prices. In June 1918 these two budgets were brought up to date by translating the prices of the various budget items of the pre-war period into the new price level as measured by the percentages of increase of the various items. By this method Dr. Chapin's budget would have cost $1390 and the budget of the New York Factory Investigating Commission would have cost $1360. Independently, at this time also, a minimum-of-subsistence budget was drawn up from data from 600 family budgets collected by the U. S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, which set the minimum-of-subsistence budget at $1380. Still another method of estimating a minimum living was also used. It was found in New York in June 1918 that the dietaries which yielded enough calories and grams of protein and which were actually in use, cost approximately $615 for a family of five counted as 3.4 equivalent adult males. As we know that, at the plane of bare subsistence, food costs about 44 per cent of the total budget, it is possible to estimate the total budget. According to this approximation, the minimum living wage would be $1390. It seems fairly evident then that in New York in June 1918 the minimum living wage was between $1350 and $1400. Since this time, the cost of living has increased probably about 10 per cent. This would mean that at the present time (December 1918) the minimum living wage necessary for a family of five in New York city is about $1500. What it would be in other parts of the country, we do not know. The U. S. Bureau of Labor Statistics has under way an extensive investigation which will furnish data for various parts of the country. A national policy could certainly be very effective in setting and enforcing minimum standards of living.

[242]

EFFECT OF PRESENT METHODS ON FUTURE

WAGE ADJUSTMENTS

HENRY R. SEAGER

Secretary, Shipbuilding Labor Adjustment Board; Professor of Economics in Columbia University

IT

T is the view of many hard-headed employers that the wage conditions left by the war can only be corrected through what they call "liquidation of the labor market." To reduce costs, employers must try to reduce wages. Such attempts will cause strikes, lock-outs, armies of the unemployed, soup kitchens, and relief committees, and will be followed by the gradual resumption of "business as usual" with employees beaten and disorganized. If this forecast proves justified, it will merely demonstrate the futility of this reconstruction conference. We are here to discuss plans to prevent these very evils and if wise plans can be agreed upon and vigorously carried out, we shall be able to look back to this period of reconstruction as proudly as we do to our part in the dramatic final stages of the war. And these plans, to be of value, must be made effective without delay. Reconstruction is not something that lies before us. It is going on now and while we are talking about it at this meeting decisions are being made and policies are being adopted that will be of vital importance to the future welfare of the wage-earners of the country.

To appraise properly the future value of the methods of wage adjustment resorted to during the war, we must first describe and analyze these methods. Among the dozen different wage-adjustment boards which have been organized and have survived to the signing of the armistice, four types may be distinguished:

(1) The Board of Railroad Wages and Working Conditions, composed of six representatives chosen by the Director General of Railroads to advise him in reference to the wages to be paid railroad employees, was a judicial body charged with the task of determining the compensation of employees in what had become a branch of the public service, such

compensation to be paid out of funds belonging to the government. However difficult its task, the jurisdiction of this Board was clear and definite and the enforcement of its decisions, so far as they might be approved by the Director General, was prompt and certain.

(2) The Emergency Construction Wage Commission was a board of three members, one representing organized labor, charged with the task of determining the wages to be paid employees engaged on construction work for the War Department in accordance with an agreement that the prevailing local rates, meaning the established union rates, should be paid on War Department work. The jurisdiction of this Board was also clear and definite; and since construction work for the War Department was usually on the so-called "cost plus basis under contracts which left to the government the regulation of labor conditions, enforcement of its decisions encountered no serious difficulty. Although in this case, private employees were concerned, the compensation was paid out of government funds, so no serious objection could be raised by the private contractors affected.

