<h2>CHAPTER 27</h2>
<h3>TRADE-UNIONS</h3>
<h4>§ I. THE OBJECTS OF TRADE-UNIONS</h4>
<div class="sidenote">Definition and purposes of trade-unions</div>
<p>1. <i>A trade-union is an association of wage-workers for purposes of
mutual information, mutual help, and for the raising of wages.</i> The term
trade-union is used in a general sense both of combinations of workers
in the same trade, and of men in different trades, though usually the
latter are called <i>labor</i>-unions. The "Knights of Labor" is a good
example of the labor-union, the "American Federation of Labor" of a
combination of trade-unions. The Knights of Labor is composed of local
branches to which workers of every class except lawyers and
saloon-keepers are admitted. The Federation of Labor, however, is
composed of chapters, or lodges, that are homogeneous, all the men of
each lodge being in the same trade.</p>
<p>The definition given is broad enough to include the various degrees of
help given and the various methods adopted by trade-unions to accomplish
their objects. Trade-unions are mutual-benefit associations: insurance
against accident, sickness, death, or lack of employment, forms an
important part, and in some cases almost the whole of their work. All
unions in a measure serve their members as employment bureaus, while in
some unions this is a most important feature. Through trade-papers,
correspondence, and personal meetings, information is exchanged
regarding trade conditions, and great mutual service is thus rendered.
But a great deal of the help given is in the more impersonal economic<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</SPAN></span>
ways: help to get from the employers better wages, to secure shorter
hours, to improve in various ways the conditions of employment.</p>
<div class="sidenote">Lack of personal touch between employers and workmen</div>
<p>2. <i>The organization of workers has resulted from the separation of the
economic and personal interests of employers and workmen.</i> The control
of industry has become more concentrated during the age of machinery,
and this has reduced the feeling of economic unity among the different
ranks of industry. There is now to the average workman no possibility of
becoming a master, an employer. The largeness of industry forbids,
moreover, the meeting and personal acquaintance of employer and workman
which were before possible. Misunderstandings grow when men cannot talk
over their differences. The social chasm has widened between the workmen
and the responsible director of industry. As a result of these changes,
the attitude of the employer very often has become that of the buyer of
labor as a mere ware. He has with the mass of his employees no personal
relations whatever. Under these conditions, when the employer feels the
presence of competition, he is more likely to force the lowest wage that
is possible. It is not unusual for the immediate direction of factories
to be intrusted to paid managers, who are responsible to the
stockholders and whose work is judged only by the dividends they succeed
in earning. Many examples might be found where the managers or the
resident owners have wished to pursue a more liberal policy than the
absentee shareholders would permit.</p>
<div class="sidenote">Lack of personal acquaintance among workers</div>
<p>3. <i>The need of organization of labor has grown with the growth of
factories and with the loss of personal touch among the workers.</i> This
is another aspect of the point just mentioned. The smaller the number of
employers, the easier is it by an understanding to suppress competition
on their side. If there is only one factory of a kind in a town or city,
the employer is able to drive a harder bargain with the worker.
Especially in times of industrial depression is a<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</SPAN></span> change of employment
difficult for the laborer; it involves much risk, and loss of time and
money in moving. In the long run competition must be felt even in such
cases. The unfair employer will find his workmen drifting away, his
force reduced in number and quality, and his evil reputation going
abroad among workmen. But there is a great deal of friction in this
adjustment and the loss falls largely upon the workman. In a large
industry, especially, the workers have no personal acquaintance with
each other, nothing to give them a sense of unity and power. In the
old-fashioned shop, with its close association and its interchange of
views, could grow up a strong public opinion; but in the wilderness of a
modern factory the worker may be unknown in name and character to the
man who touches elbows with him. Moreover, in America differences in
nationality and in speech among immigrant workers is often an effective
factor in preventing the assertion of their interests. There is an
analogy (though it is only an analogy) between these conditions and the
political conditions that have led pure democracies to give way to
representative governments. So long as a community is small and men know
each other personally, there may be popular government, but when the
number becomes larger the only way in which public opinion can be
concentrated and made effective is by delegating the functions of
government to representatives.</p>
<div class="sidenote">Main objects of trade-unions to-day</div>
<p>4. <i>The main objects of labor-unions to-day are to improve conditions in
their working places, to maintain or increase wages, and to shorten
working hours.</i> Better conditions of safety and sanitation in their work
were not the first thought of the unions. The workers, as a result of
habit and ignorance, were strangely unconcerned about this matter.
