Speeding up is, in all probability, worse today than ever. It is
difficult to compare wages without making a close investigation in
different localities and in many trades, and testing, by a comparison
with the cost of living, the real and not merely the money value of
wages, but there is a general agreement among authorities that
wages on the whole have not kept pace with the workers' necessary
expenditures. But in one respect the worker today is much better off.
At the time we are speaking of, the facts of the wrong conditions,
the low wages, the long hours, and the many irritating tyrannies the
workers had to bear, only rarely reached the public ear. Let us thank
God for our muck-rakers. Their stories and their pictures are all the
while making people realize that there is such a thing as a common
responsibility for the wrongs of individuals.
Here is a managerial economy for you. The girls in a corset factory in
Newark, New Jersey, if not inside when the whistle stopped blowing (at
seven o'clock apparently) were locked out till half-past seven, and
then they were docked two hours for waste power.
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