CHAPTER XIX SOME ASPECTS OF THE LABOR PROBLEM 1. The Policies of Labor Organizations 1 The union has two general methods of improving the economic condition of its members. It may try to strengthen the strategic position of the individual workman in dealing with the employer, or it may take the function of bargaining altogether out of the hands of the individual. The former policy involves an attempt to diminish the number of competitors in the trade. The latter has no necessary reference to the number of individual workers, but involves the placing of the interests of all the workers under a single control, so that the whole amount of labor power available in the trade may be handled in the market as a unit. The restriction of the number of competitors is undertaken chiefly through measures for diminishing the number of learners. It is to this end, at least in a great degree, that all the union regulations of apprenticeship, which are discussed below, are directed. For the same purpose, in trades which feel the competition of foreigners and in which at the same time the strength of the union is such as to promise effective control, restrictions are placed, by high union initiation fees or otherwise, upon the entrance of foreigners into the occupation. Such regulations as these, however, play a relatively small part in the policy of the unions. That upon which they chiefly rely is unity of action. If the whole body of workers of a given kind can be brought into the union, so that the union can meet the employers as the representative of the whole, the position of the worker will be greatly strengthened. There will still remain the absolute perishability of his commodity, the need 1 Reprinted from the Report of the Industrial Commission, XIX, 806–827. of selling his labor to-day under penalty of the total loss of to-day's portion. But he will be freed by the support of his fellows and of the union funds from the necessity of accepting whatever is offered, on pain of beggary. The fear that if he refuses to accept certain terms his neighbor will accept them will also be removed. His ignorance of market conditions will be partly remedied, both through the combination of the knowledge of all the members of the union, and, in some cases, by the broader outlook which the union officials, wholly or partly exempted from daily application to manual work, may be able to obtain. The whole matter of bargaining can be put into the hands of the most skillful; and the officers and leaders may develop a skill in bargaining, by constant practice, comparable to that of their opponents. Unified action involves definite rules as to wages, hours, and other conditions of work. This alleged "tyranny," or interference with the "freedom" of the members, has often been considered one of the most objectionable features of the unions. There are, it is said, "honest men with wives and families to support who are willing to work for one and two dollars a day, but they can't get it. Why? Because their union or their trust won't allow them. The standard is set for them, and if they don't wait and starve their families until they can reach that standard they can't get work anywhere. Everywhere they go they are met by the same condition of affairs, all over our United States. A workingman can't work for what he wants to, he must work for what somebody else says he must work for." - To the mind of the union man the fixing of minimum wages by the union does not seem to involve any diminution of his liberty. The union brings him a sense of greater liberty. When he dealt as an individual with his employer he had to accept regulations and rates of pay which he had little or no voice in determining. He was under an industrial authority which left him no freedom except the freedom to leave its jurisdiction. The union is a democratic government in which he has an equal voice with every other member. By its collective strength it is able to exert some direct influence upon the conditions of employment. As a part of it, the individual workman feels that he has a voice in fixing the terms on which he works. He exchanges the sense of subjection to the employer for a certain sense of free action. This increase of freedom is, in fact, a result of organization which appeals most strongly to the minds of many workingmen, and which some of them mention among the things they prize the most. The fixing of the terms of employment of considerable numbers of men by definite and general rules is not peculiar to labor organizations. It is a necessity of industry upon a large scale. The small employer may be able to make separate bargains with individual men; but the large employer must, of necessity, classify his hands and fix their pay by rule. The mere setting of such fixed rules is not, therefore, the essence of the complaint against the labor unions. up When wages are fixed by the piece the necessity of uniform rates is evident. A uniform price per piece will give a variable rate per day, depending on the efficiency of the workers. It is in regard to time wages that fault is found with the principle of the union rate. The unions try, say their opponents, to reduce all men to a common level; and a common level is of necessity the level of the slowest and the dullest. It is not uniformity of daily or weekly pay which unions really desire. The uniformity which they seek is equal pay for equal work. It is true that there is a widespread objection to the piecework system. Even unions whose members work under it do not always approve of it. But this is because it is felt to interfere with the real final purpose of the organization, the maintenance and the increase of the rate of pay per unit of output. Uniformity of pay per unit, desirable as it is in itself, is chiefly important as a means of securing higher rates of pay. If, under the circumstances of a given trade, the rate per unit of output seems more effectively protected by the time system than by the piece-price system, the time system will be preferred; and the uniformity of the rate per unit must be protected under it by such means as are available. As a matter of fact no union forbids variations of time wages. The universal policy, where time wages are involved, is to fix a minimum. In most unions the fixed minimum is in practice the actual wage received by the large majority of the members; but the union leaders generally profess entire willingness that the employers pay more. Objection is sometimes made to special payment for mere speed, on the ground that such arrangements are intended to establish an abnormally fast pace, which may be made a standard for the whole. But for special skill, as shown in the quality of work, or in the ability to do particularly difficult jobs, extra payment is made not infrequently, and with the full approval of the union authorities. It might seem to be possible for the union itself to fix grades of ability, with corresponding differences of wages, to which it might assign its several members; but the universal voice of the union world declares this to be impracticable. Such grading could not be effected without jealousies and heartburnings. In a purely voluntary and democratic organization, whose strength depends upon the loyalty of its members, it would not be safe to introduce a policy so heavy with causes of discord. On the other hand, to permit members to be assigned to different grades by the employers would be to revert to the individual bargain; and the tendency would be to reduce the greater part of the members to the lowest grade. In a few exceptional cases the rigid enforcement of the minimum wage is waived. This is done oftenest for members whose hands have lost their cunning by reason of advancing years. Some unions give special consideration to the cases of such men, when they request it, and authorize them to accept special wage rates lower than the regular minimum. This is very rarely done, however, for any other reason than age. Men in their full strength must take their chances of finding employment at the rates that others get. Time wage rates have been greatly increased by union action, but the increase of the rate per unit of product has been by no means so great. In two ways a comparatively stable relation is maintained between output and pay. In the first place, as wages go up employers find that it does not pay them to keep any but the most efficient men. The weaker, the slower, the less skillful find their employment more and more precarious. They hang upon the outskirts of the trade, occupied when business is active, idle when it is dull. In the end they leave the occupation altogether, or leave the union and work at non-union jobs, or drift away to places where wages are smaller and the pace is slower. In the second place, the pick of the men left by this process of selection increase their pace. They are led to do it partly by a sense of satisfied ambition in the wages they are getting, and partly by the fear that they may find themselves among the rejected. In such unions as those of the bricklayers of New York City, which have obtained a considerable increase of pay within ten or fifteen years, the men declare that the pace has been greatly quickened. Apprenticeship The entrance to a trade must necessarily be through a period of instruction and practice. In the old days the learner. was legally bound to a master, by whose side he worked, from whom he received personal instruction in the craft, and in whose house he usually lodged and ate. The growth of the great industry has done away with apprenticeship of the old type. There are no longer masters who can care for apprentices and give them personal instruction. The custom of legal indenturing has almost disappeared. It is a custom which the labor organizations, so far as their attitude can be judged from their formal expressions, look back to with unanimous longing. A surprising number of the unions even to this day have in their written constitutions expressions of desire that suitable laws for the indenturing of apprentices be enacted, and that the custom of indenturing be renewed and enforced. The unions complain that under existing conditions it too often happens that trades are not taught or learned at all. A boy is set to feeding a machine, and feeds it day by day and |