Great Falls tribune. [volume] (Great Falls, Mont.) 1921-current, 1922-08-24
THE STEEL MEMS WAGES,

- A
THE announcement of the big
! steel trust of a twenty per cent
raise in wages came as a great sur
prise to other industries and prob
ably to the steel corporations en-
ployes themselves. Other steel cor
porations have followed suit and it,
is altogether likely that the whole
industry will move forward in the
same way.
1t is particularly encouraging to
the railroad men who have been
recently cut in their pay and are
asking a rehearing before the rail-
road labor board on the allegation
that the cost of living is moving
upward and that the cut made IN
their pay reduces their wage below
a decent living and below the
wages paid in other industries OF
like nature. AS one of the strike
leaders says, the railroad man wills
find it hard to understand why he
should get $2.75 a day while he
could do the same work in a steel
mill and get $500 for it. Without
vouching for the fairness of this
comparison, we have no doubt that
the raise in pay in the steel mills.
accompanied by ar undoubted rise
in the cost of living will result in
the railroad labor board revising
their wages upwards at the rehear-
ing they have applied for. IF the
shopmen had not unwisely gone on
strike and defied the railroad labor
board, they would now have all
that they are at present contending
for, that is to say, their seniority
rights and old jobs, with a good
prospect of a revision upwards in
their pay.
Our understanding is that the
steel trust, which is n%on-union as
far as it's labor is concerned, has
been paying a minimum wage of 80
cents per hour, or $40 per day for
common labor. The new wage will
be SO cents per hours, or $2.88 per
days of eight hours. A consider
able part of their force works
twelve hour shifts, and of course
in that event get one-third more,
as pay is scheduled by the hour.
II will be seen that even with the
twenty per cent increase the pay
of common labor at the steel plants
in the last is not arranged on any
scale of generosity that would
tempt a Montana laber9r. Since
the peak of war time wages the
steel plants have made W cuts OF
twenty per cent each on their en-
ployes. The present increase re-
stores one of these cuts.
But the larger interest of this
news of a wage increase of twenty
per cent in the steel industry rests
In the fact that it is concrete evi'
dence that the period of wage re
auctions as we'll as price reduction:
are about at an end, and a reverss
process is on the road. In the Ions
u supply and demand fixes al
prices including wages, in spite o.
all organized effort to prevent it
Labor is getting scarce. In man,
lines of skilled labor this has beer
apparent for some time. Now it il
more noticeable in the supply o
even unskilled labor, an thos'
seeking unskilled labor can NJ
longer import it from Europe whei
the local supply is exhausted. Tha
makes for a raise in wages. A new
swell in the tide of prosperit,
which seems due soon would un
doubtedly result in a raise of wage
in many lines because of an IN
sufficient supply of labor. On tn
top of that, rising costs Of livinI
are a justification for increase
wages that cannot be ignored, AM
living costs are going up now, an
will go up still faster when on
new tariff laws get in their work