Economic Issues: Work Conditions in the 1930’s

American Political Issues

Part 3

The Depression was a time of social unrest with the look of poverty stamped on the faces of so many people struggling to survive. American political issues were simply not concerned with work conditions in the 1930s. Some people were forced to buy jobs, at say, $10 from which they would earn $13.50, an actual profit of only $3.50. Some couldn’t send their children to school because they didn’t have clothes for them. In some labor camps shaving was a luxury because water cost so much. Many people were totally unemployed. Of those still working, most had their jobs cut to two or three days a week and the economic issues in Congress did little to help.

Agriculture was one enterprise that was hit particularly hard. The plight of farmers was terrible. They suffered blow after blow of drought, dust, deprivation, and foreclosure that sent ripples of devastation out from their own personal catastrophes into the American towns and cities. Many left their family farms and headed west with nothing but an undaunted spirit, while many held on. One farmer had to plant five crops before getting anything in return. These tough souls lived on what they could grow in the family garden.

A miner, one of the most dangerous jobs, might earn $723 a year, a public school teacher, $1227, a doctor, $3382, and a department store model, $936. The highest paid job was a U.S. Congressman at $8663 for a year. Go figure. American political issues at work; see about Congress first. A steelworker, one of the lowest paid jobs might earn approximately $369 a year of part time work, on which he had to support, on average, six people. Agricultural wages were among the worst of all occupations and such a worker might get only $25 to $30 to for a month’s work — $300 a year. Such workers were forced to live in the most horrific circumstances, often on the move, frequently walking because there was no other way to travel, and when getting to a place where they had heard there was work, being turned away, often with violence and bloodshed. In one work camp in California, fifty children died in a month’s time. Fifty children! Unimaginable in today’s world. American political issues of the day did not address these problems.

Safety conditions were as bad as the wages. Carbon Monoxide poisoning, “hot mill cramps” from working in suffocatingly hot temperatures, and pneumonia took hundreds of lives yearly. Equipment was out of date, safety devices missing, and breakdowns caused accidents that in normal times would not have happened. In the steel industry alone in a year’s time there were 22,845 accidents, of which 242 men were killed and 1193 were permanently disabled. Each of these shocking statistics left behind the faces of human misery, suffering, and torment.

These were the years when labor unions grew strong and strikes became common as workers tried desperately to gain better working conditions. A number of laborers actually worked at gunpoint. This was the only way owners could keep order during the workday. Strikes were usually bloody affairs. In 1935, a man might get beaten up or killed if he even mentioned unions. Companies hired strikebreakers armed with machine guns, nightsticks, and tear gas. The Pinkerton National Detective Agency earned $1,750,000 for its services to the auto industry between 1933 and 1936 as big-time goons hired to break up strikes. Imagine — one and three-fourths million dollars off the backs of hardworking, honest Americans who couldn’t make it on the wages paid. And we think we have it hard today!

But gradually, due to American political issues being emphasized, working conditions and wages improved so that today we have minimum wages, OSHA, and civil rights laws, not to mention, Workman’s Comp, Social Security, and Unemployment to help. We have come a long ways since the work conditions of the 1930s and economic issues have greatly improved, even in today’s economic downturn. We have it good compared to the 1930s.

*For more about life in the 1930’s, read The Bjorngard Trilogy, by Carolyn J. Fosdick:
The Other Son, Ripples in the Water, and I Ride a Wild Horse