The patriot. (Glenmora, La.) 1918-1955, 1919-05-16
Workers Deny Existing Idea That
They Constitute Mere
Commodity
JOINT COUNCILS, IS DEMAND
Delegates Of Employees and Represen-
tatives Of the Management, Talking
over Common Interests, Would Pro.
mote Harmony Between Capital and
Labor.
WILL PAYNE,
In Saturday Evening Post.


If you turn to the causes of labor's
dissatisfaction one thing stands out
all over aside from the question of
wages. The last national convention of
the American Federation of Labor en-
phasiZed it. 1t continually crops out in
labor's actions and utterances. The
gist of it is that labor is not satisfied,
and never will be satisfied, to be treat
ed just as commodity-something
taken into the shop at the market rate
when the shop has need of it, used
impersonally in the processes of pro-
duction, and dismissed whenever the
shop, at the moment, has no further
need of it, with nothing in particular to
say about the industrial conditions IN
der which it is used except as to the
price it shall get, very much as so
many carloads of raw cotton or pig
iron are taken In.
Labor is decidedly not satisfied with
that role. Innumerable quarrels and
strikes over shop conditions, dis
charges. discipline and so on, have
their root in labor's resentment at be-
ing treated like commodity instead Of
like sentient humanity. The best eff
ficiency engineers-formerly scientific
managers"-understan that and have
worked on 1t with good results. For
example, 1t is found that delegates
elected by the work people and meeting
frequently with representatives of the
management to talk over common in
terests promotes harmony. 1t is found
that such delegates. under free and
friendly discussion, very often accept
the arrangements view. Or, leaving 1t
to committee of workmen to pass
on faulty work, gets fair judgment in
the main and the working force accepts
them. whereas 1t was always protesting
against the judgments of a managerial
committee.
The rule Is that to bring shop and
Office into closer touch and a steady
practice of sitting down and talking
things over makes for harmony. To
give labor a say. to hear its side-not
once year when wage scale is to
be fixed. but all the time. by frequent
meetings-makes for harmony.
A recent dispatch to the New York
Journal of Commerce said that joint
councils or committees had now been
formed in 40 trades or groups of
trades. 1t is recognition of labor's
demand to have its say. to be consulted
and for broader. more direct look-in
on the industry by which it lives. 1t
is a protest against the idea of labor
as commodity, with nothing to say
except as to what its market price
shall be. It is move in the direction
Of partnership between capital and
labor.
Now. partnership Is the true relation
between capital and labor. Neither can
get on well without the other. Both
prosper or decline alike from the same
general conditions. Employers are al
ways preaching that. especially when
threatened with strike. They must
put It more extensively into practice.
You don't take man into partnership
when you sit down alone and decide
what you are going to do for him and
then open the window and tell him
while he. peradventure. Is sitting down
alone and deciding what he Is going
to do TO you and then throwing brick
through the window to let you know,