Jobber

“ The jobber usually divides the larger purchased quantities into smaller or job lots in any quantity suitable to the retailer. The wholesaler and the jobber may be combined into one individual or firm. ”

“ None but those who are in the business know the assiduous attention with which the dry-goods jobber follows up his customers. None but they know the urgent necessity of doing this. The jobber may have travelled a thousand miles to make his customer's acquaintance, and to prevail upon him to come to Boston to make his purchases ”

“ The same thing holds good with you; if you were buying some of your supplies from the jobber and the jobber did not send you good goods, you may try him once more and if he again sends you poor goods, the third time you certainly will not buy from him, but you will go to some other jobber who will give you the best goods for your money. ”

“ A jobber is one who buys from importers and manufacturers and sells to retailers. He is constantly in the market for bargains. The names jobber and wholesaler are often used in the same sense, but a jobber sometimes sells to wholesalers. ”

“ He thus becomes a jobber in " the American market," or in the " South African market," or in the " Consols market "; or in any other market which he chooses. At the beginning of his career he usually has to rely for business on such friends as he has made in the house, while serving his time as a clerk to a broker; but if he shows ability for the work he soon becomes known to a wider circle and may eventually make for himself a position of considerable importance in the house. A jobber's method of doing business is simple in appearance. ”

“ The aggregate capital tied up in these stocks throughout the country is enormous, but necessary, as the jobber must at all times be ready to deliver to the retailer whatever is wanted in any of his lines. Wholesale jobbers occupy a unique position in the scheme of things. ”

“ One of the oldest established agencies for handling mill products is the dry goods jobber, and it is to be remarked that many large retail houses do also a substantial jobbing business, though generally less so in cottons than in other classes of fabrics. ”

“ Matches and such things, sealing-wax, and patent mixtures for lighting fires are further resources of such venders. Others, so-called jobbers, go about the streets seeking small jobs. Many of these succeed in getting a day’s work, many are not so fortunate. ”

“ Speculation is the romance of trade, and casts contempt upon all its sober realities. It renders the stock-jobber a magician, and the exchange a region of enchantment. It elevates the merchant into a kind of knight-errant, or rather a commercial Quixote. The slow but sure gains of snug percentage become despicable in his eyes; no "operation" is thought worthy of attention that does not double or treble the investment. No business is worth following that does not promise an immediate fortune. ”

“ If they find a person to be respectable, they will offer to do business with him on the principle of their brethren, and also exact the one-eighth per cent, as they do, trusting to his honour, that (although they do not know where he lives) he will appear on or before the settling day to balance the account, and pay or receive the difference.{23}
These jobbers speculate a great deal upon puts and calls, and will give a chance sometimes for a mere trifle. ”

“ Figure 102 shows how many different concerns stand between the manufacturer and those who buy his goods; the manufacturer turns his product over to the commission man who unloads it on the jobber or wholesaler, who sends drummers on the road, who make the retailer buy it, who hands it out over the counter to his customers, who are merely acquaintances of his.
All of the middlemen make big profits while the manufacturer and the retailer have to be satisfied [175] with a very small margin and the consumer knows that he is paying several prices too many for the article he buys. ”

“ I at once replied that my master had sent me to town to hire myself out for a few weeks, and that I was ready to go with him immediately. The joy I felt at finding employment so overcame me, that all thought of my wages was forgotten. Bidding farewell to the man who had given me my breakfast, and thanking him in my heart for his kindness, I followed my new employer, who informed me that he had engaged to remove a thousand bales of cotton from a large warehouse, to the end of a wharf at which a ship lay, that was taking in the cotton as a load. ”

“ Who is it that the bosses fear whene'er they hear the name—
Because they know he's out to beat their dirty, rotten game;
Who is it that is fighting to set the wage-slaves free?
Who is it says the boss must work, the same as you or me? ”

“ Labor in the Old and the New Industrial Order.—So long as the system of hand-industry was in existence there was no sharp division of employers and laborers into two separate classes. The employer was himself a workman at the loom, the bench, or the forge. He might have as helpers a couple of apprentices who were learning the trade, and perhaps a journeyman or two; but rarely were there more than a half dozen men or women employed in a single establishment. ”

“ But whatever Fate may have in store for my dear little Georgie and her chosen co-worker, of one thing I am sure,—that, fare as they may with worldly fortune, they will never be content, having tasted of the salt of work, to feed again on the honey-bread of idleness, or become drones in the working-hive, but will persevere to the end in the principles and practices of what in the best sense of the word may be called their Labor Union. ”

“ They proved themselves to be labor sons
In all of the workers' fights;
They have been hounded by power unbounded
Of capitalists throughout the land,
But all are astounded, our foes are confounded
For we still remain a union grand.
Then hail to this fighting band!
You live on coffee and on doughnuts;
The Boss lives on porterhouse steak.
You work ten hours a day and live in huts;
The Boss lives in the palace you make.
You face starvation, hunger, privation,
But the Boss is always well fed. ”

“ Now that I’m a boss I have to take everybody’s lip, because I can’t strike. I can’t go to my boss and demand higher wages and easier hours, because my boss is the market. But I don’t suppose there’s anything on earth that interests you less than labor problems. ”

“ Come into our ranks, ye shirkers, for we now rule this land.
Work or starve, the workers said, for you must earn your bread.
Then into their ranks came the masters and joined the workers' song;
Then into their ranks came the masters and joined the workers' song.
All workers, "The Army of Production," in One Big Union, regardless of age, creed, color or sex, is invincible.
Labor is entitled to all it produces. An injury to one is an injury to all. ”