(3) The Shipbuilding Labor Adjustment Board is given the task of regulating wages in the shipyards building or repairing vessels for the Navy Department or the Emergency Fleet Corporation. The jurisdiction of this Board has been fairly definite, but the enforcement of its decisions has left much to be desired. Although the Navy Department and the Emergency Fleet Corporation have assumed responsibility for reimbursing shipyards for increased labor costs resulting from its decisions, there has been a continuous series of disputes as to methods of reimbursement and as to the amounts to be paid over. Uncertainty in regard to these vital matters has caused the shipyards under the jurisdiction of this Board to evade compliance with the wage decisions to an extent that has made their enforcement always difficult and at times almost impossible. The three members of the Shipbuilding Labor Adjustment Board represent, respectively, the public, the government and organized labor. The absence of any representative of the shipbuilders has been another reason for their indisposition to comply with the decisions of the Board.

(4) The National War Labor Board was created to adjust

wages “in the field of production necessary for the effective conduct of the war," which was not already included in the jurisdiction of some other governmental wage-adjusting agency.

This Board was not held down to the prevailing rate of wages but was required to determine wages which would 'insure the subsistence of the worker and his family in health and reasonable comfort." As the safety valve or the "catchall" in the government's machinery for settling disputes and avoiding interruption to industry during the war, this Board had a jurisdiction that was at once comprehensive and vague and found itself at a great disadvantage in connection with the enforcement of its decisions. The employees whose compensation was affected by its decisions were all private employees and as no department of the government was responsible for reimbursing the employers for the higher wages they might be required to pay by its orders, these orders were naturally resented and frequently disregarded. Its authority to enforce its orders against a street railway corporation is now being questioned in the courts. The one ameliorating circumstance in connection with the National War Labor Board, from the point of view of employers, was that five of its twelve members were representatives of employers, and a sixth, ex-President Taft, was nominated by these five.

As will be observed, these four types of boards present the gradual decline and fall from a board determining the compensation to be paid by the government to what are virtually government employees to a board charged with determining the compensation to be paid private employees by private employers, said employers sometimes repudiating the authority of the Board and compelled, when complying with its decisions, to bear the resulting expense out of their own pockets.

In addition to these wage-adjustment boards there developed, a few weeks prior to the signing of the armistice, a Conference Committee, made up of representatives of the different boards and charged with the task of interchanging information in reference to forthcoming decisions in advance of the issue of these decisions. It was hoped by those who brought about the organization of this Conference Committee that uniform labor standards with reference to working conditions which it would formulate would be announced by the government

as national standards to be observed in all government work and that thus the keystone lacking to the ascending arch of a national labor policy would have been supplied. Whether this goal would have been attained must forever remain uncertain, since the signing of the armistice put an end to all efforts in this direction. This was another of the many steps forward in governmental policy that was never taken. Now that the struggle is over and we are all breathing freely again, one of the most amusing things to recall is the remark heard more frequently than any other in the different government departments after November II: "if the war had only lasted a few months longer, as we had expected, we should have had everything running splendidly in this department."

The methods that have been described were born of the war emergency. We must now consider which, if any, of these methods may be made to serve the needs of reconstruction.

No one will be found to question the permanent utility of the Railroad Adjustment Board. The need of such a board while the railroads continue to be operated by the government is obvious. In my judgment, even when (and if) operation of the railroads is restored to their private owners, such a Board is likely to be maintained, since the mere fact that the railroad wage problem has once been treated as a national problem, makes highly improbable a return to local or provincial methods of dealing with it.

The field for the Emergency Construction Board is, as its title indicates, a rapidly narrowing and ultimately disappearing field. This Board may serve a highly useful purpose during the period of reconstruction by helping to preserve existing standards and to lessen the shock of a too rapid transition to a peace basis. Whether, with the relaxed interest in these problems and the kaleidoscopic changes in personnel resulting from the wholesale return of officials to private life now that the war is over, it will really serve this purpose, remains to be seen.

The Shipbuilding Labor Adjustment Board is less affected by the return of peace than any of the other governmental wage adjustment agencies concerned with private employees. The need of ships continues to be almost as urgent as it was prior to November 11. The government is committed to contracts