The daily Nome industrial worker., 1916-08-08
THE RAILROAD STRIKE.


 road companies view with so much concern the prospects of railroad strike is because of the fact that they know very well that the vari- ous employees in the brotherhoods are acting together, and thus mani Testing a solidarity Tn itself is a manifestation of power.
 Therefore the companies betray an anxiety to have the questions settled by arbitration because they know that they have everything to lose and very little to gain no mat ter how a strike comes out.
 Any person who studies out the strikes and labor troubles that from time to time are recorded knows full well that when the employer ar bitrates or wants to arbitrate, he expects to lose. No matter how strong a case may have the em- ployee, usually if the union is weak and can be fought, the employer very wisely decides that he has mo- thing to arbitrate.
 We know of no strikes wherein reason prevailed, but which were not settled because of the varying strength of one side or another. It is true that mediation has effected considerable, number of compro- mises, but that was due to the fact that either one side or the other was unfamiliar with, or incorrectly understood it's own or it's antago- nists position.
 Good people who think the rights or the wrongs of one side or an other enter into a settlement Of the various strikes have the wrong idea wholly. It is for this reason when times are so-called good and there is great demand for labor, labor then wins more frequently than otherwise. Labor finds that the ca pitalist betrays an unwonted will ingness to arbitrate and to allow mediation, and peaceful settlements are boosted.
 When there is an industrial de- precision and there are two men for every job, quite the reverse is the case and employers discover that there is little to arbitrate.
 The fact is that what settles the antagonisms in the labor world be- tween labor and capital is not any ethical sense upon the part of em- ployer or employed, although such may really and very strongly exist. But it is the various factors in the labor market and the relative posi- tions of one side or the other, favorable or otherwise to victory.
 Both Labor and Capital are always directly antagonistic and by Capital we mean the employers and not the strict economic sense of the term. Labor submits to the conditions in sisted upon by Labor's employer, not because Labor believes those condl- tions right, but because there is no help for it. And that position taken by we'll known antagonist of labor organizations who refused to granf a demanded increase because he held that if he conceded this to La bor today, tomorrow Labor would demand still more and there would be no end to such demands, was in it's esentials quite sound.
 Those who talk glibly of a fair days work for fair days pay had better consider the economic press ure to which employers as well as employees are subjected in the matter of employment.
 When rebuked for paying low wages to his employees who were girls, the manager of Montgomery Ward admitted that the wages were too low, but the firms competitors were not paying more and in sonc cases were paying less-that the company would gladly pay more, but they would go out of busaaess if they did for their rivals would undersell them. And all emp't 'ers are in that position. They have to take advantage of the market condi- tions as to labor, for if they do not their competitors most decidedly viii. and with ,unorganiz,i em r!oyt es the conditions are genera'iy