Twin city review. [volume] (Champaign, Ill.) 19??-1929, 1923-05-11
IGNORE WASTED LABOR POWER

is on the danger Of imitation.
But there is no word Of caution OF
the danger of an inflated labor supply
Business men are continuously re
minded of the price they will pay Sol
an orgy or price boosting and unstable
| expansion.
But in the so-called "labor market
the widest initiation is favored. II
they can increase the number OF
workers and reduce wages they are
blind to costs. They ignore the price
that they, as well as society, must
pay in the days of industrial depres.
sion.
Armies of unemployed, illiteracy
and the mob spirit are of no concern
to these alleged far-sighted business
men.
They care nothing for the future
when labor is involved. They want a
surplus of the cheapest labor in the
world, and they want it now.
These business men repeat the toast
of French reaction: AFTER US the del
uge."
They are the individuals who loudly
proclaimed three years ago that labor
was not doing fair days work and
was Sinking on the job"
This has been abandoned for the
latest alluremetn: Labor shortage!
Industries threatened with labor
famine! Less stringent immigration
laws necessary!
Not one of these business men sug-
gest that the labor power now here be
conserved; that the disgraceful and
costly labor turnover be minimized;
that fatalities and accidents be re-
duced and occupatlonal diseases end
ed.
Millions of working days are an
nually lost as is untold wealth, be-
cause of these reflections on the
Wanted ingenuity and organizing
ability of our industrial captains.
When it directed harvesters for
western wheat fields during the war,
the government indicated how man
power can be conserved. Prior to that
time cries of labor shortage were
heard at every harvest from Okla
homa to the Canadian boundary.
The governments system, based on
voluntary action, changed all this as
the harvesters swept northward with
the ripening grain.
The labor turnover has been called
"the individual strike" Wealth be-
You'd computation is wasted because
of this ceaseless march of dissatisfied
workers in and out of factories be-
cause of low wages, long hours, poor
sanitary conditions, spy systems,
fning systems, harsh rules, tyrannic
foremen dangerous machinery, and
other reasons.
1t costs money to break i'm new
employee. The cost varies with the
job. But the business man makes no
changes in shop conditions. He ac-
cepts the labor turnover with the
same faith that the world at one time
accepted yellow fever as super
natural visitation.
The physical wastes of the labor
turnover are a terrific drain on in
dustry, but the spiritual effects are
far more costly to the nation.
The labor turnover develops in man
a restlessness that passes for "inde-
pendence." But this has no value.
There is nothing constructive behind
it, and it tends to the hobo life.
Business men who continually de-
mand immigration never dream OF
tapping this vast reservoir for good
citizenship and industrial production.
immigration advocates are not in
terested In ending the labor turnover,
or preventing fatalities, accidents,
and sickness. These things are not
even mentioned by them.
They treat workers as they have
treated natural resources-skim the
cream and let other geNrations pay
the cost. -
They make no attempt to adjust
the job to the man.
They would spend dollars to save
pennies: They fatter themselves on
their "shrewdness," if they can manu-
facture false public opinion to sup
port their ignorant, wasteful, and
anti social policy.