Reforms in this direction at the outset had to come largely from
sympathetic observers. But since better ideals have been developed,
organized laborers strive to improve the sanitary, moral, and other
conditions in the places of work. Their main object, however, was for a
long time to raise<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</SPAN></span> wages, or to resist any decrease. Shorter hours have
been a prime object of recent years, and almost coördinate with that of
higher wages. The eight-hour movement has declined somewhat of late, but
a few years ago it seemed possible that the eight-hour day would become
the rule. This aim has never been lost sight of, however, and now and
then another step is taken toward it. Labor leaders have repeatedly
asserted in recent years, when the two demands have been made together,
that shorter hours were more desirable than increased wages.</p>
<h4>§ II. THE METHODS OF TRADE-UNIONS</h4>
<div class="sidenote">Organized labor seeks to prevent competition among workers</div>
<p>1. <i>The union's first aim is to get control of all the labor force in
the market, and to minimize competition among workers.</i> Every labor
federation aims to extend its control to every branch of its trade. A
sense of wrong is one of the strongest forces to bring the workers into
the organization. The appeal to a common interest is effective in times
of great grievance, as it was effective in the dangerous times of the
American Revolution, though failing during the Confederation. The
unwilling are first persuaded, then coerced by threats, by petty
persecutions, by the most cruel of all peaceful weapons, social
ostracism, and finally by personal violence. The "public opinion" and
class feeling fostered among workers by their organization are analogous
to the sense of patriotism and loyalty in the country at large, and at
times displace it, as is seen in the opposition to the militia and to
the maintenance of public order at times of strikes. The individual who
declines to enter the union is denounced as a traitor and made to feel
the scorn of his associates. When all these measures fail, pressure is
brought to bear upon the employer to get him to force the unwilling
workers into the union.</p>
<div class="sidenote">The union seeks to secure the full competitive wage</div>
<div class="sidenote">And as much more as possible</div>
<p>2. <i>Its next aim is to use collective in the place of individual
bargaining, to force as much as the competitive wage, and more if
possible.</i><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</SPAN></span> The term collective bargaining has been much used to describe
bargaining between a group of labor leaders, the delegated
representatives of the workingmen, and a group of employers or
directors. It is sometimes claimed that all the trade-union seeks is to
put the workman on an equality with the employer in bargaining, enabling
him to get all he would if competition were free on both sides. It is
said that organized labor simply prevents the employer from following
the maxim of Napoleon to "divide and conquer," from meeting his
employees one by one and forcing his own terms upon them. But the most
effective argument in organizing the trade-union is that it forces a
higher wage, more than the market would warrant. It is sometimes assumed
by labor leaders that competitive wages would be very low, almost
starvation wages, and anything above that level is credited to the work
of the union; while in other cases where the wages are already large,
the purpose frankly avowed is to limit the labor supply in the
particular trade and to force a monopoly wage by any means possible.
