網頁圖片
PDF
ePub 版

Table 4.-HOURLY EARNINGS OF TELEPHONE WORKERS, 1954
[Employed by class A telephone carriers]

[blocks in formation]

Librarians constitute another large white-collar group; nine-tenths of them are women. In 1954, the average entrance salary of graduates of library schools was $3,650, as reported in a survey of schools made by the Special Libraries Association. It was generally $3,500 to $3,800 in public libraries, with a few offering the trained beginner as much as $4,000.

Median salaries of chief librarians in colleges and universities ranged from $8,800 in those with especially strong graduate programs to $4,200 in those with operating library budgets below $35,000, according to reports from 386 colleges in 1955. The best pay for library assistants was in teachers' colleges.

The American Library Association made a special report on the salaries of more than 13,000 professional and almost as many nonprofessional workers in all types of libraries as of 1952. (See table 5.)

Table 5.—MONTHLY SALARIES OF LIBRARY WORKERS, 1952

[blocks in formation]

1 Includes 991 library workers in other libraries not shown separately.

Source: Salaries of Library Personnel. American Library Association, 1953.

The median salary for all professional library workers was $314 a month, or $3,768 a year; for nonprofessional workers, $196 a month, or $2,352 a year.

Factory Workers

Manufacturing industries employ almost one-fourth of all women workers, and women are somewhat over one-fourth of all workers in manufacturing. Average earnings of factory workers include earnings in a great variety of occupations with wide differences in skills required, methods of payment, working time, and local wage standards and customs.

The earnings of women factory workers throughout the country are not reported regularly by any agency. The most recent such survey showed the median of women's straight-time hourly earnings as $1.28—in the spring of 1954. This would amount to $51.20 for a 40-hour workweek. The median for men was $1.80, which would be $72 for 40 hours. The survey showed that one-fifth of the women and almost three-fourths of the men earned at least $1.50 an hour; 3 percent of the women and 24 percent of the men earned $2.10 or more an hour. At the other end of the scale, 23 percent of the women and 6 percent of the men received less than $1 an hour.

This was prior to the establishment by law of $1 an hour for a 40-hour week as the minimum wage payable under the Fair Labor Standards Act (that is, payable to employees of industries engaged in interstate commerce). No general survey has been made since this minimum went into effect in the spring of 1956.

Effect on Earnings of Methods of Pay and Time Worked

If the worker is paid by the time worked, the rate of pay is established for a given period, often by the hour (time rate). The worker receives the rate per hour multiplied by hours worked. Individuals may work for different lengths of time rather than for the exact hours scheduled by the plant for a week's work. This will affect their earnings, and individuals will receive different amounts for work on the same kind of job. In fact, the earnings of the same worker at the same hourly rate may vary from week to week.

Another method frequently used for fixing the rate of pay in factory operations is the piece rate; that is, according to the number of items processed or tasks completed. In such cases, an employee's earnings may differ from day to day and even from hour to hour, since they are affected to a large extent by differences in the way in which the employer or the worker organizes the work, as well as by variations in the speed of the worker.

In some instances a special bonus is paid to individuals as an incentive to achieve a high rate of production (as on factory processes) or a large volume of sales (as in store or other sales jobs). The wage figure reported then differs according to whether it includes or omits the amounts of such bonuses.

Earnings in Particular Industries

For the country as a whole, a primary source of information on the wages of factory workers (as well as those in various other types of employment) is the Bureau of Labor Statistics in the United States Department of Labor. This agency makes special studies of numerous industries; it reports average hourly earnings in many occupations, showing separately the earnings of women in occupations performed to any notable extent by women. The reports give the averages that workers usually receive, adjusted to a straight-time basis, omitting any premium pay that may be paid for overtime or nightwork. The most recently reported hourly averages in several industries that employ considerable numbers of women are shown in table 6. The earnings given are averages for the industry, and include a wide range of occupations in many different localities. The averages also fail to show the great differences in the earnings of individual workers, especially in piece-work occupations.

