Clinch Valley news. [volume] (Jeffersonville, Va.) 18??-2019, 1920-04-23
SHE'S TOPPING; LOOK OUT!

SHE'S TOPPLING; LOOK OUT!
"Thirty-Three unions comprising
the Chicago Building Trades Council
are preparing to demand dollar and
a quarter an hour for their members
intead of the dollar rate adopted last
fall, union officials announced to-
dya."
This quotation is from Western
newspaper and accredited to its Chi
cago correspondent. The same ac-
count goes on to state thaat the an
nOuncement followed immediately
after the declaration of the Associat-
ed General Contractors Convention
stating that a building program ag-
gregating no less than six billion
dollars during the coming year is
being held up because OF the excess
i've cost of labor and Of material.
What does all this mean? and
what will be the consequences The
carpenters strike for a dollar an
hour last fall resulted in holding up
the winters work and in driving
many Of the workmen into other
towns where no strikes had been
called or into other jobs that paid
less than the ninety-two cents an
hour against which they had been or
dered to strike.
A company is now engaged in
erecting cold storage warehouse
and is endeavoring " finish it before
hot weather in order to preserve
perishable foods-a most beneficial
service at this particular time when
the European trade is suddenly cut
off and without which the cattle and
hogs would be at once thrown back
upon the farmers hands to discou-
rage production and cut off future
supplies.
Not being abb to secure sufficient
steel laborers, the superintendent
went to the union headquarters of the
steel workers. Finding goodly sup
ply of idle men smoking and playing
cards, the enterpriser made his GRAND
known by announcing his desire for
fifteen or twenty workmen.
GLOW much will you give,?? was
the question.
"The fluff union SCALE" replied the
superintendent.
ooh. you go to hell; we don't work
unless we get double wages"
In another case the president of a
company in the same city discovered
men ct work on Saturday afternoon
upon a job that did not need to be
rushed. Knowing that on Saturday
afternoon, like on Sunday, work is
done for double warges, he took the
manager to task and was met by this
defense:
che workmen refused to work at
all unless permitted to work both
Saturday afternoon and Sunday for
double wages. l compromised on Sat-
urday afternoon. We must do that
or hank up the job
Now this attitude Of organized
labor toward enterprise is making
exorbitant prices inevitable; and if
it is persisted in it will wreck first
one business, then another, ending in
nothing short of financial panic in
which laborers will have little work
ut any price and the public will go
unserved
There is another side of the pic
ture:
A manufacturer of pumps sold his
product before the war for sixty dol
lars apiece, of which forty dollars
was the cost of labor and materials
and twenty dollars represented prof
it's. Now the same pump is sold at
$3.50, of which $120 is the cost and
sixty dollars the profit. The profit
remains constant on the percentage
basis, not on the unit basis.
Many a dealer now frankly admits
that he is dohbling his pre-war prof
it even after paying his income and
eXcess-profits taxes, which are pass
ed on to the consumer. Others, with
out quoting figures, admit that they
ara charging call the traffic will
bear" and without regard to cost.
Here we have examples of kind
of financing that will wreck any
country. The laborer has his time to
sell, the manufacturer and the dealer
their goods. If either charges "all the
traffic will bear" or refuses to render
full equivalent in service, the con-
sequence is passed on to the con-
sumner.
Everybody is the consumer. First
of all and mainly, the laborer himself
because while the employer works
for profit the laborer works for q
living.
I, therefore, the carpenter and the
plumber charge twice what their
time is worth and do ha,f a days
work every twenty-four hours, that
fact alone will send rents above the
ability of the laborer to live in "a
good house, whatever his wage.
The owner May be to blame as &
temporary profiteer, but no power or
earth could keep up high rents il
there were houses enough for all the
people.
The next effect of this double
ended profiteering of both the en-
ployee and the manufacturer is tx
breaw dokn the buying power of TIT