AMERICAN STEEL TRADE.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 65, 16 March 1912, Page 2

AMERICAN STEEL TRADE.

CONDITIONS OF SLAVEBY. 7-DAY WEEK AND 12-HOUR DAY. 1 According to a report prepared for the Senate by tho Department of Conlmeroe and Labour at Washington (writes a New York correspondent), there ie a condition of labour in steel manufacturing plants in the United States, almost as enslaving as the gailoys of ancient time. Approximately, says the report from which I quote, only 14 per cent. 6f the 17a,000 employees ol nil the blast furnaces, steel works, and rolling mills "worked lese than sixty houw per week, and almost 43 per cent, worked eeventy-two houm or over pur week. Another striking characteristic of the labour conditions <n the iron and tsteel industry 2 is the large proportion ofunakilldd workmen In America's l&bout force. Thefie unskilled workmen are very largely recruited from the rank* ol recent immigrants. For the industry as a whol© not far from one-half (01,463) of the employee* : in the productive iron and ateel occupa* tions included within the Gove'rnment'6 inv«atigatton were of the cUbs of unskilled workmen. "In the blast furnac*. department," the report, "the largest eingle department in the induo try; more than two-thh'ds (24,722) of the employees^ in productive occupation* wero unskilled labourers, a large proportion of whom do nob understand Engliah." "Conditions at Bethlehem are bad enough," cays the report, "but elsewhere they are much worse." During May, ISIO, th«» period covered Ly thia investigation, following the la6b general wage increase- in the steel industry, • 50,000, or 2& per cent, ot 17b,000 employee?' of the blast furnaces, ateel works, and rolling mills customarily worked seven days per week, and 34,000 worked <*igh-ty-four hours or more per week, which means a twelve-hour working .day every day in the weak, including Sunday. "The evil of seven-day work was," the report declares, "particularly accentu ated by the fact that the seven-day working week was not confined to the blast furnace department, whom thert, u» a metallurgical necessity for continuous operation, but it v/m also found in oth&r departments, where no metallurgical necessity can be claimed. Productive work, was done on Sunday, as on other days of the week. The hardship of tho twelve-hour day and seven-day week m still further increased •by the fact thai overy week or two weekb, when the employeeo ou tho day shift ure transierrni to the night shift, and vice versa, they remain on duty without relief for either eighteen or twemy-four consecutive j hours." Altogether this Government report Is one of the most drastic documents filed in recent years. ,