Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 6.djvu/637

 SOME PHASES OF SWEATING SYSTEM IN CHICAGO 623

and 53, or ly 4 ^ per cent., were filthy. In 1898, out of the 2,940 shops only 20^ per cent, were in tenements, only 5 per cent, were in basements, and 153, or 5^ per cent., were in living-rooms used as shops. In 1899 only 20 home-shops were found, and prosecutions were instituted against 1 1 of these.

The law as it stands has been bravely enforced, but it does not guard against all abuses. There were about 197 cases where members of a family were working, without outside help, in their own living-rooms, and I ,o 1 1 cases where a single person was work- ing alone. 1 Over these cases our inspectors have no jurisdiction unless the goods are infected. A similar study might be made of the New York reports. Reference to the table just given will show that in New York state there are three or four times as many garment makers as in Chicago, and in New York city two or three times as many. In New York, too, 14.8 per cent, of all the workers whose shops are inspected by the factory inspectors are in the clothing trades, while in Illinois only 7.3 percent, are so engaged.

One of the most interesting conflicts between capital and labor in current history was the strike of the journeymen tailors and the lockout on February 15, 1900. There were 700 men in the union, and thirty-five or forty merchant tailors for whom they worked. The men made certain requests of their employers, most important of which was the plea for free back-shops in or near the same building as that occupied by the merchant tailors. The men knew that in the back-shops overtime and night work could not so easily be demanded of them. The merchant tailors were loth to grant this request, partly from self-interest, partly because many of them had leases on their present quarters which had still two or three years to run, partly because they could with difficulty find buildings near them suitable for back- shops. After two months had passed with various attempts to come to an agreement, the following contract was signed on April 1 6, by the Journeymen Tailors' Union and by the Tailors' and Drapers' Exchange :

1 Statement of a deputy inspector, from the Report of 1899.