Among the industries reported, those in which workers have the highest average earnings are household furniture and leather finishing. Women are a much smaller proportion of the workers in these industries than in the others listed and, with one exception, their earnings are lower than men's. On the other hand, women make up a large proportion of the workers in cigarmaking and cotton-textile industries, and their earnings here are only slightly below men's. Differences in occupations may account to a considerable extent for the differences in earnings.

Table 6.-HOURLY EARNINGS OF WOMEN AND MEN IN SELECTED MANUFACTURING INDUSTRIES, 1954 and 1955

[blocks in formation]

Source: U. S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics. Wage Structure Reports.

Women also are a large proportion of the workers in the dress-shirt and nightwear industry, where the average pay of men is 23 cents an hour above that of women; this would be over $8 in a 35-hour week. In this industry men do the cutting—a skilled occupation commanding better pay than the machine sewing and accessory jobs on which many of the women are employed. Moreover, pay by piecework is common in this industry, and this system often results in considerable variation in the pay.

Women in Power Laundries

The average hourly earnings of women in power laundries and drycleaning plants (selected occupations) were reported in 1955 by the Bureau of Labor Statistics for 29 areas throughout the country. These are straight-time earnings, omitting premium pay for overtime and nightwork. The decennial census of 1950 reported over 288,000 women employed as laundry operatives-two-thirds of the total.

Laundry and dry-cleaning occupations that usually employ considerable numbers of women and few men are: flatwork machine finisher, machine shirt presser, receiving clerk in retail outlets, and marker. Both women and men are employed as machine pressers in dry-cleaning plants. The range in earnings in selected laundry occupations is shown in table 7.

Table 7.-HOURLY EARNINGS IN POWER LAUNDRIES AND DRY-CLEANING PLANTS, 1955

[blocks in formation]

1 Includes occupations not shown in detail in this table (routemen not reported).
Data for women only; these occupations employ few men.
This occupation not reported in all of the 29 areas.

Source: U. S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The occupation in laundry production work in which women received the highest pay usually was that of shirt pressers operating machines. In 9 areas women in this occupation had average earnings of more than $1.10 an hour; in 3 areas their average was less than 60 cents.

Women receiving clerks in retail outlets almost always had average hourly earnings above those of flatwork finishers. In 12 areas their hourly averages were above those of machine shirt pressers, but in 15 areas, receiving clerks averaged less than machine shirt pressersby at least 10 cents an hour in several areas.

In 7 of 28 areas in which both men and women worked as machine pressers in dry-cleaning establishments, the average hourly earnings of men were at least 47 cents an hour above those of women. This is $3.76 more for an 8-hour day or $18.80 more for a 40-hour week.

In a few areas both men and women were employed as general spotters, an occupation requiring skill and one in which skills may vary considerably. In one area, men averaged over 50 cents more an hour than women, which would be a difference of over $4 a day, or over $20 in a 5-day week.

Selected Service Occupations

Somewhat more than one-tenth of all women workers are employed in service occupations (other than those in private households). In this group, some data have been reported on the earnings of women as practical nurses, building cleaners, elevator operators and in certain occupations characteristic of hotels.

Earnings of Practical Nurses

Over 95 percent of all practical nurses are women. The decennial census of 1950 reported more than 130,000 women in this occupation. Average monthly earnings of practical nurses in more than 2,500 hospitals throughout the country were $177 in 1955, according to reports of the American Hospital Association. However, this is not necessarily received in cash but includes an estimate for maintenance, such as room, board, or laundry when furnished. If the nurses were employed the full year, this would amount to $2,124 a year (including maintenance where provided). This was an increase of about 57 percent over 1945.

Earnings of Building Cleaners

More than 72,000 women cleaners and charwomen were reported in the decennial census of 1950. Women were 60 percent of such workers. As reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics in 1955, of nearly 25,000 women cleaners in office buildings in 24 cities in all parts of the country, over one-third earned $1.30 an hour or more, and about one-third received under $1.10. These workers would not necessarily benefit from the rise to the $1 minimum under the Fair Labor Standards Act, because they are not employed in interstate industry.

Average earnings in the various cities ranged from $1.57 to 56 cents an hour, which would yield from $62.80 to $22.40 for a 40-hour

[blocks in formation]
« 上一頁繼續 »