Working conditions

“ Accounts of living and working conditions, for example, as obtained from workmen and their families often give a better picture of the circumstances that produced the strike than do formal statements by labor leaders. ”

“ The employment of men, the fixing of their wages, hours of labor, and working conditions, the bargaining in respect of these things-whether carried on separately or collectively-each and all constitute intercourse for the purposes of production, not of trade. ”

“ The general introduction of such a plan of training would mean that the young worker would start out on his wage-earning career with an intelligent understanding of the modern world, and of his relations to his employer and to his fellow-laborers, instead of, as at present, setting forth with no knowledge of the world he is entering, and moreover, with his mind clogged with a number of utterly out-of-date ideas, as to his individual power of control over wages and working conditions. ”

“ These are facts that certain types of labour agitators or even leaders as well as special pleaders for labour, find it convenient to forget, or at least not to mention. The same is true also of the millions that are every year being paid out to make all working conditions and surroundings cheerful, healthful, safe ”

“ The same may be said in regard to other improvements in working conditions, such as ventilation, cleanliness, the provision of baths, refectories, medical aid, means of recreation; those who have taken such measures have found themselves rewarded by increased output. ”

“ The State shall protect the workers and support employment by taking social economic and financial measures for securing a decent life to workers and for ensuring that the working conditions shall improve in a stable manner ”

“ These concern employees' safety and health, working conditions for women and young people, the setting up of a minimum gross salary per economy, weekends, paid rest leave, work performed under difficult and special conditions, as well as other specific conditions, as stipulated by the law. ”

“ And it is only after this stage in the reorganization is reached, when the girls have been properly selected and on the one hand such precautions have been taken as to guard against the possibility of over-driving them, while, on the other hand, the temptation to slight their work has been removed and the most favorable working conditions have been established, that the final step should be taken which insures them what they most want, namely, high wages, and the employers what they most want, namely, the maximum output and best quality of work, -which means a low labor cost. ”

“ In the course of the interviews with employers, it became evident that there was agreement on one point—to educate the worker to realize that the house's policy in

handling its men gave added value to the sums paid out in wages.
The shiftless or unskilled man works mainly for the next pay envelope, with little or no regard for the continuity of employment, the possibility of promotion, of pension, of sick or accident benefits, of working conditions, or the like. ”

“ Such associations of labor manifest themselves in collective bargaining, in an effort to secure better working and living conditions, in providing machinery whereby grievances may easily and without prejudice to the individual be taken up with the management. ”

“ The general plan of these investigations has been a study of living conditions as they actually exist among working people, for the most part, because the animating purpose of many of these inquiries has been the desire to improve the condition of the wage earner. ”

“ Shorter hours of work, by allowing higher standards of comfort and purer family life, promise to enhance the industrial efficiency of the wage-working class — improved health, longer life, more content and greater intelligence and inventiveness. ”

“ In the second place, they decree the kind and amount of labour he shall perform and the conditions under which he shall perform it: hours of work, sanitation, comfort, safety, are all controlled by the owners. ”

“ Workmen's compensation, hours and conditions of labor are cold, consolations, if there be no employment. ”

“ Since all are obliged to work, all have the same interest in having three conditions of labor complied with. Firstly, that the work-day shall not be too long and that the work shall not require over-exertion ”

“ An air of busy occupation is observed in sewing-rooms, schools, shops, in the fields and gardens, employment contributing not only to economy in administration, but to improvement in mental and physical conditions. ”

“ The main substance of this immense problem of organising labour, and first of all of managing the working classes, will, it is very clear, have to be solved by those who stand practically in the middle of it, by those who themselves work and preside over work. ”

“ Shall I tell them of great towns in which one half at least of the juvenile population is growing up without education of any kind whatever? Shall I show that working people are often permitted to pass their labour time, the half of their lives, in mines, workshops, and manufactories, where an atmosphere of a deleterious kind prevails: and this, too, not from any invincible evil in the nature of the employment, but from a careless or penurious neglect on the part of their employers? ”

“ But the modern, more enlightened, labor movement has better ideals and policies in respect to the safety, sanitation, and decency of the working places.
Labor organizations have also secondary objects of very great importance. ”

“ There are partial remedies of the failure of employment which are fitted to give relief without endangering the future or disturbing the general conditions of employment. Occupations especially irregular, like that of the stevedore, may receive especial attention, or may be united to other forms of labor so as to secure greater uniformity. ”

“ What one's hours are to be, what amount of work is expected during those hours, what periods of relief are available, what safety practices are observed, would all seem conditions of one's employment. There are other less tangible but no less important characteristics of a person's employment which might also be deemed 'conditions'-most prominently the characteristic involved in this case, the security of one's employment. ”

“ Every attempt to 53improve labor and living conditions is a similar aid to medical science if not to the medical profession, so that any proper study of health or physical well-being must lead us on to an examination of efforts for better housing, a living wage, for social insurance, for workmen’s compensation, and the many other devices that make a decent standard of living possible. ”

“ Industrial demands included improved industrial conditions; shortened work days; a weekly rest-period of not less than a day and a half; effective inspection of factories and shops: no child labor under sixteen years of age; no interstate transportation of products of child labor; substitution of compulsory insurance against unemployment, illness, age, etc., for all official charity. ”

