urs a day for wages of $1.56 a week.” They were used for hard long work and paid very little for the same reason that the workers had little to no other options. The employers also neglected to maintain anywhere near safe conditions for women in particular. Many were prone to catching disease from the unsanitary conditions of their work. “Lung disease and pneumonia-consumption- are the constant, never-absent scourge of the mill village”(Meltzer 21). The conditions of the working men were very similar. They were abused especially through their unfair wages and payments. The wages were not just low by today’s standards but even in the Gilded Age the $3-$7 dollars a week was not enough to support a families food let alone clothing, shelter, or entertainment. For this reason, having children and women working 16 hours a day was necessary to survive for the working class. Another technique used by the employers specifically in the meat packing plants was how workers weren’t paid for partial hours. If a worker were to start one minute late and work 59 minutes, they were not paid for that hour. They were also usually started early but still not paid for that hour or any overtime. “One of the rules on the killing beds was that a man who was one minute late was docked an hour, and this was economical, for he was made to work the balance of the hour”(Sinclair 91). In the meat-packing plants, not only the wages and hours were poor, but the conditions of the work were both hurendously uncomfortable but also very dangerous. “The cruelest thing of all was that nearly all of them-all of those who used knives-were unable to wear gloves, and their arms would be white with frost and their hands would grow numb, and then of course there would be accidents. Also the air would be full of steam, from the hot water and the hot blood, so that you could not see five feet before you; and then, with men rushing abou...
