Conquering the world from the Kaiser's driver

Jenna chuckled and said to the angry Letitia, the girl's anger had no effect on her at all.

"You can't say I made their lives worse."

Letitia took a deep breath and shouted angrily: "7 pfennigs an hour, 12 hours a day, how can this be applauded! You clearly..."

"Have you ever thought about what these women are doing if they are not paid 7 pfennigs an hour and do not work 12 hours a day here?"

Jenna's voice also gained some intensity as she interrupted Letitia.

“Without this job, what would women workers do…”

Letitia was stunned and repeated this sentence in a low voice, what would the female workers do without this job?

She thought about what she had seen in the town in the past, she thought about her mother who was treated harshly by her father, and she thought about herself who almost married a man she didn't know and didn't like.

Jenna looked at the stunned Letitia with a smile on her face. She continued, "If there were no such job, these women workers would probably be bullied by their husbands or brothers at home, and they would have to be ordinary housewives for the rest of their lives."

"But I opened this textile factory, I provided them with jobs, I allowed the women workers to earn money through their own labor, and I gave them the right to speak at home. How can this be called making their lives difficult? On the contrary, I made their lives much better."

After saying this, Jenna looked at Letitia quietly. She wanted to see how this girl would react.

Letitia was silent. She felt that what Jenna said made sense. If there were no jobs in the textile factory, the female workers would be bullied by their husbands or brothers at home, just as she said, and would be ordinary housewives all their lives with no hope of making a breakthrough.

Then she thought of the extremely poor treatment of the female workers. They worked 12 hours a day under high intensity and earned less than one mark a day. This was clearly exploitation. She looked up at Jenna's eyes and said, "You have some truth in what you said, but this cannot be a reason for you to exploit them like this!"

Jenna looked at Letitia in surprise. She really didn't expect such a reaction, but she didn't care about it. She was just a little girl, how could she be defeated by her.

She tilted her head slightly, looked at Letitia in confusion and said, "How did I exploit them?"

"Doesn't the fact that they don't give me any opinions themselves mean that they are satisfied with their current situation?"

"How can it be called exploitation if they are content with their current situation?"

"Even if their treatment is really bad, it is the women workers' own fault. How can I know if they have any objections to their treatment if they don't raise any issues with me?"

"Besides, you are not the one who pays the female workers. Do you know how much they spend in a day?"

Jenna looked innocent, as if Letitia had really wronged her.

"you--"

Letitia glared at her, speechless. Her violently heaving chest showed how angry the girl was. She wanted to refute Jenna, but didn't know how to start.

Lin Shangzhou reached out and grasped Letitia's wrist, pulling her towards him, and then said to Jenna, "But even so, this is not a reason for you to treat female workers like this, Ms. Jenna?"

Jenna nodded slightly and said, "You do have some truth in what you said, but if the female workers don't raise their opinions with me, I will always maintain this view."

Since Jenna insisted on her own opinion and refused to improve the treatment of female workers, Lin Shangzhou gave up discussing this matter with her.

"But you won't regret improving the food just now, right?"

"Ah... Of course not. After all, it's what I agreed to."

Jenna smiled and nodded.

"Then let's stop here today. I still have things to deal with, so I'll take my leave now."

Lin Shangzhou stood up and said to Jenna that there was no way to convince Jenna, nor could he threaten Jenna. It would be better to leave than to keep wasting time here. After all, Letitia hated Jenna to the point of being unable to change her mind.

"Well, I still have work to do. Please take care of yourself."

Jenna stood up and walked the two to the door. After they walked towards the stairs, she turned around and closed the door.

.

Chapter 93 Even more difficult

Lin Shangzhou pulled Letitia all the way to the car, and only then did he let go of his hand.

He turned around and looked at Letitia, who was still angry even after leaving the textile factory, and said softly, "Letitia, there's no need to be angry with her. Come on, let's get in the car."

As he said this, he opened the car door for Letitia.

Letitia nodded and sat in the passenger seat. Lin Shangzhou walked around to the other side, opened the door and sat in the driver's seat.

Letitia sat in her chair and recalled what Jenna had said in her office. The more she thought about it, the angrier she became. She had nothing to vent her anger on, so she could only cross her arms over her chest and hum a few times unhappily.

"How could that Jenna say that! The women workers are innocent. She said that as if they deserved to be treated like that."

