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The industry had for years burdened both its men and women workers with certain grave difficulties an unstandardized wage, the subcontracting system, competition with home work, and long seasonal hours.
But, granted for the moment that we could devise and successfully apply exact and accurate standards of measurement for human beings, our work would be only partially done. Any mechanic knows that it is a sad waste of time and pains to standardize tenons, with micrometer and emery paper, to a thousandth of an inch, so long as the mortises are left unstandardized.
One frequently hears complaint of the inefficiency and inattention of New York saleswomen and their rudeness to plainly dressed customers. While this criticism contains a certain truth, it is, of course, unreasonable to expect excellence from service frequently ill paid, often unevenly and unfairly promoted, and, except with respect to dress, quite unstandardized.
Second, even the simplest classifications, which are readily learned and easily applied by the inexpert, would yield tangible and measurable results and would be far better than the present unstandardized and wholly unscientific methods.
The present trouble with the system of future contracts is that it lends itself to manipulation, but I believe this could be eliminated. Take the case of potatoes; here is an unstandardized, seasonal commodity, with no national market and therefore no established daily price as a datum point.
That presumption arises from the fact that, unless there is evidence to the contrary, the higher range of unstandardized wages indicates what wages may be enforced throughout the occupation without causing great disturbance and unemployment. The circumstances which would govern the correctness of this presumption are many and have already been discussed.
"... Cost of living is such an unstandardized subject that a mathematically accurate determination is impossible. In each conference there are as many different opinions as there are members. In general, the employers want a wage sufficient to maintain existing standards of living in the industry, while the employees contend that the standard of living should be improved.
For there is no reason to believe that the level of the highest of the hitherto unstandardized rates is, of necessity, the one at which the most favorable balance of interests is established. In many cases there may be a presumption to that effect if the doctrine is reasonably interpreted. That is to say, if it is taken to mean the higher range of wages, rather than the highest single wage.
When the introduction of standardization into a hitherto unstandardized industry or occupation is deemed to involve the possibility of doing more injury to certain sections of the wage earners and employers affected than it promises definite good, the application of the principle should be limited or varied so as to avoid producing such injury.
These instances serve to express in the industry and lives of women cloak workers the subcontracting system, long seasonal hours, home work, and an unstandardized wage the features under discussion in the cloak making trade in the spring of 1910. The whole cloak making trade of New York presents, for an outside observer, the kaleidoscopic interest of a population not static.
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