any department indicates the length of the working day and week for the great majority of those employed there. Some few workmen, however, work either a longer or a shorter day or week than the others. In some cases there may be said to be two or three time bases prevailing in a department; this is indicated above by brackets, as, for example, in the open-hearth department where a considerable number of employees work ten hours a day for six days while a large number of others are employed twelve hours a day for seven days a week.

FREQUENCY AND METHODS OF WAGE PAYMENTS.

Wages are paid every two weeks by the steel plants, but the various departments are grouped into sections and distributed over the biweekly period, some being paid, say, on the 6th, others on the 7th, 8th, 9th, and so forth. Payments are made in currency. Deductions are made for rent due the company, for store accounts at the supply company of the community, and for accounts due the company's surgeons for treatment in other than accident cases. Merchants and others are discouraged in the matter of the collection of the wages of employees by means of orders; orders are honored only when clearly legitimate or as the result of legal process.

REGULARITY OF EMPLOYMENT.

The following table shows the months worked during the past year by males 16 years of age or over within the households studied, who were employed away from home. The presentation is by general nativity and race of individual.

TABLE 437.-Months worked during the past year by males 16 years of age or over employed away from home, by general nativity and race of individual

(STUDY OF HOUSEHOLDS.)

[This table includes only races with 20 or more males reporting. The totals, however, are for all races.)

Of 812 males studied the majority have worked less than nine months. It will be noted also that the largest proportionate number have worked six but less than nine months of the year. Only 13.9 per cent have worked steadily for twelve months. On the other hand, but 9 per cent of the total worked less than three months in the year. Of the employees native-born of native father, although a large proportion worked nine months or over, the majority report less than nine months' work, and 4.4 per cent of the total less than three months' work.

A comparative analysis of the foreign races by months worked shows that, with the exception of the Servians and the Magyars, the majority of the members of each race have worked six months or over during the past year, the proportions ranging from 56.9 for the Bulgarians to 85.7 per cent of the Slovenians. The smallest amount of work is reported by the Servians, only 47.5 per cent of whom report six months work or more, and the maximum amount by the Slovenians, of whom 57.1 per cent have worked nine months or over, and none of whom have worked less than three months.

ACCIDENTS IN THE STEEL WORKS.

During the year 1907, 20 fatal accidents were reported to the state factory Inspector, besides 300 reported as nonfatal, at least 4 of which had an ultimately fatal termination. Among the so-called nonfatal accidents were 4 cases of internal injuries; I of concussion of the brain; 1 of fracture of the skull; and several of major surgical operations rendered necessary by serious crushing, fracture, or severing of limbs. Of the 20 accidents which had an immediately fatal termination, not less than 8 occurred at the blast furnace, where explosions of molten metal and the escape of hot gases were the principal causes of injury. Injuries from machinery moving at greater or less speed upon tracks, such as outside cranes, charging machines, and shifter engines, form a second and important class, while the improper loading or manipulation of cranes, resulting in the falling of a portion of their loads or in the striking of workmen by some part of the mechanism, has given rise at different times to numerous and serious accidents.

From the data on file in the office of the factory inspector, the fol- . lowing compilation is drawn showing the nature of injuries received in the 300 nonfatal accidents occurring in 1907:

An examination of the names of the men killed during the year 1907 reveals the preponderance of Slavic and Magyar workmen among the killed. No record of race is kept either by the steel company or by the state factory inspector, from whose office the list

was obtained, but the names tell their own story. The list follows: Anton Tesak, John Pajolik, Martin Stifko, Allen S. Kunkle, Peter Kimers, Jstvan Terner, Petru Petruti, Hubert Pierce, Steve Oconicke, Steve Úkelic, Frank Krameric, Janes Szep, John Peffer, Park J. Gross, Joseph Susic, Metri Restoff, Joseph Trajbarico, Ignace Polanec, Lester Turnbaugh, Mato Pugar.

The following additional deaths occurred in consequence of injuries received during 1907 at the steel company (from hospital records): Fred Ickes, William C. Knaver, Frans Maí, Frank Hog.