"Won't her conscience hurt?"

After Lin Shangzhou inserted the car key, he turned his head and looked at Letitia and comforted her: "Okay, don't be angry, Letitia, there is no need to be angry with those capitalists, they are heartless."

After saying that, he looked at Letitia who was pouting. Letitia's expression surprised him, especially when she refuted Jenna. He thought Letitia would be deceived by Jenna, but she did not believe Jenna's nonsense.

"Letitia, I'm actually quite surprised. When Jenna said she was doing this for the good of the female workers, how did you think of refuting her?"

"Even if she gave the female workers jobs, this is not an excuse for her to exploit them. Anyone can see that there is no connection between the two, right?"

Letitia turned to Lin Shangzhou and complained: "And what she said later was as if she was saying that the female workers deserved to be oppressed by her. She is also a woman! Why does she treat these female workers like this!"

Lin Shangzhou shrugged and said, "Capitalists are like this. To them, men and women are just tools to make money."

"Calm down, calm down. Being too angry is bad for your health."

Letitia looked out the car window and tried her best not to think about the woman named Jenna. She took a few deep breaths and her emotions stabilized. She was not so angry anymore.

(Maybe there really is something mustachio-like about her?)

Lin Shangzhou looked at Letitia's profile and thought that his long gaze naturally attracted Letitia's attention. Facing the gaze from the side, Letitia's heart became confused again.

"Fritts, why are you looking at me?"

"Because I want to appreciate the cute girls around me more."

Hearing this, Letitia's face flushed. She was about to talk to Lin Shangzhou, but Lin Shangzhou said first: "Okay, let's go home."

Lin Shangzhou chuckled and shifted his gaze. He turned the key, started the car and stepped on the accelerator, not caring at all how confused Letitia was by his words.

(Ah…what is he saying…)

Letitia felt her face getting hot, and she felt a little resentful towards Lin Shangzhou in her heart. If he hadn't been driving, Letitia would have reached out and twisted the soft flesh around his waist.

Lin Shangzhou was driving while thinking about the female workers. It turned out that it was very difficult to ask Jenna to improve the treatment of the female workers. He couldn't convince Jenna, so he could only consider raising relevant opinions in the city council. Although this was also a difficult task, he had to give it a try anyway.

He was also mentally prepared for failure.

"Letitia, I may not be able to get Jenna to improve the treatment of the female workers."

Lin Shangzhou's attitude was very serious, and there was no intention of joking at all.

His words also brought Letitia back from her upset.

"Eh?"

Letitia was stunned. Why did Lin Shangzhou say that?

She asked in confusion: "Fritts, why do you say that? Didn't you successfully handle other factories before? Why can't you help the female workers here in the textile factory?"

“There are many reasons…”

Lin Shangzhou sighed and said, "But the most important point is the female workers themselves."

"The women workers themselves?"

Letitia thought of what Jenna said. The female workers had never made any suggestions or expressed any dissatisfaction to Jenna. Could this be what Fritz was referring to?

"Fritts, are you saying that the female workers never took the initiative to express their dissatisfaction to Jenna?"

Lin Shangzhou nodded slightly and said, "You guessed partly right. I meant that it is difficult for the female workers to unite and resist Jenna."

"Unite to fight back against Jenna?"

"Letitia, the Labor and Social Affairs Department I work for is only responsible for mediating social conflicts. When conflicts arise between workers and factories, I can mediate the conflict between the two, but this department does not have the ability to enforce the law."

"That means I can't force Jenna to improve the treatment of female workers in a situation like today."

Letitia looked at Lin Shangzhou suspiciously. If he said that, wouldn't he, the Minister of Labor and Social Affairs, have no deterrent power over the factory owner? She asked puzzledly, "How did you properly handle the issues between workers and bosses in other factories in the past?"

Lin Shangzhou explained to her: "Those things were successful because I had the workers as my solid backing. The workers united to resist the capitalists. If the factory owners did not agree to improve their wages, what awaited them would be the workers' increasingly fierce resistance and possible strikes. Only under the deterrence of strikes in other factories and the threat of strikes by workers in their own factories would they give in and choose to improve workers' wages."

"I acted as a middleman. Direct negotiations between the workers and the factory owner might not lead to an agreement, so I had to mediate between them, so that the workers' treatment could be improved while also being within the acceptable range for the factory owner."

