Even according to Gary's own testimony, before the Senate Committee, that 69,000 men are employed 12 hours a day, it would follow that the daily lives of over 350,000 men and women are affected by the 12-Hour Day. But Mr. Gary gave us a rather low estimate of 36 per cent of his employees working 12 hours a day. On the basis of a minimum of 50 per cent being subject to the 12-Hour Working Day, it would be far more accurate to say that over 500,000 men, women and children are suffering from all the iniquities and degradations inherent in this brutalizing working day.
What 12-Hour Day Means to Worker
What is the 12-Hour Day really like? What does it mean to the worker?
In his diary as a furnace worker, Lieut. Walker gives us the following picture: "It's hot—temparature, 150 or 160 when you throw your shovelful in—and lively work for back and legs. Everybody douches his face and hands with water to cool off, and sits down for 20 minutes. Making back-wall has affinities with stoking; only it's hotter while it lasts. The day is made up of jobs like these—shovelling manganese at tap-time, 'making bottom,' bringing up mud and colomite in wheelbarrows for fixing the spout—hauling fallen bricks out of the furnace.
"And none of the spells, it should be noticed, are 'your own time'! You strain for 12 hours. Nerves and will are the Company's; the whole shift—whether the muscles in your hands and feet move or are still. And the existence of the long day makes possible unrelieved labor, hard and hot, the whole turn of 14 hours, if there is need for it."
Similar pictures are given in the diaries written by American Carnegie Steel Workers. We submit the following comments extracted from these diaries by the Inter-Church Commission:
"The Carnegie steel worker works 87 hours out of 168 hours in the week. Of the remaining 81 he sleeps seven hours per day; total 49 hours. He eats in another 14; walks or travels in the street car four hours; dresses, shaves, tends furnace, undresses, etc., seven hours. His one reaction is—'What the Hell!'—the universal text accompanying the 12-hour day."
Job of the Third Helper: "The third helper fills large bags with coal to throw into the ladle at tap time; easy to burn your face off. Helps drill a 'bad' hole at tap time, work of the most exhausting kind, also must shovel dolomite into ladle of molten steel. This is the hottest job and certainly the most exposed to minor burns. Temperatures around 180 degrees, but it takes only four or five minutes. Nearly every tap-time leaves three or four burns on the neck, face, hands or legs. It is usually necessary to extinguish little fires in your clothing.
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