This makes a total of 24 deaths, of which presumably 18 were of foreigners. It is not at all surprising that the percentage of immigrants is so great when the rough and often dangerous character of their work is considered. In good times they constitute a large part of the working force. They are, moreover, ignorant of the language and clumsy in their use of mechanical appliances, and no doubt fall victims to accidents which an American workman would deftly avoid. Closely related to industrial accidents is the question of the healthfulness of the occupations followed. Such work as grinding is notoriously detrimental to health wherever done, while occupations which subject the workman to excessive heat and long hours are debilitating and unhealthful. The twelve-hour working day which prevails in the blast furnace, blooming mills, merchant mill, open hearth, rail mill, and slab mill, and shifter department is excessive from a sanitary as well as a social standpoint, and where prolonged to a sevenday week of eighty-four hours, as in the blast furnaces and open hearth department, the situation is made proportionately worse.

COMPANY HOUSES.

A total of 192 houses are owned by the steel company and rented to its employees. Of the tenants 138 are Americans, 27 negroes, and 27 immigrants. Of the last named 3 are Germans and the others Slavs. Most of these houses have five or six rooms and rent for from $6.50 to $8 per month, and are of the same general grade as those owned by others in the same neighborhood. A group of 40 tenements in the American section, renting for the very low sum of $6.50 per month, are held exclusively for American and Americanized employees. Other houses owned by the company rent for higher sums, ranging from $9 to over $16 a month and offer correspondingly greater conveniences.

THE COMPANY-STORE SYSTEM.

The company store was at one time maintained by the steel company, but in 1884 a store company was organized in the community as a separate business enterprise. A close working connection, however, is maintained between them. Accounts of employees are deducted from wages; and on the other hand, employees are given a longer credit there than elsewhere when idle from accident or sickness. There is no requirement as to patronage, but the store offers certain inducements in the way of a large and fresh stock. Other stores are easily accessible, indeed more so, and draw in the aggregate a very large patronage from the employees of the steel company.

HOSPITAL AND MEDICAL SERVICE.

In case of accidents occurring to employees while in the discharge of their duties, the expense of medical or surgical treatment, including the expense incurred in the hospital, is borne by the company. No hospital is maintained for their exclusive use, but all cases of serious injury requiring hospital treatment are conveyed to a hospital in a neighboring city, the steel company paying $1.25 per day for each employee so received. A chief surgeon and assistants are in the pay of the steel company and a surgeon's office is maintained at the works, to which injured men are ordinarily taken. An ambulance is at the disposal of the surgeon for conveying workmen to the city hospital about 3 miles distant.

Beyond these purely medical arrangements no uniform policy of relief seems to be adhered to with regard to men injured at the works. When it is considered that 322 men received injuries of a more or less serious nature during the year 1907 it can readily be seen that, in the absence of any uniform or general system of insurance, the treatment accorded the various individuals varied materially. Some received benefits from native or immigrant benefit societies, others had savings upon which to fall back, while a certain number were given aid by the company beyond the mere treatment of their injuries. Injured workmen who have become convalescent are sometimes maintained at a boarding house in the vicinity of the works, others may be given a cork leg or other necessary help, while widows of workmen killed by accident are sometimes given the use of a tenement rent free and a monthly pension. Three such widows are now pensioners of the company. The company strongly desires the establishment of a uniform and compulsory system of relief, but with other agencies, racial or fraternal, already in the field it has not yet succeeded in establishing it.

THE IMMIGRANT AND ORGANIZED LABOR.

Of 725 males in this community, none are affiliated with a trade union, indicating, therefore, a total lack of active interest in matters pertaining to organized labor.

But one strike has occurred in the history of the steel company. This took place during the last days of July, 1891. Almost a year previous a local organization of the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers had been formed, and in spite of opposition on the part of the company, it grew until at the time of the strike it claimed. over 2,000 members.

The occasion of the strike was the presentation to the officers of the company of a wage scale which called for a 20 per cent increase. The officials of the company not only refused to sign the new scale but declined to recognize the Amalgamated Association in any way. Twenty-five hundred men are reported to have gone on strike, including in their ranks the greater part of the Croatian, Hungarian, and Polish employees. The small body of Italian laborers, however, remained at work, as did also the negro employees.

It was the latter, augmented by others of the same race hastily brought from other places, who seem to have made possible the early resumption of work by the company. The final collapse of the strike, however, after continuing for about a week, was due

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