One's opinion of trade-unions is likely to differ according as they work
in one or the other of these ways. The impartial onlooker sympathizes
with the efforts of the trade-unions in so far as they serve merely to
put the workers on an equality with the employers in bargaining. The
public wants to see "fair play," and up to a certain point the union is
merely a device to get fair play. But if the union is a device to defeat
competition, to force artificially high wages, it will be judged
differently. The public readily sees that if the unions force more than
a fair and open market affords, it is rarely at the expense of the
employer; that in the long run it is at the expense of the purchasing
public itself, including the unprivileged workmen shut out from the
monopoly of labor.</p>
<div class="sidenote">The issue of the closed shop vs. the open shop</div>
<p>3. <i>In order to accomplish their ends, the trade-unions seek to control
their employers' business in various ways.</i> They demand, first, that no
non-union men shall be employed<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</SPAN></span> even at union wages; they demand that
the employer shall help them to force his employees into the unions. In
this very usual demand for the "closed shop" or "union shop" the public
can see very little justice. On this point, nearly always, unions
forfeit in a strike the sympathy of the public; yet the unions assert
that it is almost absolutely necessary to gain this point in order to
carry out their objects. If a union and a non-union man work side by
side there are many ways in which the employer may make the union man
suffer. If business slackens, it is likely to be the union man that is
discharged; if any preference is given, it is to the non-union man.
Certainly all will agree that if the unions are to get the strength to
enforce <i>all</i> their demands it is essential that they make good this
claim which leaves the employer almost helpless. Yet it certainly is not
essential to the accomplishing of valuable services for the members of
the union. The educational and mutual-benefit features are attained
without this means; and much experience shows that, if their cause is
strong, the organized men can carry with them a large proportion of the
workers and the sympathy of the public in a contest for higher wages. It
never has seemed to any considerable portion of the public any more
desirable that organized labor through its officers should be able to
dictate to employees, than that employers should crush the workmen. It
is by just this assumption that union advocates beg the question of the
"union shop."</p>
<div class="sidenote">Other limitations put upon industry by unions</div>
<p>Further, the unions direct and control the employment of labor, often
limit the number of apprentices in a trade, and assume to determine who
shall enjoy the privilege of learning it. They limit the output, fix the
maximum amount, and forbid the use of labor-saving machinery. Whenever
the unions are charged with these acts, labor leaders either deny the
facts or avoid giving a direct answer, but there is no doubt that the
charge is true in many ways and in many cases. The requirement that each
special kind of work shall be controlled by a special trade, and
disputes between<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</SPAN></span> rival trades, for which their jealousies are
responsible, give rise to great annoyance, expense, and loss to
employers and to the entire public.</p>
<div class="sidenote">The strike and the boycott</div>
<p>4. <i>The strike is a threat and a mode of attack to enforce the demands
of the union.</i> To most newly organized laborers the union appeals mainly
as an instrument for striking, for threatening the employer or for
making him suffer. When a new union is formed, it is nearly always
dedicated by a strike, which is the simultaneous stopping of work by a
number of workers. A strike is intended to force the employer to grant
the wages and conditions demanded. Its effectiveness lies in the injury
which it occasions or threatens in the stopping of machinery, the ruin
of material, the loss of custom, and the failure to complete contracts
undertaken. Its success being dependent on the inability of the employer
to fill the places of the strikers, their energies are bent on
persuading or coercing other workers from taking employment. There are
many ways of coercing workers without personal violence. Public opinion
does much, and probably the severest of all coercive measures is the
social ostracism of the worker. What may be called the endless-chain
boycott is an excommunication, without measure or limit, of the
non-union worker and of every one in any way befriending him or the
employer. So far as in their power lies, the enraged strikers dissolve
the very bonds of society, brother casts off brother, and mother disowns
son. The unhappy conditions in the coal regions in 1902 rivaled the
tragedies of civil war. A reasonable use of the boycott, refusal to
maintain social relations with the person who offends one, is doubtless
a part of personal liberty; but the boycott, as experience shows, has
moral limits, and it should have strict legal limits. Its use beyond the
