The Portland daily press., 1892-08-04
Wages Here and in Europe.
New York Tribune.l


Wages Here and in Europe.
New York Tribune.]
There3are many men in this country
who do not begin to comprehend the diff
ference in the rate of wages between the
of the wage-earners who have lived and
worked in foreign lands are well aware of
that difference, but Americans are often
found who cannot realize that differences
SO great do actually exist. In discussing
the wages paid and the wages offered at
the steel works of Homestead, for exam
pie, it is shown that the average for all
the men whose wages would in any way
have been changed were about 81 per day
even at the minimum under the proposed
scale, to the thirty-three different hands
the amount paid under the old scale was
$127.s1 per day, reckoning at eight hours
only those who formerly worked twelve
but now work eight hours, while at the
minimum possible under the scale pro-
posed by the company the same thirty
three men would have received for eight
hours $121.s8 per day. No such wages
are paid in any other country, and while
it is probaly true, as it has been stated
by the managers of the Homestead
works, that wages as high are not in fact
paid at any works in this country, it is
nevertheless worth noting that the best
1x<x &c, tI,n
paid in any other country with which we
have dealings.
Owing to differences in the names
given to occupations or kinds of work,
or in the terms of payment for labor. it
is not practicable to compare wages in
steel works in detail But there are
some occupations which are substan-
tally the same. and for which wages are
paid on similar terms. The rollers in
the plate mills in Great Britain, at last
accounts forwarded by American consuls,
were getting about ST. per week; at the
Homestead works they were as minimum
$500 per day. The shearmen in Great
Britain received from So to $40 per week
at Homestead they were offered as
minimum from 81 to Sc per day. Pud-
ding iron is substantially the same pro-
cess in different countries, and the Eng
$7.26 per week, according to British
official records, but at some points as
much as $10per week was paid a few
years later, though. the depression in re-
cent years may have reduced wages. But
the puddlers at Pittsburg are struggling
to resist reduction below $3.50 per ton,
and at that rate of wages the head of the
Amalgamated Association has testified
that the men averaged $3.50 per day, or
$21 per week. In Belgium, according to
a consular report, the men were paid for
pudding an average 1910 per week, and
in Bohemia, according to another con-
sular report, men are this year doing the
same work at an average of $4.75 per
week. Between 81 rs, or $685. or even
1925 per week il various foreign coun-
tries, and the $21 per week hitherto paid
for some years at Pittsburg, what diff
ference appears!
1t is not proper to infer that in all
branches of the iron and steel manufact
ufacture the difference in wages between
this and other countries is greatly repre-
sented by the difference in wages paid
for pudding. Indeed, the Pittsburg and
western wages are considerably higher
than works in the eastern states have
been paying, and that was the chief
reason given for proposing a reduction.
But the last census volume of wages con-
tains a table showing the change in
wages paid for pudding at Pittsburg
from 1887 each year for more than 40
years. Under Democratic revenue tar
if during the three years ending in 1860
the rates ranged from 1925 to 81 ton.
Under protection it has been SO a ton
several times, and except in two months
does not appear to have fallen at any
time below SIS ton. Ten years ago it
was $3.50, as it was until the recent con-
troversy began, July l. Yet iron has
been so extensively supplanted by steel
that it has often seemed as if the pud-
dler could no longer obtain the wages he
had been receiving.
When men are struggling to retaiu
wages averaging $21 per week they GER
tainly should not allow themselves to
forget that inthe same city under the Dem
ocratic revenue tariff they used to re-
ceive as little as $12.41 for doing the
same work. They cannot afford to for
get that, but for the protective tariff,
they would be struggling to prevent re-
duction of their wages to the level of the
wages of England. if not to those of Bel
Do1