Consumers' League

“ Every buyer then determines in some degree the direction of industry. The market is a democracy where every penny gives a right of vote. It is the thought of the society called "The Consumers' League" that through purchases, pressure [Pg 395] may be brought to bear upon the employer to provide better conditions of work. The members of The Consumers' League refuse to buy goods not made under sanitary conditions. Undoubtedly there is here a great economic force which an enlightened public opinion, even without a formal association, can make in large measure effective. ”

“ The people at the head of the Consumers' League were practical persons of wide experience and they went on the principle that half a loaf is better than none at all—that every little bit helps. After consultations with the employers and the Working Women's Society, a standard was adopted from which no retreat has been made. Whatever changes have been made, have been on the side of greater strictness. ”

“ The Consumers' League is unique in the field of philanthropy as affording an opportunity to everyone no matter how big or how little. For by its original principle of buying only goods made under fair conditions, it gives a chance to the unimportant individual to share in a great philanthropic movement, somewhat as a private does in an imperial army ”

“ To form in every state, among the purchasers of the products of manufacture, a body of alert, enlightened public opinion, keen to watch the officers to whom is entrusted the duty of enforcing child labor laws, rewarding with support and appreciation faithful officials and calling attention to derelictions from duty on the part of the mere politicians among them, this is an important part of the duty of the National Consumers’ League. ”

“ The answer must be that if the Consumers' League ever does become strong enough to exercise a great influence in the industrial world, it will probably abuse and sell its power. Rich unfair firms may be able to bribe those in control to give them a recommendation they do not [Pg 111] deserve, and various other kinds of corruption will most likely creep in. ”

“ The Consumers' League began with a purely benevolent motive, and in this early philanthropic stage it gained immediate popularity. City after city, State after State, formed Consumers' Leagues, until, in 1899, a National League, with branches in twenty-two States, was organized. The National League, far from being a philanthropic society, has become a scientific association for the study of industrial economics. ”

“ The second, the responsibility for the fact that one article is made instead of another which would have satisfied a larger number of real wants, each home-maker must meet individually by careful and conscientious regulation of her own expenditures.
That some women have accepted the first form of responsibility, the existence and growth of the National Consumers’ League, with its various state and local branches, testify. The object of this league is to investigate, as the individual can not, the conditions under which articles are made. ”

“ The competitive system of industry ties the hands of the employer, while it seems impossible successfully to organize a union among women. There was but one element of the economic world left to work with—the Consumer.
Therefore, in May, 1890, a public meeting was called in Chickering Hall, New York, to discuss the organization of this all-powerful factor of industry. It was decided to found the Consumers' League upon the following platform:
"I. That the interest of the community demands that all workers should receive, not the lowest, but fair living wages. ”

“ The League proposed is planned to operate in its national and local functions as a national Consumers' Club, with working branches in every town which shall be engaged in doing specific things every day toward making the employers and employees in that town listen to each other in the interests of the consumer public.
It is always to the interests of the consumer-public to see to it that people who have particular interests in a business should be compelled to listen to the others' interests. ”

“ Between fifteen and twenty thousand of these women are workers in restaurants—waitresses, cooks, kitchen girls, pantry hands—upon whose services all of us depend at one time or another for our comfort and pleasure. The Consumers’ League of New York City has long felt the need of including restaurant workers under the provisions of the Labor Law. ”

“ The regular work of the League would largely consist in accepting invitations from factories, and in supplying and training experts for the purpose of conducting in a factory mutual advertising campaigns, or studies in attention between workmen and employers, adapted to different types of factories.
The way out for democracy in dealing with predatory wealth which organizes to hold up the consumers, and with predatory labor which organizes to hold up the consumers, is for the consumers to organize. ”

“ The action of the National Consumer's League in allowing its label to be placed only on goods made under decent conditions of work and of wages and in pledging its members to give the preference to such goods has produced some result, probably, and only requires that all consumers support it. ”

“ In one woolen factory the milligrams of dust in a cubic centimeter of air were reduced from twenty to seven by the installation of an exhauster. [40]
The fact, too, that organizations such as trade unions and consumers' leagues can allow the use of their labels to certify that an article has been made under fair conditions, is a striking confirmation of the fact that some manufacturers do maintain proper factories and treat their employees justly.
Nevertheless, competition has a black as well as a silver lining. ”

“ The consumers' leagues offer an interesting problem. It is undoubtedly true that, under certain circumstances, more immediate economic benefits are derived from them than from co-operative stores. But the co-operation store gives accommodation in the matter of stock on hand to choose from, and of small purchases and relatively frequent deliveries, that cannot be given by the consumers' leagues. The main fault of the buying association, however, is its defective organization. In most cases people simply put their orders together and depend upon a volunteer to distribute the provisions. ”

“ In order to judge of the value of board and lodging which is offered by the hotel, it is necessary to have some standards by which to measure it. Hotels have made no attempt to put a money value on lodging and board. The only way an estimate can be made of the cost to hotels is by the difference in wages paid to employees living in and those living out in the same establishment. Even this means is scarcely accurate because, in some cases, the same wage is paid to both and a varying number of meals is eaten by the employees. ”

“ The wage of restaurant workers is of immediate interest to everyone who enters a restaurant. You not only pay for your food, but your tip helps to pay the waitress’s salary. It is upon this source of income that she depends for the greater part of her earnings. Any study of wages in this branch of industry must take into consideration not only that tips form a large part of the income of waitresses but that the majority of women get all their meals at the restaurant, or the equivalent of $3.00 a week in addition to actual wages. ”