moderate limit of the first degree of personal relations is antisocial
to the degree of criminality, whether it be used as the weapon of
organized workers or of organized wealth.</p>
<div class="sidenote">Violence in strikes is mob law</div>
<p>When peaceable means fail, often there is a recourse to<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</SPAN></span> violence both
against the employer and his property and against the non-union men. The
evils of violence in strikes often are tardily recognized by the public,
whose sympathy up to a certain point is with the striker as "the under
dog." It is slow to realize that strike violence is mob-law. Whenever
men of one group assume the right to coerce forcibly and to wreak their
hatred against one of their fellow-workers, it is a blow at political
liberty. No free society can safely go the first step in permitting one
group of men to usurp control over others in this way.</p>
<div class="sidenote">Costliness of strikes</div>
<p>5. <i>The great losses caused by strikes are the penalty of an unsolved
industrial problem.</i> The losses to workers in wages, to employers and to
investors in income and property, and to the public in interruption of
business, aggregate an enormous sum. It is, however, impossible to
estimate it at all exactly, as the losses are in many cases indirect and
intangible. The strikers are concerned not with the balance of total
losses and total gains to society as a whole, but with the net gain that
in the long run accrues to them. It is true that there are indirect
gains not easily calculable, as the advance of wages made to avoid a
strike while the lesson of the consequences is still fresh. Opinion
among workingmen is not a unit as to the value of strikes. A few years
ago it seemed safe to say that strikes were declining as compared with
the period of the early eighties. It is probably true, as is often said,
that as laborers become educated they put less faith in strikes. The
epidemic of labor troubles, marking the years from 1899 to 1903, gave no
evidence of a decrease in the use of strikes, yet many of these were due
to the recent organization in various trades. The coal strike of 1902,
though doubtless due to real grievances, was opposed by the officers of
the union, an unusually capable set of men, but the more violent and
discordant elements overruled the more pacific counsels. The public is
perhaps as favorable as it has ever been to the cause of labor, but it
appears to have less patience with strikes than<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</SPAN></span> it had fifteen years
ago, and strikes usually fail if not backed by public opinion. The
public has not as yet thought out consistent conclusions on the question
of the rights of the union. It is just now much impressed with the value
of arbitration. As experience destroys the unsound sentiments, and
divides the wise from the unwise measures, a peaceable solution of
industrial differences must and will be found.</p>
<h4>§ III. COMBINATION AND WAGES</h4>
<div class="sidenote">Wages are raised by a labor monopoly</div>
<p>1. <i>Wages in particular industries often are maintained above the
competitive rate.</i> The older economic writers were somewhat
unsympathetic with trade-unions, and were even inclined to deny that
organization could be helpful in any way in raising wages. This view, it
must now be recognized, was mistaken, and overlooked the hindrances to
competition and the effective economic forces that organization can
bring into play. The sympathies of most men favor the wage-earner so
strongly that they hesitate to express an opinion in any way unfavorable
to his efforts to raise wages. But the view of the economic theorist as
to the services of the union cannot be as roseate as is that of the
union labor leader. The general proposition, however, is applicable,
that wherever it is possible to limit supply, prices may be raised. If
men fitted to do a certain work are not permitted to do it, labor in the
special industry becomes more scarce and consequently more highly
valued. This involves the result that some men are forced to remain
where they get lower wages than they could earn if free to act. The
temporary need of the employer may enable the union to force from him a
division of his profits. If the trade-union watches its opportunity and
takes occasion to strike when a failure to fill orders would cause him
great loss, it may compel him to pay for a time more than the normal
value of the labor. It may well be doubted whether such action on the
part of<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</SPAN></span> labor is generous, fair, honest, or in the long run wise; but
that it may be immediately effective cannot be denied. By the principle
of complementary goods an essential kind of labor can be given an
artificially high value, if its supply can be controlled. If only the
labor that is ready and willing to come in to take the place of the
strikers can for a time be kept out, wages may be fixed practically
according to monopoly principles, later to be discussed in connection
with capitalistic organization.</p>
<div class="sidenote">Exaggerated claims made for trade-unions</div>
<p>2. <i>Trade-unions can, in various but limited ways, set in motion
