sweating system

American  

noun

1. the practice of employing workers in sweatshops.

---

Etymology

Origin of sweating system

First recorded in 1850–55

Example Sentences

The abolition of the small workshop is the great object of a large number of practical reformers who have studied the sweating system.

From Problems of Poverty by Hobson, J. A. (John Atkinson)

As the design of the sweating system is the elimination of rent from the manufacture of clothing, the "outside work" is begun after the clothing leaves the cutter.

From Twenty Years at Hull House; with autobiographical notes by Addams, Jane

A margin of unemployed labour means a bare subsistence wage for low-skilled labour, and it means this wage earned under industrial conditions, such as we find under the "sweating system."

From Problems of Poverty by Hobson, J. A. (John Atkinson)

The central labor body of Chicago, then called the Trades and Labor Assembly, had previously appointed a committee of investigation to inquire into the sweating system.

From Twenty Years at Hull House; with autobiographical notes by Addams, Jane

It covers the whole question of the employment of boys, women, old men, and half-supported persons, and includes the "sweating" system.

From Twentieth Century Socialism What It Is Not; What It Is: How It May Come by Kelly, Edmond