Payment and Hours
In the Article "Working Conditions" by Ankur Poddar it tells us how much males, females, and children make per hour and how many hours they work. The working conditions in the Industrial Revolution were awful. As new factories were being built, more workers were needed. At this time everyone needed a job to survive so employers could pay them as little as they wanted because they knew the workers would still show up to work to make a living. Most workers were unskilled and got paid as little as 10 cents an hour! "People worked fourteen to sixteen hours a day for six days a week." which made them about 8-10 dollars a week. Workers with more experience got paid a tiny bit more, but not by much at all. And women got paid one-third the payment men made, and children got even less then women did. "Children were paid less than 10 cents an hour for fourteen hour days of work. They were used for simpler, unskilled jobs. Many children had physical deformities because of the lack of exercise and sunlight. The use of children as labor for such long hours with little pay led to the formation of labor unions." Labor Unions were formed because people got sick of children working for the high amount of hours for such little payment, and it put children's life's in danger. Labor Unions put together protests, but more Americans began to flood in once new jobs opened up. " These workers were willing to work, even if others were not because of unfair treatment. This lessened the effect of the labor unions since businesses had no shortage of workers" And this is why most Labor Unions were not successful because once people left to protest, new job openings would show up and people fled in to work.
working_conditions.docx |
Child Labor
In the Article "Child Labor in Factories" tells us how the children were treated, how it changed, and how many hours they could work. Children in the Industrial Revolution could work up to 19 hours a day, with a total of a one hour break. The children worked in horrible conditions, they were constantly working on or near big, large, heavy equipment or machines. The only sunlight you could see was from windows, if there was even any. Most children walked out covered in dust or black substances on their clothes and face. "Many accidents occurred injuring or killing children on the job" and sometimes the factories got away with paying NOTHING! Orphans were the ones who were subject to the hard work, and most of the time weren't even paid because the factory owners said they help "feed them and pay for their clothes" so this was them paying them back for it. "The people who the children served would beat them, verbally abuse them, and take no consideration for their safety. Both boys and girls who worked in factories were subject to beatings and other harsh forms of pain infliction." A punishment boys are girls had if they were late to work is they would be "weighed" which was a older mine worker would but a weighed bag around the child's neck and they were forced to walk in between the aisles so other children would "take as an example". And this punishment could last up to an hour. "The first step to improving conditions was in 1833 with the Factory Act passed by Parliament. This limited the amount of hours children of certain ages could work. Specifically, children 9 to 13 years of age were only allowed to work 8 hours a day. Those 14 to 18 years of age could not work more than 12 hours a day. Children under 9 were not allowed to work at all."
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childlaborinfactories.docx |