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For several years in the early twentieth century, wage-earning women in California had advocated an eight-hour law for women workers as an extension of labor's long-term efforts to achieve this goal through organizing workers. Women's involvement in reducing their working hours arose internally within the affiliated women's organizations of the labor movement, particularly the Women's Union Label League (WULL), and won the support of numerous middle-class women's clubs and organizations as well. Delegations of San Francisco working women testified twice before the state legislature,where their assertive presentations about harsh working conditions won them significant public support, especially when contrasted to the hardhearted stance of the opposition (primarily employers of women). Louise LaRue of the waitresses'union pointed out that "the average waitress walks ten miles a day, and the Government will not allow an army mule to walk more than thirteen miles in the same time." Workers could also be scientific in collecting data:the waitresses had used pedometers to gather this information. The women took advantage of the hearings to proudly emphasize cases in which they had reduced their hours and improved their working conditions and wages through their own unions.
In contrast to the eight-hour law for women, which passed in 1911, the women's minimum-wage measure passed in 1913 over the strident objections of the powerful California labor establishment and was thus perceived by labor as imposed by progressive reformers [social reformers associated with the Progressive movement of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century]. From labor's perspective, there were important differences between hours and wage legislation.The former established fixed standards and vested responsibility in the state labor commissioner, who was usually responsive to labor interests. The latter created a novel form of government agency. the independent commission, with the power to determine the wage standards, which it then administered. Minimum-wage legislation for women roused the opposition of many of the state's male trade unionists, who feared that it would encourage excessive government intrusion into the collective bargaining process and weaken all labor organizations. In California, organized labor originally had four major points of objection to the minimum-wage law for women: that it would create maximum-wage ceilings, increase unemployment by speeding up production and eliminating less productive workers, obviate the need for organization among women, and, most significantly, place women at the mercy of unsympathetic future administrations and excessively powerful appointed officials who were not accountable to the electorate. In theory, commissions were neutral, objective bodies. In reality, their appointments often reflected the difficulty of trying to balance labor, management, and public interests. In this context, it is not so surprising that the measure elicited a spirited reaction from working-class women, who already had their own activist traditions.
In contrast to the eight-hour law for women, which passed in 1911, the women's minimum-wage measure passed in 1913 over the strident objections of the powerful California labor establishment and was thus perceived by labor as imposed by progressive reformers [social reformers associated with the Progressive movement of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century]. From labor's perspective, there were important differences between hours and wage legislation.The former established fixed standards and vested responsibility in the state labor commissioner, who was usually responsive to labor interests. The latter created a novel form of government agency. the independent commission, with the power to determine the wage standards, which it then administered. Minimum-wage legislation for women roused the opposition of many of the state's male trade unionists, who feared that it would encourage excessive government intrusion into the collective bargaining process and weaken all labor organizations. In California, organized labor originally had four major points of objection to the minimum-wage law for women: that it would create maximum-wage ceilings, increase unemployment by speeding up production and eliminating less productive workers, obviate the need for organization among women, and, most significantly, place women at the mercy of unsympathetic future administrations and excessively powerful appointed officials who were not accountable to the electorate. In theory, commissions were neutral, objective bodies. In reality, their appointments often reflected the difficulty of trying to balance labor, management, and public interests. In this context, it is not so surprising that the measure elicited a spirited reaction from working-class women, who already had their own activist traditions.
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