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Harassment in the Factories

Rosie:

At the end of my workday, I was summoned to the boss’s office under the pretense of a fine for a botched job. He said to me, “you have spoiled the whole of the work entrusted in you today. I will point out where your mistake likes, and it you think you can remedy it well good; if not, it shall be charged to your accounts. Step this way, please.”

Once I was in his office “he touched me very fresh like, and I cried, and he said, “Lets be good friends, Rosie, and to show you how good I means it, you take supper wit me in a swell hotel, with music and flowers, see?” And I says, “So! Supper wit you—swell hotel! Well I ask my ma,” and he said, “Don’t do it. you say you going to sleep at a friend’s house” and I was trembling to I couldn’t neatly so my work, and when my ma sees me, she says, “What’s the matter Rosie?” and I says, “Nothing,” because she’s sad, my ma is, ‘cause I have to work so hard and can’t have no education.

Harriet:

I heard from one of my friends that the WTUL has publicly demanded that, “all improper language in addressing the girls or in giving orders by foremen or others in authority to be strictly prohibited.” I think that this should be one of our official union demands.

Clara Lemich

The bosses yell at the girls and call them down even worse than I imagine the Negro Slaves in the South. There are no dressing rooms for the girls in the shops….We’re human, all of us girls, and we’re young.