What is “sweating”? Many people have set about describing the life of a "sweated" worker, the poverty, the exploitation, the danger, the long hours, the abuse, intimidation, insanitary conditions. But how do we define sweated labour? Quite simply it can be described as “the employment of workers for long hours, in poor conditions”, for low pay.
During the period from 1843 to 1906, sweating had been brought to the attention of politicians and the general public as a result of articles in newspapers and journals. Religious groups, such as the Christian Socialists and non-conformists, campaigned against sweating, but they were more concerned that the sweated workers might become godless and depraved, than with whether or not they earned a living wage.
The government of the time eventually carried out studies of sweated labour, but, like others before them, they blamed both women for being prepared to work for less than skilled men, and immigrants for coming to this country and taking jobs.
However, many socialists were coming to the conclusion that the root cause of sweating was the oversupply of labour and lack of trade union organisation. The election victory in 1906 of the Liberal Party saw the arrival of key figures such as Percy Alden and Leo Chiozza Money, who were sympathetic to the suffering of the sweated. Money commented that sweating, “extends throughout almost the whole of the trades and industries of the United Kingdom”.
The subsequent setting up of the Select Committee on Home-working provided an opportunity for enlightened socialists, such as Mary Macarthur, to point out that sweating was not a result of home-working or an influx of alien labour. Their explanation was that too many people were competing for the same work, and that many groups of workers, either for reasons of poverty or fear of retribution, were denied access to a trade union.
They proposed that the only solution, therefore, was to set a minimum wage, which would level the playing field for home and factory work. It would also provide workers with enough money to afford trade union membership fees, making it possible for them to take advantage of the strength of organised labour in the fight against poor conditions.
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| Reference: | 724 |
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| Updated: | Wed 23 Apr 2008 - 1 |
| Interpretation written by | Louis Howe |
| Author's organisation | Curatorial |
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