The Probert Encyclopaedia of Money

SWEATING

Sweating was a term applied in the later decades of the 19th century to the practice of getting work done at minimum rates of pay through the medium of middle-men employers. The practice was particularly common in certain occupations such as clothing and the furniture trades. Work was given out by large firms to middle-men who accepted low prices and made a big profit on them by employing the poor, usually as home-workers, at minimal rates of pay and in terrible conditions. In 1888 a select committee appointed by the House of Lords revealed a grave and widespread social evil in the practice, which was stopped by the setting up of trade boards by which minimum wages were fixed. However, in the 20th century the practice returned, and while minimum wages were at last reinstated, these were largely avoided by the employment of illegal immigrant workers and legal, but naive immigrants.
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