“ The employer cannot do his share unless the worker does his, and the worker is too quick to take a chance. The apprentice is usually cautious enough, but the old hand grows unwary. Ninety-nine times he thrusts his arm in among belts whirling at lightning speed and escapes, but the hundredth time the arm is caught and mangled. ”

“ After he has found a man and wants to take him on, then you talk to the prospective employee, and you do the hiring. Hiring and firing the men should be your prerogative. This will make all of them respect you without respecting their foreman the less and they will do more and better work by knowing that you are the real boss of the works.
The Stock Room.—The tools that belong to the shop and the stock, or raw materials, should be kept under lock and key in the stock-room and a stock-clerk should be put in charge of and made responsible for them. ”

“ Labour troubles were rife in the printing trade, and a conspiracy was formed among the employes of 'The Times' to stop the publication of the paper by striking without notice. 'The strike took place on a Saturday morning. Mr. Walter had only a few hours' notice of this formidable design. ... Having collected a few apprentices from half a dozen different quarters, and a few inferior workmen anxious to obtain employment on any terms, he determined to set a memorable example of what one man's energy can accomplish. ”

“ Generally speaking a workman is a man employed in manual labor, whether skilled or unskilled, an artificer, mechanic or artisan, and an operative is a factory hand, one who operates machinery. Webster's New International Dictionary. There is a marked distinction between a workman and an employee. Although in a general sense all workmen and operatives are employees, yet all employees are not workmen or operatives within the meaning of this law. The words 'workmen' and 'operatives' are used in their narrower meaning. ”

“ Give every worker a chance to work each day;
Let's all join together and to the Boss all say,
CHORUS:
SABOTAGE.
Make it too expensive for the boss to take the lives and liberty of the workers. Stop the endless court trials by using the Wooden Shoe on the job. ”

“ Oftentimes the employee lived under the same roof with his employer, enjoyed the same recreations, and ate at the same table. The skilful, competent, shrewd employer gathered around him the best men in the trade. He profited greatly and his men shared in his prosperity. The invention of machinery and the great enlargement of industrial units makes such relationship between employer and employee impossible. ”

“ Truax doesn’t, but you do know—that the whole office system makes pale, timid, nervous people out of all the clerks—”
“But, good heavens! child, the employers have just as hard a time. Talk about being nervous! Take it in our game. The salesman does the missionary work, but the employer is the one who has to worry. Take some big deal that seems just about to get across—and then falls through just when you reach for the contract and draw a breath of relief. ”

“ When we come to questions between labor and its employers, more than this is true. The employers of labor as a class are closely in sympathy with the honest desire of their men to better themselves, and the constant increase in the employment of arbitration to settle difficulties, the experiments in co-operation and profit-sharing, and the furnishing of cheap and good houses to the workers are all evidences of this fact. ”

“ Piece-work also shows that in the wage-earning world there is a group of men somewhat analogous to the retail shopkeepers, possessing the confidence of the employer, and not belonging to the proletariat class. ”

“ The wage worker, who entered into the manufacturing premises of the employer full of the pride of his calling and often with his own tools, became then a small cog in a gigantic, relentless piece of working machinery. ”

“ He noticed that now and then a workman cast a glance at his windows, and he knew they cursed him in their hearts as standing between them and their demands, for they were well aware that the firm would succumb did Sartwell but give the word. The manager knew that at their meetings their leader had said none was so hard on workingmen as a workman who had risen from the ranks. ”

“ The manager chewed the handle of his pen, and thought something out with himself; his eyes were on the pad before him.
"We've got to take on a lot of new men for the next two years—as many as we can of skilled workmen. The break will have to be made sometime. Anyhow, if you'll risk it they've got a job for you in Shed Number Two—cutting and squaring for a while—forty cents an hour—eight hour day. I'll telephone to the boss if you want it." ”

“ This way is so natural that it is practiced everywhere, even nowadays, in all industries, in competition with all possible systems of fines, docking of wages, supervision, etc.; a workman may enter the factory at the appointed time, but if he does his work badly, if he hinders his comrades by his laziness or other defects, if he is quarrelsome, there is an end of it; he is compelled to leave the workshop. ”

“ Where the workers can all join the fight;
So now on the soap box boldly he stands,
A singing with all of his might:
CHORUS:
There are but two nationalities, a nation of Masters, and a nation of Slaves.
One active agitating worker in the industry, is worth a dozen in the jungle.
One Big Union, One Enemy—The Boss. ”

“ But can anyone believe that a shoe factory worker, one of a hundred men, each doing a small part of the complete whole, standing before a machine for instance and listening to this ticktack all day long—that such a man has any joy in his work or any pride in the ultimate product? The silk worker for instance may make beautiful things, fine shimmering silk. ”

“ The laborer whom he saw in the early morning swinging his dinner pail while with light steps he marched to the daily task in mill and factory, and whom he watched in the evening's dusk after the factory sirens had blown the working man's curfew, hurrying home anxious to reach his humble fireside, and for whom heretofore he had only known feelings of deepest contempt, suddenly had become a man who benefitted preciously far more of his life than any yegg he could recall. ”

“ Toward the close of the era the masters were, typically, employers of skilled labour and foremen in their own shop, except in the frequent case where they altogether ceased to work at the trade and gave their whole attention to the business side of the industry. ”

“ There are hundreds of thousands of small masters who are obliged on Saturday to run about for hours in order to borrow the week's pay for their workers and who are happy if their profit is equal to the wages of a factory laborer. ”