Something, then, must be said about these circumstances--this widespread
precariousness in work, against which no amount of thrift or
industriousness or foresight can adequately provide. Where industry acts
the part of the grasshopper in the fable, it is clearly quite hopeless
for workers to attempt to attain the history of the ant. Among the
factory workers, the waist makers' admirable efforts for juster wages
were, as far as yearly income was concerned, largely ineffectual, on
account of this obstacle of slack and dull seasons, whose occurrence
employers are as powerless as employees to forestall.
These chronicles, showing the effect of seasonal work on the fortunes of
some self-supporting operatives and hand workers in New York factories
and workshops, concern only one corner of American industry, in which, as
every observer must realize, there are many other enormous fields of
seasonal work. These histories are nevertheless clear and authentic
instances of a strange and widespread social waste. Neither trade
organization nor State legislation for shorter hours is primarily
directed toward a more general regular and foresighted distribution of
work among all seasonal trades and all seasonal workers.
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