Again, one
large department store in Manhattan pays 86 per cent. of its
saleswomen $10 or over; another pays 86 per cent. of them less.
When a representative paper-box manufacturer learned that cutters
in neighboring factories receive as little as $10 a week, he
expressed surprise, because he always pays $15 or more. This
indicates that there is no well-established standard at wages in
certain trades. The amounts are fixed by individual bargain, and
labor is 'worth' as much as the employer agrees to pay."
It has been estimated by the Commission that to raise the wages of two
thousand girls in the candy factories from $5.75 to $8.00 a week, the
confectioners in order to cover the cost will have to charge eighteen
cents more per hundred pounds of candy. It is also estimated that if
work shirts cost $3.00 a dozen, and the workers receive sixty cents
for sewing them we can raise the wages ten per cent. and make the
labor cost sixty-six cents. The price of those dozen shirts has been
raised to $3.
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