jpexg@mit-hermes.ARPA (John Purbrick) (09/28/84)
barbarbarbarbar(net.lang.greek?) In answer to Mark Horton's query, here is the story as far as I remember it: Back in the Depression, a law was passed aimed at eliminating sweatshops of the type where people would work 'at home' where 'home' might consist of a room filled with sewing machines with a whole family working night and day. To this end, home production of certain garments, specifically including "knitted outerware" was banned. This ban applied even to self-employed people, the rationale being that the sweatshop workers were often working for themselves, with the idea of selling their output to dealers later. It seems that this law was being violated by a fair number of women in northern New England, especially Vermont. They got away with it for years before the Dept. of Labor caught up with them a few years ago. The women replied that they weren't sweatshopping at all, that they loved knitting (the work was done on machines--a home knitting machine looks a bit like an extra-long typewriter) and that it had various advantages: There aren't many "real" jobs in northern Vermont; They could knit and look after their children at the same time; In winter they didn't have to commute miles over snowy roads; They could work as and when they wanted. At first the DoL was prepared to accept this and to flush the law, but the AFL-CIO strongly objected; the ILGWU, especially, insisted on strict enforcement, and the DoL changed its mind. (I'm hazy on just when this happened, but I think it was in the closing days of the Carter administration, when the government was anxious not to offend the unions.) The union's position struck me as self-serving--it seemed to be "These women will never be union members, so lets preserve union jobs by stopping them from working at home." But maybe the real competition is with Asian sweatshops worse than anything in America? Anyway, it's an interesting conflict between labor protection and individual freedom.