Sweating System. This subject was first brought prominently before the public in 1847-48 by the Morning Chronicle newspaper, and subsequently by a pamphlet (Cheap Clothes and Nasty) and a novel (Alton Locke), both from the pen of Charles Kingsley. It was shown that some of the journeymen tailors, instead of doing the work on the premises of their masters, had commenced the practice of taking the garments to their own houses, where they called in the assistance of their families and of other persons. This system was called 'the Sweating (i.e. over-working) System,' because the persons employed under it worked harder than the public opinion of the men in the tailoring trade considered reasonable; just as an unconscionably industrious schoolboy is reproached by his fellows for 'swatting.' The term, 'the sweating system,' soon began to be applied to more or less analogous practices in other trades, and generally to all practices objected to by the workers. 'Sweating' is now used to denote unfair treatment of any kind, without reference to any particular system of employment. But the sweating system is still chiefly applied to cases in which work is sub-contracted—i.e. in which a principal employer, instead of having the work done by men in his own employment, hands it over to a 'middleman,' who gets it done with the assistance of persons engaged by him for the purpose. In some cases the sub-contractor and his employees work on the premises of the principal employer, this type of middleman being usually called a 'piece-master.' But, as a rule, when the sweating system is spoken of reference is made to the 'sweating-master' or 'garret-master,' who employs his workpeople in his own 'sweating-den.' In February 1888 a select committee of the House of Lords was appointed to examine into the sweating system in East London, the reference being afterwards extended to cover the United Kingdom. The industries investigated included the tailoring trade, shirt-making, mantle-making, furriery, boot-making, cabinet-making and upholstery, chain and nail making, the cutlery and hardware trades, and also dock labour and government contracts. The final Report of this committee, published in April 1890, states that 'the earnings of the lowest class of workers are barely sufficient to sustain existence. The hours of labour are such as to make the lives of the workers periods of almost ceaseless toil, hard and often unhealthy. The sanitary conditions under which the work is conducted are not only injurious to the health of the persons employed, but are dangerous to the public, especially in the case of the trades concerned in making clothes, as infectious diseases are spread by the sale of garments made in rooms inhabited by persons suffering from smallpox and other diseases. . . . As a rule, however, it must be remembered that the observations made in respect to sweating apply, in the main, to unskilled or only partially skilled workers, as the thoroughly skilled workers can almost always obtain adequate wages.' While blaming employers as 'regardless of the moral obligations which attach to capital when they take contracts to supply articles and know nothing of the condition of the workers by whom such articles are made, leaving to a sub-contractor the duty of selecting the workers,' the committee declare that 'the middleman is the consequence, not the cause of the evil; the instrument, not the hand which gives motion to the instrument, which does the mischief. Moreover, the middleman is found to be absent in many cases in which the evils complained of abound.'
On the other hand, the middleman or sub-contractor is certainly present in very numerous instances in which the evils of sweating are absent. Thus, in the cotton trade, the 'minders' employ their own 'piecers;' in the iron trade a great number of operations are entrusted to sub-contractors ('puddlers' employing their own 'underhands,' 'hammermen' employing their own assistants, &c.); sub-contract is widely prevalent in mines and quarries, in the ship-building and in numerous other industries, but is in these cases unaccompanied by serious oppression of the workers, and is not called the sweating system. The sub-contractor usually himself performs a part, generally the most difficult part, of the work, and in all cases renders useful services by organising and directing the labour of his subordinates; while the remuneration which he receives is, as a rule, by no means out of proportion to the importance of the duties which he fulfils. But, since the amount of his remuneration depends directly upon his getting his employees to do a maximum of work for a minimum of pay, the sub-contractor, especially if his workpeople are deficient in skill or incompetent to combine against oppression, tends to become a greedy and exacting task-master.
Before the final Report of the Lords' Committee was issued the sweating system had been abolished in the metropolitan docks and in the greater part of the London boot trade by successful strikes. Since its publication most of the principal legislative provisions recommended in this report have been made. See the Factory and Workshop Act, 1891, and the Public Health (London) Act, 1891. The duty of the nation to secure that those who do its work shall be fairly treated has been formally recognised by parliament, and is carried out by the government, which not only interferes to obtain for the workpeople employed by its contractors the full current rate of wages, but has in a recent important contract provided that the contractor, unless expressly authorised, shall not either sub-contract the work 'or employ any taskmen'—i.e. piece-master foremen. Many public bodies (including the London County Council and the municipal authorities of Birmingham, Gloucester, Leeds, Leicester, Liverpool, Manchester, Middlesborough, Nottingham, Salford, Sheffield, Sunderland, and West Ham) now require their contractors to pay full current wages; and in numerous cases contractors engaged on public works are prevented from sub-contracting, except so far as sub-contract is usual and necessary.
Further details in respect to the sweating system will be found in three Reports by Mr J. Burnett, Labour Correspondent of the Board of Trade: (a) on the Sweating System at the East End of London; (b) on the Sweating System in Leeds; and (c) on the Nail Makers and Small Chain Makers in South Staffordshire and East Worcestershire (1887, 331; 1888, c. 5513; 1888, 385, Eyre & Spottiswoode); the five Reports, Minutes of Evidence, Appendices, and Index of the Lords' Committee on the Sweating System; Booth, Labour and Life of the People (especially vol. i.); and Methods of Industrial Remuneration, by the present writer, David Schloss. See also the article IMMIGRATION.