RECORD OF TESTIMONY AND STATEMENTS IN RELATION TO 91 



NECESSITY FOR DISTRICTING PLAN 



for their employees. The bulk of the employees are women, and the Labor 

 Laws prescribe certain definite rest room and dressing room facilities. There 

 is practically no follow-up work for convalescents. In a very few rare 

 instances the employers contribute a share to the sick benefit funds of the 

 employees. Perhaps half a dozen concerns furnish the services of a trained 

 nurse in the shops and for visits to the homes of the operatives ; but on 

 the whole the efforts of the manufacturers along these lines are a negligible 

 quantity. In justice, however, it must be said that the Labor Unions do 

 not look favorably upon any sort of welfare work on the part of the 

 employers. The Unions themselves furnish medical attendance, hospital 

 or sanitorium treatment to their members ; they take care of their sick and 

 provide free periodical medical examinations of the workers. As far as 

 the male operatives are concerned, except perhaps in one or two instances, 

 absolutely nothing is being done by the manufacturers to provide lunch or 

 rest rooms or any kind of welfare or educational advantages. 



The Manufacturers' Association and the Unions of the garment workers 

 maintain conjunctively and on equal terms the Joint Board of Sanitary 

 Control, an organization which looks after sanitary conditions in the shops 

 and has done a great deal toward raising the standard of hygiene, ventila- 

 tion and lighting of the garment factories. 



No data has been prepared so far as I know to show the relationship 

 between fires in the factories and the congestion of factory workers in such 

 buildings, but it is possible that the greater the congestion, the more danger 

 there is from illicit smoking. No time studies have been made to show 

 how long it would take to get operatives out of tall factory loft buildings 

 in case of fire or panic. 



The prevailing opinion of fire chiefs and other fire experts is that in 

 order to prevent loss of life a building should be emptied in a maximum 

 interval from between three to five minutes from the discovery of the blaze. 

 Garment factories are filled with highly inflammable and dense smoke- 

 producing materials. According to Dr. Price's experience it would need 

 from five to ten minutes to empty a 12-story building where there are at 

 least two or three exits — a condition which is rather the exception, as the 

 majority of buildings are not provided with three exits. It is, therefore, 

 probable that in case of fire or panic the danger to the garment operatives 

 would be very great. 



In the more modern buildings provided with increased elevator facili- 

 ties, and where the factory employees are permitted to ride on the pas- 

 senger elevators at the end of the working day, and where special employees' 

 elevators and freight elevators are also engaged in the transportation of 

 employees from the working floors, the whole building is emptied in between 

 10 and 20 minutes, depending upon the height of the building and the 

 number of people employed therein. 



In the older buildings, however, the elevator installation is woefully 

 inadequate. A large percentage of the employees are compelled to walk 

 down the stairs, and 25 to 35 minutes usually elapse before the last employee 

 reaches the street. 



In factory buildings erected within the last three years, however, it is 

 the exception that anyone walks down from the fourth or fifth floor, but 

 in the older buildings people come down by way of the stairs even from 

 the tenth floor. The average height from which people walk down is about 

 six stories. The time it takes to get all the operatives out of a building: by 

 means of the elevators alone depends entirely upon the type of building. 



