United labor bulletin., 1910-09-15
THE VALUE oE uNIoNIsM.
(By Robert Hnuter.l


of the present factory system the days
work extended usually to IA or 16 hours.
This long day existed for all workers.
the skilled and the unskilled, the chill
dren as well as the men and women.
| The workers had not yet learned to or
ganize and as individuals they were ut
terly helpless to effect a change in the
hours of their labor or in the scale of
their wages.
There were of course no laws to pro-
tect them and so they lived entirely at
the mercy of their employers.
| The normal conditions that existed lit
tie more than half century ago in Eng
land and elsewhere throughout the world
of the factory system are equaled today
only in certain plague spots.
When one reads the stories of the mis-
cry and oppression, the long hours and
wages of those days one wonders how
the workers managed to live at all.
How much the condition of the work
ers generally has been improved it is by
no means easy to say. but we do know
that the condition of the workers has
vastly improved wherever they have
learned to value unity.
In those trades where the men have
known enough to fight for their rights
and to stand together there has arisen
what some scoffers like to call an ''aris-
tocracy of labor"
And if in certain trades there are in
deed aristocrats of labor, it is simply be-
cause they have had intelligence enough
to fight together, to pay dues to one or
ganization and to battle always with
unity and solidarity.
And what they have done all other
workers can do.
The "aristocrats" hold no patent on
their method of action and by acting in
the same manner all other toilers can
win all the "aristocrats" have won.
Now, it is difficult to ascertain just
how much union workers have benefited
by higher wages.
In that matter there is always the
question as to the increased cost of liv-
ing. which make difficult any comparison
of wages here and abroad or of wages
now with those of forty years ago.
The best one can do is TO compare
wages and hours of today in one trade
that is organized with the wages and
hours in another trade that is morgan
lied.
This has been well done by the Depart
ment of Labor at Washington. and the
figures gathered by that department show
beyond dispute the enormous benefits
that have come to labor as a result of
Organization.
| Consider for one moment the follow
ing facts:
We all know that the workers in the
iron and steel trade are poorly organ
lied and we find that the hours of labor
in this trade are from 60 to ~ per week.
The hot blast men in all parts of the
country work about s4 hours per week.
On the other hand, We all know that
the stone and granite cutters are we'll
organized
When We look up the figures of their
hours we find that they work about As
hours per week.
The bricklayers. the carpenters, the
hodcarriers, the painters, the paperhang-
ers. and the plumbers are highly organ
lied trades, and when We inquire into
the hours worked by these men We find
that they rarely average more than so
hours per week.
These workers then are the aristocrats
of labor simply because they are well
united in their trade, are loyal to their
Organization. pay their dues and fight a
common battle.
1t would be difficult to find an argu-
ment in support of unionism so potent as
this one
To find one set of workers like the
stonecutters working 4S hours per week,
and another set of workers in the iron
and steel trade working so hours per
week, should alone be enough to con-
vince every toiler in this wide land of
the value of unionism.
But this is not all The hot blast men.
who work an average of 81 hours per
week, obtain only about 16 cents per
hour for their labor.
The stonecutters who work on an aver
age of As hours per week receive an av-
erage of 40 cents per hour.
In other words. the stonecutters work
ing about half the time of the hot blast
men, receive at the end of the week
much larger wages.
To look at it in another way, a hot
blast man during his life sells to his
boss an amount of labor about equal to
that sold by two stonecutters during
their lives.
The hot blast worker gives in one life
what one stonecutter would need two
lives to give. and he gives the labor of
two lives for less money than a stone
cutter receives for the labor of his one
life
Think of this and then consider how
tragic it is that one must actually per-
suade working men TO believe in indus
trial unity.
1t is almost impossible TO believe that
any class of the workers should be blind
to the value of unionism or loath to suf-
fer almost anything TO achieve it
And what astounding evidence of work
ing class stupidity it would be if the
workers of this country should without
fight allow their unions to be crushed
and their right of organization taken