The working class still needs to find its own voice and create organizations suited for its struggle. Not much has changed from the larger picture presented one hundred years ago by Vera Buch, here a leading organizer of textile workers.

‘Why the Working Woman Needs a Labor Party’ by Vera Buch from Daily Worker. Vol. 5 No. 19. January 24, 1928.

The position of the American working woman today is a particularly bad one. The bosses are using her labor power to lower wages for the whole working class. The speed-up, the long hours, the general wear and tear of modern industry are hitting her harder than the man worker.

The woman worker is struggling, too, with the problem of keeping house and bringing up children without enough money and in a wretched environment. In a hundred ways in which she is oppressed, the working woman can find in a Labor Party some help for her difficulties.

Woman’s Minimum Wage Law.

Perhaps the first need of the working woman is for a minimum wage law. The low wages paid to women workers in some lines are almost unbelievable. The studies of the U.S. Women’s Bureau bring to light such remarkable facts as these: In Ohio, of 30,735 women studied, half earned less than $13.80 a week. In Mississippi, out of 2,853 working women, half the white women earned less than $8.60 a week and half the Negro women less than $5.75. In Oklahoma, of 4,135 women workers, half the white women earned less than $13.00 and half the colored women less than $8.20.

Low Wages for Women, Lower Standard for Men.

Low wages are not merely the concern of the women who receive them. In certain industries women are being hired in recent years for half the wages of men, for the same work.

Thus we see in New York City that women in the stone, clay and glass products industry are receiving an average of $16.24 a week, and men $44.02. In wood manufacturing, women are getting $17.02 and men $35.70. In chemicals, oils and paints, women’s wages are $16.64 and men’s $30.55. And so on down the line. It is plain that there is a tendency, at least in certain trades, for women to replace men at a lower wage. Thus the standard of pay for the whole industry is threatened.

Courts Kill Minimum Wage Laws.

In the face of these facts, do we see anything being done to protect women’s wages? Do we see minimum wage laws being enacted, under the guidance of the republican and democratic parties? On the contrary, within recent years, court decisions are more and more wiping out such minimum wage laws as did exist for the protection of women and child workers. Such laws exist now in only eleven States, and even there they are not the best kind of laws.

Women’s Working Hours Long.

In the matters of hours of labor, there is again the same lack of protection for women workers. The states of New Jersey, Maryland and South Carolina have a legal working day of ten hours for women, while in Alabama and Iowa there is no limit, to the hours which a woman may legally be made to work.

Women Workers Do Two Jobs.

When we consider the hours that women work at their job, it must be kept in mind always that many thousands of working women—in fact, a quarter of all of them—are married women and are keeping up a home. The factory job is not the only job for these married women workers. Several hours of housework await them when the day in the mill is over.

Health of Woman Worker.

We must, keep in mind, too, that women are mothers or potential mothers, and that anything which injures their health is threatening the health of their children also. Long hours, speed-up—these conditions oppress men workers, too, but are far more serious for women.

The poisons in industry, and the diseases resulting from them, are increasing daily. These too have a more serious effect upon women. Women are more susceptible to poisoning than men, they become poisoned more easily and suffer worse effects. Their child-bearing function is affected. Women suffering from lead poisoning, for instance, become sterile or subject to miscarriages.

Middle Class vs. Working Women.

All the conditions of working women point to their need of special protection under the law. And yet we have the National Women’s Party, that group of middle class ladies of leisure, propagandizing the country to the effect that women must have “equality,” they must be treated just the same as men under the law, there must be no restrictions placed upon their jobs. In other words, women should be delivered over helpless to the employer, to be worked ten and twelve hours a day, paid half the wages of men, speeded up so that they drop with exhaustion. Let these middle class ladies go to work at the jobs they talk so much about, and they will sing a very different tune about the “equality” of working women.

“Home” Life of Women Worker.

In her life outside of the factory more difficulties and troubles surround the working woman, and here too she suffers more keenly than the men. It falls upon the woman, even if she is a worker, to keep together that miserable farce which the working man’s home usually is. In most big cities, and in small industrial towns too, the workers live in wretched houses. Bare, uncomfortable shacks or black dens called “apartments” at high rents are the workers’ so-called homes.

Cities Should Build Workers’ Homes.

In some cities, as in New York, the housing question comes perennially before the workers, and perennially, like the flowers of spring, bloom the rosy promises of the old party politicians. But is the housing improved? On the contrary, it grows worse and worse as time goes on.

Municipal housing, houses built by the city and rented at low rates, is the only solution for this evil. Certainly no republican or democratic candidates ever advocated this. The traffic accidents of the city streets, the mowing down of the workers’ children by automobiles, are another painful consideration to the working mother whose children must run loose while she slaves at her job. More city playgrounds for children, nurseries maintained by the city government for the young children of working mothers, better regulation of traffic, of these things the working mother dreams.

What Woman Worker Must Demand.

The needs of the working woman can find place only in the platform of a party of the working class. Minimum wage laws, limitation of hours, prohibition of night work, protection against poisons, better homes through municipal housing, city playgrounds for children and city nurseries for the babies of working women, these demands are all among the demands of the Labor Party.

The intelligent working woman who is looking for relief from the almost overwhelming difficulties of her life, should earnestly support any campaign in her city or state to establish a labor party.

It is at least a step in the right direction.

The Daily Worker began in 1924 and was published in New York City by the Communist Party US and its predecessor organizations. Among the most long-lasting and important left publications in US history, it had a circulation of 35,000 at its peak. The Daily Worker came from The Ohio Socialist, published by the Left Wing-dominated Socialist Party of Ohio in Cleveland from 1917 to November 1919, when it became became The Toiler, paper of the Communist Labor Party. In December 1921 the above-ground Workers Party of America merged the Toiler with the paper Workers Council to found The Worker, which became The Daily Worker beginning January 13, 1924.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1928/1928-ny/v05-n019-NY-jan-24-1928-DW-LOC.pdf