hubert howe bancroft - Central Pacific Railroad Photographic History ...

850 CHINESE, THE LABOR AGITATION, AND POLITICS.
eight-hour rule. A free labor exchange was established
in San Francisco in 1868. The legislature also
passed an act making eight hours a legal day's work,"
the demand being made not only to secure leisure for
so-called improvement, physical and mental, but ia
order to give employment to a greater number of
persons. It would have seemed reasonable that with
fair pay " and reduced labor the workingmen should
have been satisfied to adapt themselves to the existing
condition of affairs. But the discontent continued
to grow ; there were occasional strikes, and also
occasional new enterprises undertaken with encour-
16 Among the occupations enumerated, the employe* being sometimes fonnd
in board, amalgamators received $100 per month, apprentices $25 to $28,
apothecaries $10, bakers $30 to $40, barbers $00 to $100, bar-tenders $30 to
£15, bed-makers $30 to $35, blacksmiths $50 to $100, boiler-makers $35 to $60,
book-keepers $35 to $100, boot-makers $35 to $75, bottlers $35 to $40, brewers
$50, bridge-builder* $75, brick-makers $35 to $60, butchers $35 to $60, buttermakers
$.10 to $10, charcoal-burners $35, cheese-makers $30 to $40, clerks
$10 to $100, coachmen $30 to $.>0, coat passers $30, confectioners $40 to $60,
cooks $35 to $80, dairymen $30 to $35, deck hands $10, dishwashers $20 to
$30, druggists $60, dyers $10 to $50, engineers $60 to $125, farm-hands $26
to §16, filers $45 to $50, firemen $50 to $00, flour packers $30, fruit-peddlers
$30 to $35, fruit-packers $25 to $30, gardeners $30 to $40, general helpers $20
to $70, gilders $50, glue-maker3 $35 to $50, grave-diggers $50, grooms $30 to
$15, harness-makers $10 to $75, herders $25, hop-growers $30, housekeepers
$30, interpreters $30, laborers $25 to $50, laundrymen $30 to $40, local reporters
$50, lumbermen $35 to $70, man and wife $50 to $30, mattress-makers
$50 to $70, milkers $30 to $40, miners $40 to $60, nurses $25 to $85, oxdrivers
$35 to $45, pantrymen $35, ploughmen $30, porters $30 to $40,
potato-diggers $30 to $35, printers $60. Day wages were in proportion, and
monthly wages where the laborer was boarded his wages of course were
le*3. Quartz miners received $40 to $150 per month, quarrymen $40 to $50,
salesmen $35 to $50, sawyers $40 to $90, shepherds $25 to $30, shoemakers
$35 to $15 and by the piece, smelters $60 to $150 and found, stewards $30 to
$40, stove men $30 to $35, sugar packers $80, street sweepers $35, tanners
$'J5 to $15, teamstera $30 to $6o, track-layers $2 per day and found, tnmkmakers
$2.50 and found, undertakers $80, wagon-makers $50 to $80, or $3 to
$5 per day, waiters $20 to $40 per month, warehousemen $60 to $70, watchmen
$50 to $75, wheelwrights $60 to $80, woodchopper? $40 to $60. Workmen
paid by the day received more: blacksmiths from $2 to $4, boiler-makers
$3 to $4, brick-layers $5 to $6, cabinet-makers $3 to $4.50, carpenters $3 to
$4, ship carpenters $3 to $5, carriaee-makers and painters, $3 to $4, carriagetrimmers
$3 to $1.50, gun-smiths $3 to $5, hod-carriers $2.50, iron-moulders
$3.50 to $4, machinists $3.50 to $4.50, marble-cutters $4, masons $4 to $5,
tin-roofers $4, tinsmiths $3 to $4, upholsterers $3 to $4, whitewashes $3, etc
# l7 The printer's strike which occurred in 1880 was in the nature of a conspiracy
against employers. It was kept a profound secret until within seven
hours of the consummation. Even prominent members of the printers' union
were kept in ignorance of the movement until the last moment, when they
were given the alternative of breaking faith either with their employers or
the union. While complaining of the hardship and injustice of being thus
compelled to stop earning wages without notice, they adhered to the union.