The producers news. [volume] (Plentywood, Mont.) 1918-1937, 1930-12-12

in very much the same way that ruling classes
have always kept the pledges that they made 10
their exploited subjects. No sooner was the crisis
we'll under way than they began cutting wages
right and left.
The simplest method of wage cutting which is
being employed at the present time is to dismiss
an soc an hour man from skilled Job In one 1ac-
tory and to hire him some other job In some
other factory at 45c hour Yesterday was talk
ing with skilled mechanic who had for years held
down what seemed to be permanent job at 800
week. After being cut of work for several months
he finally got job at $3.50 week for an liz
hour day.
second method of wage cutting is met with
particularly in the building trades where collective
agreements between bosses and workers fix wage
scales over a long period of time. There has been
cutting of these wage scales In the building
trades, but building trades workers, members OF
unions with the full knowledge of union officials
are working under the union scale Within the
month have talked with painters and carpenters
who working for S25 a week when the regular
union scale is three times that amount. The same
thing has happened with the collective agreements
in the soft coal fields. The wage scales stand on
paper; in fact wages have been cut far below the
paper rate.
The great majority of recent wage cutting has
affected the casual workers, the unskilled and
organized workers who usually hold Jobs for short
times and who, as they migrate from one job to
another find wage conditions steadily worsening
Officials in labor exchanges report that during re-
cent weeks employers call up offering %, 80 or 35c
an hour for work that year ago was paying twice
that price.
AS the crisis deepens and the supply of available
labor increases the rate which employers are will
ing to offer for unskilled labor goes down. An of
fcial in state labor exchange told me recently
that employers in household labor are now fire.
quently calling up and offering board and room
in exchange for full time work. When the labor
exchange refused to supply workers under these
conditions the answer was, "Arent they unemploy-
ed? Wouldn't they be better off working for room
and board than not working at all?"
Some state labor exchanges and labor bureaus
have made an attempt to maintain certain wage
standards and have resisted wage cutting to a de-
gree, but the recently organized unemployment re-
lief committees have engaged in prOmiscuous
campaign for employing the unemployed. These
organizations have had no wage standards and
their efforts have resulted in lowering the wage
rates at which bosses were able 10 hire labor
Through the industrial areas of New England.
middle Atlantic and north central states wages
are being steadily cut. The promises of Hoovers
business advisors made in the winter of 1929-30
have been repudiated. Business men are put for
profit and one method of securing profit is to re-
duce costs by reducing wages. The huge volume
OF unemployment which has arisen out of the pres
ent depression has given the American business
class golden opportunity to harvest profits at the
expense of wage workers.