THE SWEATING SYSTEM.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXI, Issue 2519, 1 September 1888, Page 2 (Supplement)

THE SWEATING SYSTEM.

A very sad story of 'sweating' is told in the columns of the Pall Mall Gazette. Mrs Colemaii, a Newcastle woman, has been brought up at tailoring, and was forewoman at Aid. Charlton's establishment. Ho husband was an employe , of Mr Jackson, the contractor, and was engaged on the new Tower Bridge. An accident disabled him, and to earn a little money . Mrs Coleman tried what she could do amoug the 'sweaters.' She straightway had experismces of what piece work by sub-contract is. One man offered her work in finishing clothes, and at the best she could only have earned three-pence in two hours by the hardest labour. She fled from his presence and entered another establishment, where two pairs of trousers, best Inverness tweed, were handed to her to sew. She made no enquiry as to the remuneration, but as she estimated that each pair would sell at 21s to 253, and that the sub contractor would get 5s 6d for the work, she expected at least 2s. To her astonishment, on the second diy the 'sweater' offered her Is a pair ! She declined to work at this rate, and demanded payment for what she had done. The employer offered her sixpence! She refused it in scorn. One worker in the place said she could make three pairs a day by beginning at five in the morning and toiling until eleven at night. The misfortune is that much of this work is well paid for by the firms who give it out, but the small middleman, who carefully conceals where he gets his work, grinds the life out of the poor.