Bisbee daily review., 1917-09-16
INCREASED WAGE WAS FOLLOWED BY DECREASE IN
 ALL EFFICIENCY
Prominent Mining Man Writes of Effect of Wage Increase in Clifton-Morenci District in This State.
By Walter Douglas

Qn Mining and Scientific Press) As an interesting and instructive
 commentary upon the effect of greatly ] increased wages on the manual eff
 ciency of certain class of mine-Iabor
 the accompanying diagram speaks Tor
 itself. Qn the original article in Min 1 ing and Scientific Press a diagram was 1 printed).
 In the summer of the year 1915. at which time a sliding scale of wages
 was put into effect by the management
 of the Detroit Copper company. the average pay of wage-earners in the mine department was approximately
 s2.5O per day, which average included
 large force of surface-laborers. whose S2 rate served to offset the con siderably higher pay earned by the miner and other underground labor. At this time the number of tons mined per man, exclusive of those engaged
 on development work. was 2.s. For , the first six months of the year 1917.
 with an increase of wages that brought
 the average daily earning to $40. the
 number of tons of ore mined per man
 dropped to 2.1S: in other words. the cost for labor to mine a ton of ore in
 the early part of 1915 was go cents. while for the first six months of 1917
 it increased to S1.s0. The miner who
 earned 36 1-2 cents per hour. based on
 15c copper. during the former period
 earned 56 12c per hour in the latter
 period on 2Sc copper.
 The labor employed in the mine de- partment Of the Detroit Copper com pany since the initiation of the com pany's operations in 1880. has been. and is now. largely Mexican. with a substantial proportion of Spaniards and a few Italians
 In September of 1915 the Western Federation of Miners sent organizers into the district; these. largely owing to the strained relations existing be- tween the United States and Mexico at the time. were successful in induc- ing all the Spaniards and a number of MeXicans to join their organization. They then demanded recognition of the union, which. being refused. a strike was called. It is unnecessary here to recite the history of this strike. which. through incendiary speeches by the then governor of the state. as- sumed the aspect of a revolution. in which all workers who would not join the federation were deported from the district. No attempt was made by the r,k and in February 1916. through the ef- forts of federal mediatOrs. MesSrS. Myers and Davies, the union surren- dered its charter. work being resumed under the same conditions as existed before the strike was called.
 At the suggestion of the mediatOrs. the operators consented to the election by the employees of grievance commit tees ro discuss with the management matters relating to wages. conditions of labor. etc. Unfortunately for the future peace of the district. the men elected 10 these committees were of the most radical type. Prompted by J. L. Donnelly and other officials of the Arizona Federation of Labor. they assumed the right to dictate to the op- orators not only who should or who should not be discharged. but who should be employed or promoted. Whenever the management declined tO accede to these demands a strike was called either in one department at a time. or all the employees of the com panies were called out simultaneous Iy. Nine of these strikes have occur red in the Is months since operations were resumed. These methods not hav- ing been entirely successful. in the opinion of the federation. in obtaining all their demands. a system of sa- botage was introduced underground This apparently appealed strongly to the class of labor employed, and was