The labor argus. [volume] (Charleston, W. Va.) 1906-1915, 1910-08-25

ment Just one thing that unionism has
accomplished.
1t is we'll known that in the early
days of the present factory system the
days work extended usually to fourteen
or sixteen hours.
This long day existed for all workers,
and the skilled and the unskilled, the
children we'll as the men and wo-
men.
The workers had not yet learned to
organize and as individuals they were
utterly helpless to effect a change in
the hours of their labor or in the scale
of their wages.
There were, of course, laws to
protect them and so they lived entire
ly at the mercy of their employers.
The normal conditions that existed
little more than half a century ago in
England and elsewhere throughout the
world of the factory system are equalled
today only in certain plague spots.
When one reads the stories of the
misery and oppression, the long hours
and low wages of those days one won
ders how the workers managed to live
at all.
How much the condition of the work
ers 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
the value of 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
"aristocracy of labor"
And if in certain trades there are in
deed aristocrats of labor it is simply
because they have had intelligence
enough to fight together, to pay dues
to one organization 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 bcne
fitted by higher wages.
In that matter there is always the
question as to the increase cost of living
which makes difficult any comparison
of wages here and abroad or of wages
now with forty years ago.
The best one can do is. to compare
wages and hours today in one trade
that is organized with the wages and
hours in another trade that is unor-
gnnized.
This has been we'll done by the De-
partment of Labor at Washington and
the figures gathered by that depart
mcnt show beyond dispute the cnor-
nous benefits that have come to labor
as 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
scventy-two a week.
The hot blast men in all parts of
the country work about eighty-four
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
work we find that they work about forty
eight hours per week.
The bricklayers, the carpenters, the
hod carriers, the painters, the paper
hangers and the plumbers are highly
organized trades and when we inquire
into the hours worked by these men
we find that they rarely average more
than fifty hours per wees.
These workers then are the aristo-
Gratis of labor simply because they are
we'll united in their trade, are loyal to
their organization, pay their dues and
fight n 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
stone cutters working forty-cight hours
per week, and another set of workers
in the iron and steel trade working
eighty hours per week should alone be
enough to convince every toiler in this
wide land of the value of unionism.
But this is not all. The hot blast
men who work average of eighty
four hours per week obtain only about