description of processes and occupations in the industry was compiled from various sources, and the agents were instructed to note and define any new occupations met with.

In collecting the wages and hours statistics the practice of using one schedule for an entire mill was followed, and since several of the mills visited manufactured more than one product, it was often very difficult to distinguish between the employees working upon one product and those working upon another. It was therefore deemed advisable to exclude from this report all productive employees who were not engaged in manufacturing paper,1 which will account in part for the difference in the number of employees in the industry as shown in this report (13,871) and the average number employed in October, 1912 (14,330) as shown in our Annual Report on the Statistics of Manufactures for 1912, since the latter report gives the total number employed in the paper mills, regardless of whether they are engaged in occupations connected with paper and wood pulp or some other product.

It was not deemed advisable in presenting the statistics relative to wages and bours of labor to classify employees according to the class of product in which they were engaged. In many cases, however, the wages in a given occupation are not materially affected by the character of the product.

In the paper mills there were found to be over 100 different occupations. The number of employees in many of these occupations was, however, small, and there was found to be considerable variation in occupations in the different mills, even in cases where the same product was manufactured. The occupations for which data bave been tabulated have been selected as representative of the industry.

3. DAY, SHIFT, AND PIECE-WORKERS.

Employees in paper mills may conveniently be divided into two general groups: Shift-workers and day-workers. Among the shift-workers are included those operatives employed on or about the machinery of the paper mill which must be kept in continuous operation in order to secure the greatest possible economy of production. The machine crew, beatermen, engineers, firemen, and men in occupations of a similar nature work in most mills by the shift. The day-workers are those engaged in work which does not have to be carried on continuously and includes both time and piece-workers. In general, employees in this group do their work, as the designation indicates, in the daytime. The group embraces in most

1 See note 1 on page 7; 35 were engaged in the production of paper boxes, 48 were paper coaters, etc.

instances the workers in the finishing department and employees engaged in keeping the plant in a state of repair, such as carpenters, machinists, millwrights, etc.

There is considerable variation in the hours of labor in the different localities and in the different mills. The shift-men work either three shifts a day or two shifts a day. In the case of the three-shift men the shifts are eight hours long, while most of the two-shift men work 11 hours on the day-shift and 13 hours on the night-shift. In all except one of the mills the shifts are changed at regular intervals, so that two-shift employees working at night 13 hours one week, work 11 hours in the daytime the following week, and three-shift employees report for work at a different hour for three successive weeks. For day employees the working day usually consists of either nine or 10 hours.

In general the day employees work 10 hours in mills in which the shift-workers are divided into two shifts and nine hours where the threeshift system is in force.

The following table shows the relative importance of the various classes of employees.

TABLE 1. Number of Time-workers, Shift-workers, and Piece-workers in Productive, General, and Power, Mechanical, and Yard Occupations, Classified by Sex.

Over one-half (56.0 per cent) of the 13,871 employees included in the returns were time-workers; over one-fourth (29.4 per cent) were tour or shift-workers; and 14.6 per cent were piece-workers. Nearly four-fifths

(79.6 per cent) of the paper-mill employees were engaged in productive occupations, as were 70.4 per cent of the male employees and 98.5 per cent of the female employees. The day-workers constituted 70.6 per cent of the total labor force, and the shift-workers, 29.4 per cent. Over onehalf (56.2 per cent) of the male employees were day-workers and 43.8 per cent were shift-workers. Less than one-third (30.7 per cent) of the shiftworkers worked on the two-shift system. No females were employed as shift-workers. The proportion of two and three-shift workers in the productive and non-productive occupations was nearly the same. The dayworkers include both time-workers and piece-workers, the time-workers constituting 79.3 per cent of the day-workers and 56.0 per cent of all the employees, and the piece-workers constituting 20.7 per cent of the dayworkers and 14.6 per cent of all the workers. The proportion of pieceworkers was very much greater among women than among men. Over 98.0 per cent of the male day-workers were time-workers, while, of the female employees, 57.7 per cent were time-workers and 42.3 per cent were piece-workers. Practically all (98.0 per cent) of the piece-workers of both sexes were engaged in productive occupations.

1 A supplementary inquiry made in March, 1914, showed that between October, 1912, and March, 1914, six mills employing 183 two-shift workers, changed from the two-shift to the three-shift system, so that in March, 1914, the percentage of shift-workers working two shifts was 25.7.

III.

EARNINGS OF EMPLOYEES AS SHOWN BY THE PAY-ROLLS.

1. INTRODUCTORY.

The statistics of earnings are presented in this report on the hourly and weekly bases. Hourly earnings render comparisons to be more readily made because of the definite time basis, while weekly earnings show the effect of working hours on earnings.

The wage data were secured for all of the wage-earners in every paper and wood-pulp mill in Massachusetts for the pay-roll week ending nearest the first of October, 19121, although the figures for employees who were engaged in office work, in coating paper, in making paper boxes, etc., and Sunday or one-day watchmen have been omitted from the statistics. The result is that the wage data here tabulated are for 13,871 employees, of whom 66.7 per cent were males 16 years of age and over, 0.5 per cent were males under 16 years, 32.2 per cent were females 16 years of age and over, and 0.6 per cent were females under 16 years.

In obtaining the wage data, the agents were instructed to secure actual earnings. In addition they were required to transcribe the hours worked. Naturally, a careful record of "hours worked" was kept for all timeworkers, but in the case of employees paid by the piece, many firms kept no records of hours. Where such records were kept, they would seem to be less accurate in many cases than those of time-workers, since, as the wages of piece-workers are not calculated from a time record, less care is taken by the clerk in charge to make it accurate. Therefore, there are tabulated here the weekly earnings of 13,871 wage-earners, while the hourly earnings and the weekly earnings, where shown in connection with "hours worked", are tabulated for 12,843 employees, the difference, 1,028, representing the number of workers for whom no records of hours worked were kept at the mills.

1 If such pay-roll week was affected by a shutdown, fire, strike, or other exceptional circumstance, the nearest week of a normal character was substituted.

2. WEEKLY EARNINGS.

The differences in earnings in some of the mills were to some extent due to differences in the hours actually worked in the representative week for which the pay-roll figures were taken. Due consideration should therefore be given to the average hours actually worked in making comparisons of earnings. These facts as to hours worked may be well seen if presented in tabular form, and in the table which follows there are given, for each of the various classes of employees for whom weekly hours of labor were ascertained, the average customary working time and the average hours actually worked in the representative week covered by this investigation.

TABLE 2. Average Customary Working Time and Average Hours Actually Worked in a Representative Week.

1 The term "customary working time" and "customary hours" as used in this report mean the regular fulltime hours, while the term "actual hours" means the number of hours actually worked in the representative week for which pay-rolls were obtained in this inquiry.

A. CLASSIFIED WEEKLY EARNINGS: BY SEX.

In order to show the actual earnings in a representative week of the whole number of employees, regardless of occupation and age, Table 3 was prepared presenting the employees according to the amounts earned in a particular week. The employees are arranged in the table by sex, regardless of age, and for each wage class the average hours worked in a representative week are shown. Such a table, of course, shows nothing in regard to the actual hourly earnings of the individual employees, but it enables one to see the distribution according to weekly earnings of all the employees by sex. The value of such figures depends upon the representative character of the material and in having large numbers of employees. The employees falling in any of the lower wage groups are not only those