Amador ledger., 1900-10-19
PROSPERITY STRIKES.

There are two prolific seasons Of
strikes for higher wages among work
ingmen. One is when times are grow
ing harder and employers are retrench-
ing in all possible ways, cutting wages
and discharging help, and the other is
when times have become COED and
there has been general rise of prices
as result of better times.
It is the misfortune of labor that it is
almost the first, to feel the pinch of
Tightening times and almost the last to
feel the full effect of a returned pros
perity.
When times get bad labor is dis
charged or wages are cut very soon.
When times begin to improve labor is
taken on with some alacrity but the ad-
vance in wages seldom keeps pace with
the advance in prices. Wages gener-
ally have to wait for the establishment
of something like stable price level
commensurate with the new order Of
things.
There is no doubt also tendency for
employers to delay the restoration of
wages, upon the return of better times,
until after they have repaired the dam
age inflicted upon their capital by
season of hard times.
While there are thousands Of employ
ers who do the right thing by labor with
out compulsion, and while hundreds and
hundreds of manufacturing concerns
throughout the country have increased
wages voluntarily, it must be confessed
that there are employers who are not
thus liberal minded and who yield only
to superior force.
To meet this sort of aggressiveness
on the part of the employer the en-
ployed can only organize themselves into
a union and inaugurate a strike, and so
compel a just share of the joint product
of labor, ability and capital.
And it may be confessed also that
organized labor has, encouraged by
spirit of resentment against the en-
croachments of capital, sometimes de
manded more than was right or than
conld be conceded and have crippled
their cause by making such unwarranted
demands. 1t is not at all times the case
that only one side is at fault.
And yet it may be taken as generally
true that labor has received that meas
ure of reward which it has won for it.
self, and very much more. While de-
mand and supply of labor are strong
determining factors the insistance of
organized labor on its rights has lifted
labor as nothing else has lifted it.
The prudent warrior chooses well his
time for going to war. He seeks to
take his enemy at disadvantage, and
the wise labor organization does the
same. The head of such an organiz-
alton will not order strike at time
when labor is suporabundant and hun
dreds of unemployed are hunting work
He will not order strike when there
is six months supply of manufactured
product piled up in advance. He will
seize the opportunity when the de-
mand for the product is greatest and
the labor market is scarcest of unem-
ployed.
That is why there are strikes in good
times. Strikes do not prove that times
are not good. Strikes sometimes occur
at the height of prosperity and often
the highest paid labor is the sort that
strikes and it strikes because it believes
that it is taking capital at disadvan-
tage and the time is therefore favor
able for a forward and upward move
ment in the cause of men and women
who must earn there livelihood with
the work of their hands.