MAKING BUTTON-HOLES AT STARVATION WAGES.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XII, Issue 17, 15 August 1884, Page 22

MAKING BUTTON-HOLES AT STARVATION WAGES.

You talk of grinding competition." said a New York shoe-cutter to John Swmton the other day ; " but what do you think of the button-hole makers ? These men each own a number of machines, and employ girls and men to do the work which they raceive from various firms. Not very long ago our firm was paying 60 cents a hundred for shoe button-holes. First one came in and offered to do them for five cents less ; then another offered to take them for still less ; and so it kept on, the last one offering, a day or two a»o, to take the work at twenty-eight cents a hundred. Now, all -this took place without our firm evea asking for a reduction. You oueht to vi3it one of these places and see how the work is done." Actinsr on this advice, I visited a button-hole factory, and found, in a room about twenty-five feet square, tbirty-five men and girls at work, elbow to elbow— some on machines and others finishing the work. There was a deafening whirr, aud everyone was working as if for dear life. Not an instant was lost ; no time to look around, for the eye of the boss was always on them. Grind, grind, for ten hours a day, and sometimes longer. No wonder the men were haggard, the girls wan. Inquiring for the master of these mortals, I was introduced to a man who was at least well fed aud clad, but whom you could imagine playing Shy lock to the life. * •• This is not as good a business as it used to be," said our informant, in the mongrel dialect of Baxter street. " There are too many machines now. We pay our men lOdolg. a week, and the girls on the machines 6dols. The finishers don't get as much as that. Each machine makes from 1,500 to 2,500 aboe button-holes a day, and from 700 to 800 on coats. There are about a dozen' different machines ; they are inventing improvements all the time. Each one costs from 150dols. to 200dols. We get forty cents a hundred for shoe button-holes. (He was the one who offered to make them for tw^nty-eigbt cents). On coats, from seventy cents to 4dols. a hundred is received. We employ thirty-five men and girls, and they work ten or sometimes ten and a-half hours a day." " You said you do not make as much as formerly. Po the operators get the same as they used to 1 " "Well, no. But they make nearly as much." Which can be taken with much salt. Day after day, no word is spoken by the thirty-five -inmates of this button-hole prison. Bending over tbe machines, the" seemed unable to ever regain their uprightness Tbe men were working on the cloth goods, and the girls on the shoes, and I watched them until my head grew dizzy. • j 9^«^t the girls was worki ng on an improved machine, and she said 3,000 button-holes was a day's woik— 3oo in an hour : five every mmute— forsdols. a week. — Exchange.