The Connecticut labor news., 1922-02-17


 profit.
 Buried in the census figures, how packers as the profteers. The hig do with this story.
 Nebraska is about eighteenth in inn portance as a manufacturing state, it's products totaling $5o6,ooo,ooo. This importance is due to the slaughtering and meat packing industry with a production value of $3o3,ooo, 900, to the flour mill and grist mill industry 900, and to the butter industry with a production value of $37,ooo ooo, These account for four-ffths of the production of Nebraska Another fifth is included under the sweeping caption of "all other industries" in accordance with the census bureaus policy of concealing all figures on monopolies.
 Wage Proportion Drops.
 The relation of wages to the value of products is not proof of low wages, but it is at least an interesting means of comparing one state with another or one industry with another. In 1919 in the entire United States 16.o per cent. of the value of products manufactured is charged off to wages. In the state of Nebraska the aver age drops to " per cent.
 Wages in some industries are high in relation to production, but the av- craze is brought down by the pack ing industries.
 The percentage in the slaughtering and meaf-packing industries is 4.O; butter industry 3.I; flour mill and grist mill industry 2.3. It is no won der that the average is low. Trans lated into practical language it means that for every $Ioo worth of meat passing through the meat-packing in dustry labor is paid $4.6o in wages. At this rate labor is not adding alarmingly to the high cost of meat products and it does not constitute a reason for cutting wages.
 On the basis of these figures alone
 
 dear public to the effect that he pays the farmer $o5.4o for the steer and consequently does not make a cent profit. But the census of manufac- lures subtracts the cost of materials and gets a figure which it calls "Value Added by Manufacture"
 In the entire state of Nebraska this added value totals $II5,ooo, 900, of which wages constitute $46ooo,o 900, or 40 per cent. The average for the United States for 1919 was 42.1 per cent, showing that in this respect the figures are running truer to average form. Back in 1899, however, the percentage was 26, showing that la bor is gradually approaching some thing like it's average share in the returns from industry in Nebraska In this respect it is doing even better in the slaughtering and meat packing industry because of organization since 1899 and 43.4 per cent, or $13,ooo,- facture in that industry goes to wages.
 Wages in Flour Industry,
 The same census, however, shows that wages in the flour mill and grist mill industries were $I,2oo,ooo, or 2I per cent of the $5,ooo,ooo added by manufacture. Wages in the butter industry were $I,Ioo,o ,ooo, or PIG per cent of the $5, 5,5oo,ooo added by manu- facture. The deduction from this is that labor is either not getting it's fair share of the value added by manu- facture or the manufacturers are charging more to the public for their product than the industry warrants.
 Separate analysis of the three lead ing industries of Nebraska is made by the Census Bureau except for such products as "can not be shown separately without disclosing indi- vidual operations" This analysis shows that the total cost of materials in the meat packing industry in creased $I77,28o,256, or 1883 per cent, and the total value of products $1oo,345,57o, or 1908 per cent, dur ing the period 1914 to 1919. These increases are due," says the report, "if part to actual production, but chiefly to the increase per unit of cost and value in 1919 as compared