Piece-rate lists were the ways of assessing a cotton operatives pay in Lancashire in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
[2] When cast iron power looms became reliable, the mill-owners added weaving sheds to their mills then employed relatively unskilled women and children (half-timers).
Burnley became a weaving town, producing plain calicos for printing, while but Blackburn did fancies using Jacquard looms.
To the north-east thousand-loom sheds were built while to the south we saw the quarter of a million spindles Edwardian ring spinning mills.
[4] Individually negotiating with the spinner or weaver how much should be paid for each job clearly was not feasible and a table listing the payment for each task was drawn up by each employer.
The division of the total wage paid on a pair of mules between the minder and the piecers was largely the result of the policy of the spinners' trade union.
[5] Discounts is the principle that no operative should suffer if he was allocated substandard cotton, or put on a machine that output a lower capacity.
[10] The lists attempted to achieve fairness, and as such were very complex and the emerging unions employed staff to check the calculations which were known as 'The Sorts'.
[b] David Shackleton, the future Independent Labour Party leader and MP for Clitheroe was employed by the Darwen Weavers', Winders' and Warpers' Association as secretary in 1894 .
In spinning there used to be doubts about the quantity of work done, so the "indicator", which measures the length of yarn spun came into general use.
Under this agreement advances and reductions could not exceed 5% or succeed one another by a shorter period than twelve months and must be preceded by a consultation or 'conference'.