Wheeling majority. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1907-192?, 1916-01-20

! ROA~eAoA mas USeu dDl6 10 MAINTAIN
Z, oppressive conditions and low wages
1 BY ruthlessly suppressing attempts OF
its employees to organize The report
follows:
The discomfort in the industrial
hellholes known as the steel towns
OF pennsylvania, Illinois, hdiara, New
YORK, Maryland, Alabama, - .orado
west Virginia and Southern Chic, is
more bitter and has deeper seated
basis than in the plants of the
| youngstown Sheet and Tube com
pany where the overlordism and ex-
ploitation of the steel workers had
been at least salved with profit-shar-
ing, accident prevention and compen-
satlon, and measure of so-called
welfare work"
i was in charge Of an investiga,
ton OF the Steel Industry for the
United States Bureau of Labor in
1910 which covered every steel plant
In the country and probed to the very
bottom OF labor conditions. / know
that the wages paid in the Youngs.
town district are as high, the hours
reasonable, if any system of twelve
hour shifts can ever be reasonable
the mills as we'll built, and the sys-
tenn of espionage and brutal bossism
less developed than in any other part
OF the. steel industry. In 1910 the
wage for common labor in Youngs-
town was II cents per hour in east
ern pennsylvania, 1872 cents. The
tube. mills worked 10 hours day shift
SIX days in the week, and IL hours
for five nights. as compared with ~
hours day and night for seven days
a week in other departments. The
management in Youngstown had not
only done much to safeguard their
plants, but had installed a non-con.
trlbutory system of accident compen-
sation and were supporting worGmen's
compensation as state measure.
There were armed guards and
brutal bosses in Youngstown, but less
conspicuous and insoIent than iii the
steel towns of Pennsylvania, West
Virginia and Colorado. The steel
workers villages in the outskirts Of
Youngstown were sickening exhibits
of sQualor and filth, but such is the
typical condition of steel towns
throughout the country. The mills
were irregular in operation and I'M
was frequent and dis.
tresstng, but even so tn eYoungstown
mills had the reputation for low costs.
big sales and steadier operations than
other districts less favorably located
The en4ire steel industry, North.
South, East and West, is ripe for q
strike, and the situation is not going
to be relieved by the granting OF a 10
per cent wage increase. The strike
fever in the steel industry showed IT,
self first in the Youngstown district
because the labor demand
wa sa little keener than elsewhere.
The investigation by the Bureau of
Labor in 1910 covering all the stee!
plants in the United States showed
That % per cent of all EMPLOYEES in
the industry when working full time
earn less than 915 a week. and thai
IN the year of steadiest operation the
industry had ever known, only Sc per
cent OF the employees, including even
the high-paid rollers and petty bosses
mad an opportunity to earn as much
as $500 per year, if they worked
every day the mills operated. This
IN spit eof the fact that all inyestiga.
tons have shown that the very least
a family can live upon with anv de.
gree of decency is $500 a year
The standard working day in the
steel industry is IL hours, in spite Of
the fact that the 12-hour day was
condemned even by a committee Of
stockholders of the Steel CORPORATION
And. while the public has been large
ly deceived by self-laudatory adyer-
Using of the steel companies regard
ing the abolition the seven dav
week, the reports of the Bureau Of
Adbur show that in the blast furnaces
80 per cent of the employees are still
working seven days a week.
Why have such conditions con-
tinued in so "a an industry? Con.
gress has inv, stigated time after
time, reformers have protested until
they are blue in the face, and the in
dustry has been muck-raked from ton
to bottom.
THE answer is that the corpora
tons, OF which less than produce 10
per cent Of the steel manufactured in
the United States, are not only highly
organized, but possess a complete
agreement and understanding on mat.
tiers of labor policy, while the work
ers are not only unorganiZed, but
through system of company espion-
age and TERRORISM more complete
than that of the Colorado Fuel and
Iron company, every attempt at or
saniZation or even collective action Is
brutally stamped out and the leaders
blacklisted. Organizers sent into the
steel towns have been assaulted
meetings broken up by the company's
guards and police, and the threat of
discharge, and starvation welded over
every man suspected of sympathy
with the ideas of organization.
Youngstown is simply the first
eruption from an industrial volcano
that has many more dangerous craters
The whole mass is seething and
strikes with ever increasing violence
may be expected unless the pressure
Is relieved by wag increas Of not
less than 20 per cent, a substitution
Of the S-hour day for the inhumane ~
hour day. and above ALL the elimina.
ion. Of the system of industrial terror
SIN which is now maintained by the
independent" as well as
he trust to prevent orderly collective
lction on the part of the steel work
efe :"