“ The individual hotel has developed into a complex institution, often of colossal size, supplying board and lodging on a most luxurious scale. In all parts of New York State, particularly in the smaller cities and towns, the small hotel with the inn tradition, with a simple table d’hôte service at one rate, still exists. But the tendency in New York City and in first and second class cities of the State has been toward a rapid expansion in the size of the individual establishment with an elaboration of service, and a specialization of hotel types. ”

“ As long as only particular groups of workingmen unite in consumers' leagues, general wages will not be affected thereby, and the consumers' leagues will accordingly furnish, through lower prices, to the workingmen who belong to them—as long as this condition lasts—that minor relief for the oppressed condition discussed and admitted under No. ”

“ Girls in restaurant work do not get vacations with pay except in very rare instances. One well-known New York firm having tea-rooms in various parts of the city, is to be congratulated on the fact that it does give its waitresses a vacation with pay. A few of the married women, or those who have families to care for them, can afford to take time out of the year’s work for a rest. But when a girl is not working, it is for the most part a matter of stern necessity and inevitably means a time of struggle and suffering.
Restaurants do not labor under the difficulties of seasonal employment. ”

“ She cannot even estimate the value of the wage she is to receive in the majority of jobs. This is due to two uncertain elements in the earnings of hotel workers; tipping and compensation other than money in the form of board and room. Because she is not in a position to gauge the amount of the tips she will receive and the quality of the board and lodging, the only recourse of the applicant is to try out the job for a time. “Well, I’ll try it out for a week and see how I make out,” is the common expression of the new worker. ”

“ When the public is perfectly willing to contribute part of a waitress’s wage, why should not the employer take advantage of this fact and pay her less? That is surely to be expected and is almost universally the case. ”

“ Most of the girls quite frankly admit making “dates” with strange men. In one restaurant a woman was pointed out in incredulous admiration by the other waitresses. “Her husband has been dead four years, and she hasn’t gone out with a man yet,” they said. These “dates” are made with no thought on the part of the girl beyond getting the good time which she cannot afford herself, but the outcome is often a tragedy. The restaurants in one city of the state forbid unnecessary conversation between waitress and customer because conditions resulting from the practice became so flagrant. ”

“ Maids resent it when housekeepers give them transient corridors 33where tips are poor, and waitresses accuse head waiters of putting them on poor stations.
Tips are a disadvantage to the worker because she can never know what her weekly earnings are to be and plan her expenses accordingly. But she defends tipping because she feels that this is the only part of her earnings over which she has control. She knows her wage rate will be low, but she may get big tips through her own efforts. The uncertainty of the amount of tips has a romantic fascination for the maid or waitress. ”

“ HOW TO START A COOPERATIVE ENTERPRISE IN NEW YORK STATE
In starting a cooperative enterprise two things must be considered: first, the kind of business to go into and, second, the method of organization. Any group desiring to engage in a cooperative venture should first of all, through a committee and by consultation with experts, determine what type of enterprise will serve them most effectively. Where competition is unusually keen and profit margins are low, cooperation is less likely to be of service than where the opposite is the case. ”

“ In the hotels in which the workers lived in, they found the dining-room service always hurried. Soup was usually spilled and too much sugar put in the coffee. In one smaller hotel in New York City where men and women ate together workers waited on themselves. All cut their bread from the same loaf, dished out meat at the steam tables, often with the help of their fingers, and poured their own milk. A late worker coming to lunch found messed-over remains of food which had been fingered by many unwashed hands of porters, laundrymen, maids and cleaners. ”

“ This was the question asked by a woman working twelve hours a day in a restaurant. What must we tell her? What excuse have we to offer for excluding her from the protection the law gives to women working in factories and mercantile establishments? That we have safeguarded women in these fields of employment from overwork proves that we know the dangers of overwork, that long hours interpreted in terms of human life mean exhaustion, disease, immorality, pauperism and a weaker generation to follow our own. ”

“ Eighty-seven per cent of all women restaurant workers are being paid less than $9.00, but when food and tips are estimated and added, the proportion receiving less than a living wage is thirty-one per cent. While it is true therefore that the majority of workers in restaurants are earning enough to support themselves, it is a matter for grave concern that so large a number of women are being forced below the lowest point at which they can maintain health and decency. ”

“ The law has declared illegal the employment of women in mercantile establishments longer than fifty-four hours or six days in any one week, on the ground that a working day of more than nine hours, or a working week of more than six days, is prejudicial to the health of the worker and therefore to the welfare of society. ”

“ Effect of long hours on efficiency The hotel which installed a relief night shift for chambermaids as an economy measure, was wise. After observing the overtired, listless maids skimp their work the day following a long night watch, one cannot but conclude that long hours of work for women are a bad business policy. The tired worker not only does poor work herself, but she demoralizes the other more alert workers on the force. ”

“ The private promoter with his selfish interests rigs up a scheme to look like cooperation, but the actual purpose is to provide a channel whereby thousands of dollars will flow from the pockets of the working people into those of the promoter. Inasmuch as New York State has a law which forbids the use of the word cooperation by any concern which is not organized under the Cooperative Law, such promoters have to be uncommonly shrewd. ”