The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1924-07-09

lions of dollars in funds really
the Morris & Co. pension plan
meat packers by G. w. Armstro
sioners. These aged or incapacit
and children stand to be defrau
support as a result of the sum-
mary discontinuance of the pen
sion system following the mer-
ger of the Morris and Armour
corporations.
Armstrong puts it up to Judge l. c.
Ryner of the Chicago circuit court to
decide whether these veteran en-
ployes and their families are to be de-
prived of wages actually earned
simply because financiers pulled off a
giant merger He argues that the en-
ployes have fulfilled their part of the
contract by at least 20 years of con-
tinuous service at wages below what
they would have received without the
pension system and that fulfllment
of it's side is now binding upon the
corporation. The employees have acted
in good faith and it is up to the court
to prevent their being deprived of
compensation.
Pensions Mean Lower Wages.
Industrial pensions, Armstrong
proves by an array of economic au-
thority, are merely deferred pay. EN-
ployes accept lower wages and refuse
more lucrative employment in view of
the company's contract to maintain
them and their families at the end Of
20 years or more of faithful service.
They pay for their own pensions which
are therefore in a sense gift or
gratuity which the employer can give
or withhold at pleasure.
ut is generally agreed by econom-
lists" he quotes from Carnegie Foun-
dation Bulletin No. 8, that free pen
sion provided by an employer is in ef
feet part of wages. In order to get
a full understanding Of old age and
service pensions they should be con-
sidered as part of the real wages of
workman. A pension system con-
sidered as a part of the real wages of
an employee is really paid by the en-
ploye, not perhaps in money, but in
the foregoing of an increase in wages
which he might obtain except for the
establishment of the pension system"
In it's 1922 report the Carnegie foun-
dalton says: Since pensions consti-
tute deferred pay they are technically
paid out of the employees savings or
out of technical deductions from the
full market value of the employees
services" 1t is these savings result
ing from deductions from the full
value of the employees services that
the packer financiers are trying to
make away with.
High Authorities Agree.
Other citations to the same effect
in Armstrong; brief include the Illi-
nois pension laws commission, the
Massachusetts commission on pen
sions, the Wisconsin pension laws
commission, Luther Conant's Critical
Analysis of Industrial Pension Sys-
TENS and the Courtney commission of
Great Britain. The Illinois commits
sion says: Whether the contribution
to a pension fund be taken wholly
from the employees wages or be paid
wholly by the employer or derived
in part from each, these contributions
are in all three cases to be regarded
as in reality deduction from wages"
From the Pay Envelope.
4, Morris and company have for years
been making such deductions from the
wages of their employees under agree
ment to pay them back in pensions
when they were old or incapacitated,
or in case of death to pension their
widows. But when the financiers af-
fected the merger they disregarded
the legitimate interest thus created
for the employees in the enormous
funds of the corporation. The result
ing legal case, according to Arm
strong, is of interest to millions of
wage earners because II will establish
whether employees have any real rights
in these pension systems which the
courts will protect or whether they
may become frauds by which cor
porations can get something for moth
ing.
THE extent to which employers
have adopted pension systems and the
reason why they are satisfied with the
results will be taken up in the second