New-York tribune., 1921-12-22
Labor Union Abuses

A feature Of the communication,
from the pen of Samuel Unternlyer,
which the Lockwood committee has
sent to the labor unions of the build
ing trades is the strict avoidance of
anything construable into an attack
on the unions as such or on essential
labor union principles.
The rights of unions to exist, to
make collective bargains, to improve
their condition by associated effort,
are conceded. No echo is heard of
the doctrine that labor, which has TO
do with flesh and blood, is merely a
commodity, or of the doctrine that
an employer is altogether master in
his own factory, or of the doctrine
that power Of control over an indus
try is entirely with capital. The gen
eral soundness of labor union princi-
pies is thus acknowledged, and capi-
tai and labor, each doing it's part,
are conceived of as equal partners
in and sharers of the fruits of in
dustry.
The criticism is exclusively of the
abuses of labor unionism--of the
system as it works in fact rather
than as it is supportable in theory.
This distinction, naturally enough, is
not sufficiently kept in mind either
by unions or their critics. Few i'm
portant employers are now funda-
mentally anti-union. The outcry for
the open shop is more in protest
against what is done in the name of
unionism than against basic unionist
ideas.
And the Lockwood statement goes
even further than this. The evils
that it indicts and would end are
those which are against the interest
of every man or woman who works
for wages. When the amount Of
work a man may do is artificially
limited the greatest sufferer is not
The employer, who adjusts his prices
10 conditions, but the wage worker.
He is guilty of the great social sin
of lessening the total Of production,
and this means a lessening of the
average compensation of the wage
worker, for his real wages come, and
can only come, from production.
Another long list of regulations,
those designed to decrease the num-
ber of workers in an industry by
rules relating to apprentices and the
like, are at the expense of fellow
workers rather than at the expense
of employers. Such rules attempt to
establish labor aristocracy whose
membership, according to the aristo-
cratic habit, grabs more than its fair
share Of the gross labor product
When carpenters and the like are
overpaid other laborers are neces-
sarily underpaid. Nothing is more
absurd than the claim that labor
union regulations are in the general
interest of all laborers.
Labor leaders now generally see
the impolicy of unionist abuses, but
they run away from their conclu-
sions in times of crisis. AS they bow
to the storm Of ignorance they plead
that if they did not yield they would
lose their authority. This is an
argument of cowardice.' A start will
be made toward genuinely inprov-
ing conditions when labor leaders
who see the truth do not shrink
from declaring it.
The Lockwood committee, of course,
has no hope that long established
walls Of prejudice will fall at the
blast from it's horn. But it's report
will contribute in some degree to
general education. The report has
the merit of striking at the heart of
the present unionist problem, instead
Of distracting attention by discuss
ing that which is no longer seriously
disputed.