economic forces to increase the productiveness of labor.</i> It is
difficult to take a moderate view of trade-unions; it is easier to go to
one extreme or the other. In a book by Trant, reprinted from the English
edition and circulated by the American Federation of Labor as
representing its theory and claims, all the advances in wages that have
been made are said to be due to the trade-unions. This claim is believed
by many besides the members of trade-unions. The thought is sometimes
expressed even by social students that but for the trade-unions wages in
America would be the same as in 1850. Many well-known facts should cause
such an opinion to be accepted with hesitation, to say the least. Only
about one tenth of the workers in England are unionists and of the
twenty-two million workers in the United States, far less than ten per
cent. are organized. Can it be maintained that one tenth of the labor
supply fixes the value of all? In many lines where labor is not
organized, as in teaching, clerical positions, professional and domestic
service, wages have risen even more than in organized trade. The
evidence advanced to support the extreme claim is that wages are higher
in some organized trades than in other unorganized trades requiring the
same grade of laborers. Trant says that "where there are no unions wages
should be lower. This is exactly the case"; and he quotes: "Wherever we
find union principles ignored, a low rate of wages prevails and the
reverse where organization is perfect." But he later<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</SPAN></span> explains in part
this difference: "The union men are the best workmen and often employers
pay a man more than union wages. This is not surprising as no man can be
a union carpenter unless he be in good health, have worked a certain
number of years at his trade, be a good workman, of steady habits and
good moral character."</p>
<div class="sidenote">Certain unquestionable reasons why union wages should be
higher</div>
<p>If this be true, it is in accordance with strict competitive principles
that, as the elite of the trade, they should get higher wages than those
outside. Moreover the unions exist mainly in the more populated places
where cost of living, wages, and all prices range higher than in the
towns. A much higher standard of work prevails in the cities, both among
union and non-union men, and the old men and the inefficient drift away
to the smaller towns and the places where wages are lower. Many of the
differences are explicable without taking any account of the union. So
far as unions tend toward intelligence, education, sobriety, efficiency,
fuller and fairer competition, they are economic factors in all branches
of industry, and it cannot be doubted that they do work in some measure
in all these ways. So far also as they strengthen the bargaining power
of the laborers, or as they can enforce a monopoly of labor in a
particular trade and locality, they can secure the full competitive or
even a monopoly price.</p>
<div class="sidenote">Labor organizations a minor factor in lifting the mass of the
workers</div>
<div class="sidenote">The chief factors determining wages</div>
<p>3. <i>Wages viewed in general industry, and in the long run, are
determined mainly by impersonal economic forces.</i> That implies the
converse, that they are not determined mainly by the trade-unions. This
statement, in fact, is admitted in calmer moments by the extreme
partisans of the unions. Even the book before quoted says somewhat
vaguely that "it is an error to think that the trade-union seeks to
determine the rate of wages. It cannot do that. It can do no more than
affect them." Again it says: "Capital is increasing faster than
population.... It seems therefore merely in obedience to natural laws
that wages should rise." Men can easily see personal and immediate
results.<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</SPAN></span> They cannot follow out the impersonal and ultimate workings of
economic forces. The leaders make exaggerated claims; laborers believe
them and pay their dues more readily; the public believes them and is
the more inclined to pardon the excesses of so important an institution.
That wages in a number of special trades are raised in a considerable
degree cannot be questioned. The open or secret use of violence and
other antisocial forces make much of this boasted service to some of the
workers, an injury to others, and an occasion of reproach from the
citizen who condemns the spirit of lawlessness thus encouraged. The
chief factors tending to raise the general standard of wages are the
productiveness of industry, peace, order, and security to wealth,
honesty in man and master, in lawmaker and in judge, the efficiency and
intelligence of the workers, and an earnest effort on their part to get
the share that competition would accord them. Chiefly, though not
exclusively, because of their bearing on this last factor, trade-unions
have a useful, even though subordinate, part in the regulating of wages
over the whole field of employment.</p>
<hr class="chap" />
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</SPAN></span></p>
<h2>DIVISION B—ENTERPRISE AND PROFITS</h2>
<hr class="chap" />
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