After listening to Lin Shangzhou's explanation, Letitia thought for a while and understood what Lin Shangzhou meant.

"So what you mean is that the female workers can't unite to resist Jenna. If they can't unite, they won't pose any threat to Jenna. For Jenna, the female workers have no consciousness of resistance, so she doesn't need to improve the treatment of the female workers, right? Right?"

"Ah."

Lin Shangzhou nodded.

"Then why not just raise the resistance consciousness of the female workers? Just like you raised the resistance consciousness of the workers back then, isn't that okay?"

Letitia asked Lin Shangzhou, she thought this was a feasible method and there were successful precedents, so they just had to follow suit.

What she didn't expect was that Lin Shangzhou shook his head.

"It is more difficult to raise the resistance consciousness of female workers than male workers. The difficulty lies in the fact that the literacy of female textile factory workers is worse than that of male workers."

This made Letitia very confused. She asked, "Fritts, do you think few female workers are literate? Didn't the female workers write letters of denunciation at that time?"

"They asked people who could read to write the report. Even male workers could not achieve a high literacy rate. Some workers needed their coworkers to read the articles to them, not to mention these female workers."

Lin Shangzhou turned his head and glanced at Letitia and said, "You live in a wealthy family. Although your father is not like a father, he can afford to send you to school. Do you think those female workers in the textile factory can afford to send them to school and learn to read?"

"Um...I can't."

Although she was reluctant to admit it, Letitia knew that Lin Shangzhou was right. She shook her head reluctantly. If the families of those female workers could afford to send them to school and learn to read and write, they might not work in this textile factory.

"What's the other difficult part?"

The car drove to the intersection. While steering, Lin Shangzhou said to Letitia, "Another difficulty is that there are currently no people who can work in the textile factory and bring the Workers' Daily to the female workers."

"I…"

Letitia wanted to say "I can go", but as soon as she said that, Lin Shangzhou glanced at her and interrupted her.

"I know you want to say you can go, but you can't get into the textile factory. You've already caused trouble once. Do you think the textile factory will hire you?"

After hearing what he said, Letitia was immediately deflated. She really had no way of entering the textile factory again.

"Moreover, the female foremen in the textile mills are more difficult to deal with than the foremen in the factories. If they find out that a female worker is reading the Workers' Daily, they may tell Jenna directly, which means the failure of the operation."

Letitia pouted unhappily and muttered, "Fritts, then according to what you said, there will be no way to improve the treatment of female workers in the near future?"

Lin Shangzhou frowned and looked at the road ahead. He was also worried about this matter. The lack of unity among the female workers was a difficulty, and Jenna was also a veteran. It was even more difficult in this era when women were oppressed and not valued.

"I will try my best to find a solution. There are always more solutions than problems."

"Yeah, I'll work with you to find a solution. There are always more solutions than problems."

Letitia was determined in her mind and cheered them on.

.

Chapter 94 The suggestion is to give up

After returning to the apartment, Lin Shangzhou felt tired while climbing the stairs. When he reached the second floor, he asked Letitia to go upstairs first. He wanted to discuss with Louis how to better improve the treatment of female workers.

Standing in front of the door on the second floor, he knocked on the door, and after more than ten seconds, the door was opened by Louis.

"Fritts? Come in."

As Louis spoke, he made way for Lin Shangzhou. He noticed the distressed expression on Lin Shangzhou's face and asked, "You look like this after just a short while. What happened?"

"It's about the treatment of female workers in a textile factory."

Lin Shangzhou said as he stepped into Louis's home.

“How are women workers treated in textile factories?”

Hearing this, Louis frowned, and he immediately realized why Lin Shangzhou was so distressed.

"Sit down and talk."

The two sat on the sofa. Lin Shangzhou told Louis about the female workers in the textile factory and explained to him that he wanted to help improve the treatment of the female workers. This was a difficult task, so he wanted to ask for his opinion.

After listening to Lin Shangzhou's story, Louis leaned on the sofa and thought about this difficult matter.

He knew that this would be a difficult matter to handle. On the one hand, as Lin Shangzhou had mentioned, the female workers were not united enough and their sense of resistance was not strong enough, and Jenna was a factory owner who was difficult to deal with. On the other hand, the status of women in the German Empire was very low.