5.  Seats adjusted to the machines are provided for at the

a.  Collar ironer feeder. b.  Collar ironer catcher. c.  Collar dampener feeder. d.  Collar dampener catcher. e.  Collar straightener. f.  Collar starcher feeder. g.  Collar starcher catcher. h.  Handkerchief flat-work feeder and catcher. i.  Folders on small work. j.  Collar shaper. k.  Collar seam-dampener. l.  Straight collar shaper.

    6.  The ordinances of the city and laws of the State are obeyed in
  all particulars.

    Wages

    1.  Equal pay is given for equal work irrespective of sex, and no
  woman who is eighteen years of age or over and who has had one
  year’s experience receives less than $6 a week.  This standard
  includes piece-workers.

    Hours

    1.  The normal working week does not exceed 54 hours, and on no day
  shall work continue after 9 P.M.

    2.  When work is continued after 7 P.M. 20 minutes is allowed for
  supper and supper money is given.

    3.  Half holidays in each week during two summer months.

    4.  A vacation of not less than one week with pay is given during
  the summer season.

    5.  All overtime work, beyond the 54 hours a week standard, is paid
  for.

    6.  Wages paid and premises closed on the six legal holidays, viz: 
  Thanksgiving Day, Christmas and New Year’s Day, the Fourth of July,
  Decoration Day and Labor Day.

The Laundrymen’s Association of New York State appeared with the Consumers’ League at Albany at the last legislative session, and repeatedly sent counsel to the capitol in support of a bill defining as a factory any place where laundry work is done by mechanical power.  The association’s support was able and determined.  The bill has now passed both houses.

Such responsible action as this on the part of the commercial laundry employers of the State of New York, Brooklyn, and Manhattan is in striking contrast with the stand taken by the Oregon commercial laundry employers in the matter of laundry employees’ legal hours of industry.

VI

The constitutionality of the present New York law concerning the hours of labor of adult women in factories, laundries, and mechanical establishments was virtually determined by the Federal decision in regard to the Oregon Ten-Hour Day Law for working-women.

About three years ago the State of Oregon enacted a law of practically the same bearing as the New York law on the same subject, though superior in that it limited the hours of labor of adult women in mechanical establishments, factories, and laundries to ten hours during the twenty-four hours of any one day, where the New York law, of the same provision in other respects, limits the hours of labor of adult women to sixty in a week.

The laundries and the State of Oregon agreed to carry a test case to the Federal Supreme Court to determine the new law’s constitutionality.