The Daily Worker

1000
BALTIMORE STORE WHERE RICH BUY FLEECES WORKERS
Hutzler Brothers Pays Misery Wage of $11

(By a Worker Correspondent.)

BALTIMORE, Md., April 27-Hutzler Brothers, an "exclusive" department store catering to the wealthiest people in Baltimore, employ a retinue of officials from the highest to the most petty, to watch the girls and report any discourteous act to the "patrons." For all this service to the "patrons" the girls' wages range from $11 to $16 a week.

So subservient are the girls kept in this store that there are some who have slaved for five years at $11 a week not daring to ask for a raise in fear of losing their jobs. Girls who have toiled for Hutzler for nine years have reached the dizzy height of $16 a week.

This concern is not without its speed-up system. To keep the girls hustling a bonus of one-half of one per cent is promised. This is paid monthly and brings the enormous reward of from $2 to $3 a month to those who have made the mark.

The hours are supposedly from nine in the morning to 5:30 in the evening. But the girls must punch time before 8:50 in the morning and very seldom leave earlier than 5:45. All this extra time is not paid for.

The working force was cut greatly immediately after Christmas, many of the "old" girls being put off as well as the "new" who were hired only over the holidays. A standing list of these former employees is kept and they are called at a moment's notice when the store has a special sale, usually for the hours of 11 a. m. to 4 p. m., the busiest hours. They receive $2 for this. The calls are sent about once a week, sometimes even less.

Bosses Are Organized.

Two weeks prior to the Christmas holidays the girls' lunch hour was cut a quarter of an hour each day and the store was open until 6 o'clock every night. There was no pay for the extra time. Christmas coming on Friday, Dec. 25th, the girls felt they had earned the extra day, Saturday. But Hutzlers belong to an employers' association of retail sellers which looks after the employers' interests. In their interest they have a law which says stores must be open on Saturdays for profit. And the store was kept open.

Tho Hutzlers believe in organization for employers, organization of employees is systematically guarded against. For instance: as a means to keep the workers separated there is a rule forbidding the girls to talk to each other about their wages.

The girls should learn a lesson from this. What couldn't they do to better their conditions if they were organized?