The Pensacola journal. (Pensacola, Fla.) 1898-1985, 1919-06-08
THEIR NEEDS.

A new principle is creeping into wage relations
the principle of payment according to needs
It has come so gradually we either have not no
ticed it or think it has always been there
Hitherto wages were fixed according to the
market. The employer, criticized for the mis-
cry of his employee, replied, Il pay what the mar
ket requires"
Wages were then what the commodity, labor
power" cost They are coming to be what the
human being who works requires. This is the
economic side of the principle first announced by
American unions later written into national leg
islation and now embodied in the greatest of in
ter1ational documents, the principle that the Ia
Dor of human being shall not be treated as COM
modify.
Progress to this point has been painfully slow
Economists insisted that movement in this di-
rection was impossible and undesirable. Law
makers were unanimous in declaring such action
impracticable Employers swore that any at
tempt to interfere with the fixing of wages by
"the higgling of the market" would destroy in
dustry.
In the first half of the last century a few peo-
pie began to say that the race dare not let COM
petition fix the wages of little children. 1t was
but Yesterday that the social conscience, here and
there, was quickened to hurt arising from per-
hitting the labor of the mothers of the race to
become an object of unrestricted barter.
So the idea of a minimum wage for women
crept upon the statute books and through the
courts and into the shop to stand as a barrier to
economic pressure applied to the wages OF wom-
en- These laws insist that the human being back
of the labor power be the first consideration in
determining wages.
It was inevitable that voices should soon arise
asking why if living standards for women and
children were to be protected when they entered
industry, why should they not be equally protect
ed while the father stood between them and the
factory. Labor was revolving against the prin-
cple of the dutch auction with the job awerd-
ed to the cheapest bidder, being applied in the
labor market.
The war came Human strength and human
life were spent so freely that they became ex-
pensive commodities-if they were still consid-
cred commodities. Half-starved people could not
fight nor work effectively, nor would they sac
rifice and die for a country that rewarded them
with semi-starvation-a least not in democracy
and was the war not being fought for democ-
racy?
Wherever governmental agencies were estab-
hshedt to deal with the wage disputes that sprung
from the rising prices, these bodies did not dare
set up the old labor market standards. The
war labor board in the United States gave no
heed to the quotations on the labor market un-
til it first determined if they were high enough
to maintain health and efficiency.
We have not reached there yet, but the goal is
in sight where needs and not bargaining power
will fix the minimum of wages everywhere. The
industry that cannot paS this minimum must
disappear and not remain to live, vampire-like
upon the blood and strength of weakened work
ing class. q.
Above this minimum regulated struggle will
STILL for some time at least, tend to bargain col
lectively over the exact amount of wages