“ As his position began to improve, the worker gained some hope and cheer; and he and his fellows began to organize, with the result that both wages and conditions of labor were steadily improved, and the workman began to attain approximately his share of benefits. ”

“ Even some of the improvements in labor and welfare conditions have been introduced in this way, with a view to securing a more permanent and more efficient labor supply, and thereby aiding the enterprise from the commercial standpoint. ”

“ From these observations it will be clear, that to people working in factories all the year round, subject to these pernicious influences, it will be less dangerous to health to remain at work ten hours per day, than twelve or thirteen. ”

“ First, against the employer, and seeks to regulate the wages and hours in the special craft, to make special arrangements with respect to the conduct of business, sanitary conditions, lighting, method of collecting wages and a host of other matters which necessarily arise in the course of the production of commodities. ”

“ In a thoroughly "civilised" country, where the material conditions of life are highly organised, and where industry is highly specialised, so much is done for the individual by those who organise his life and [275] labour, that it ceases to be necessary for him, except within narrow limits, to shift for himself. ”

“ It is shown, by the facts and calculations of experts, that the labour of a properly assorted population, for four hours daily, will, when in full working order (say after a year) , produce all the necessaries of life in abundance. ”

“ All should have the same or similar food, should be equally well lodged, clothed and shod, but should also apply themselves equally to their business, that is to say, to work or to some other honest and useful employment, each following his or her profession, or whatever is most necessary and fitting to be done according to the time or season or the things especially needed. ”

“ Laborers, and other working people, more especially those whose occupations require them to be much in the open air, may be considered as following a regulated system of moderation; and hence the higher degree of health which prevails among them and their families. ”

“ In order to effect this the ordinary methods and rules of the best kinds of industrial work must be adopted; but, after working hours, all will be as completely free from control by the various industrial officials as the people of any prosperous and well-ordered town or village. ”

“ When I said that the workers regulated the conditions of work, I meant the workers as a whole--that is, the people at large, all of whom are nowadays workers, you know. The regulation and mutual adjustment of the conditions of the several branches of the industrial system are wholly done by the General Government. At the same time, however, the regulation of the conditions of work in any occupation is effectively, though indirectly, controlled by the workers in it through the right we all have to choose and change our occupations. ”

“ A humane spirit is entering the relationship between employer and employed. Great commercial organizations are conducting elaborate investigations into conditions of housing, sanitation, prolongation of school life, social insurance and similar subjects of betterment for the toilers; but a brief span ago they were concerned chiefly with trade extension and lowering of wages, all unconcerned about the living conditions of their dependents. ”

“ The primary considerations in the intelligent selection of a vocation relate to wages, steadiness of employment, health risks, opportunity for advancement, apprenticeship conditions, union regulations and the number of chances there are for getting into it. These things are fundamental, and any one of them may well take precedence over the matter of whether the tastes of the future wage earner run to wood, brick, stone or steel. ”

“ That they intensify the work on the spot for the creation of labor inspection by means of selection and training for this purpose of the active workers; 5. That they practically spread the validity of the safeguarding of labor regulations and their enforcement over all types of labor (in the building trades, in the transport service, over domestic servants, commercial and office workers, restaurant help, and agricultural workers) ; 6. That they pay particular attention to the conditions of labor in the small semi-handicraft establishments ”

“ I believe that much profounder changes in the conditions of labour are possible than those I have suggested. I am beginning to suspect that scarcely any of our preconceptions about the way work must be done, about the hours of work and the habits of work, will stand an exhaustive scientific analysis. It is at least conceivable that we could get much of the work that has to be done to keep our community going in far more toil-saving and life-saving ways than we follow at the present time. ”

“ The labourer needs time for satisfying his intellectual and social wants, the extent and number of which are conditioned by the general state of social advancement. The variation of the working day fluctuates, therefore, within physical and social bounds. ”

“ The general difference in character and habits of those engaged in various occupations—their comparative morality and intelligence, the effects of a decline in wages, the effects of trades-unions, are all, more or less, involved in this subject of employments; also the opinions of the working classes on machinery and its results. Employments that have for their object the health, comfort, and protection of mankind—those that produce the necessaries and the luxuries of life—those for amusement and capable of being dispensed with—are all treated of to some extent. ”

“ Although these conditions were favorable at first, owing to the simple reason that the employers had to make them favorable in order to obtain a sufficient number of workers, they soon deteriorated when the supply of available labor power increased. ”

“ The actual safeguarding of labor and the social insurance of the worker, with a view to safeguarding his life and increasing his strength and power, proved to be indissoluble aspects of the same problem—changing of conditions of labor, the reconstruction of the industrial environment in which the worker is laboring, and the betterment of his living conditions. ”

“ Industries are in an appalling condition, and the employing class stand aghast at their own handiwork. For almost a century and a-half theirs has been the task to apply the economic policy of industry. ”

“ The first point touches the difference between those employments in which severe and continuous labour for the whole working-time is required, and those in which a greater or less proportion of the time is spent by the workman in waiting for the moment to come when his intervention is required. The second point touches the inclusion or non-inclusion, in the working day, of other outside occupation, of home-work, or of non-industrial work of any kind, besides work undertaken in some one particular industrial establishment. ”