Labor agent

“ The Economics of Labor.—In complex society there are many divisions or groups of laborers—laborers of body and laborers of mind. Every one who is performing a legitimate service, which is sought for and remunerative to the laborer and serviceable to the public, is a laborer. At the base of all industry and social activity are the industrial wage-earners, who by their toil work the mines, the factories, the great steel and iron industries, the railroads, the electric-power plants and other industries. ”

“ He consolidates and harmonizes every branch of wage labor in the industry, until should he declare the present owners expropriated the industry would go along its accustomed course in the hands of the industrial organization without any shock or jar to the rest of us. ”

“ A wage earner who is working outside his specialty, and who has stated his wish that this be only temporary, shall retain his place on the register on the Department of Labor Distribution until he gets work at his vocation. ”

“ 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. ”

“ “There is this difference— where a man works for himself, or where, when working for an employer, he takes his wages in kind, his wages depend upon the result of his labor. Should that, from any misadventure, prove futile, he gets nothing. When he works for an employer, however, he gets his wages anyhow—they depend upon the performance of the labor, not upon the result of the labor.” ”

“ Long hours, the employment of women and children, the weakened economic position of the laborer, fluctuations in production, liability to be without employment, industrial accidents, the abolition of personal ties between employer and employe, the crowding of workmen into a small space to work by day and their concentration in city tenements by night—these are some of the problems for which the factory system must be held responsible. The condition and position of labor have been vitally affected. ”

“ Recognition of this fact effectually destroys much criticism of the theory.
The interest of the wage-worker, as wage-worker, is to receive the largest wage possible for the least number of hours spent in labor. The interest of the employer, as employer, on the other hand, is to secure from the worker as many hours of service, as much labor power, as possible for the lowest wage which the worker can be induced to accept. The workers employed in a factory may be divided by a hundred different forces. ”

“ Let us examine more closely this system for the remuneration of labor, as set forth by the English, French, German and Italian Collectivists. [1]
It comes very much to this: Every one works, be it in fields, in factories, in schools, in hospitals or what not. The working day is regulated by the state, to which belong the soil, factories, means of communication and all the rest. Each worker, having done a day's work, receives a labor note, stamped, let us say, with these words: eight hours of labor. ”

“ 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 the organized workers, caring nothing for the interests of any particular employer, demand improved conditions of labor, though the inefficient employer be eliminated and all production be carried on by a few capable employers doing business on a large scale and able to pay the highest wages. ”

“ With the extension of trade and the wider use of machinery the number and power of the adult employed workmen increased, and with their increase of power came a jealousy, on the one hand, toward the masters; on the other, toward the apprentices, who were regarded as cheapening labor when employed in too great numbers. The conflict which arose between employer and employed gradually merged into one between capital and labor. ”

“ Also, because of the variety of commercial enterprises which are the legitimate prey of the cooperative society, the demand for skilled workers is much more varied than in the organized labor movement. ”

“ We are not insisting, be it understood, on a four-hour or eight-hour system of labor. No industry or occupation will be hampered or meddled with by doing justice to the laborer in the way proposed. The railroad employee, printer, baker, factory hand, etc., can work on as now, but they must be compensated with just wages for the labor done. ”

“ No more truly in the Labor category are the services of “wage-workers” than are those of farmers, of manufacturers, of merchants, of brokers, of bankers, of architects, of lawyers, of physicians, of engineers, of authors, publishers, teachers, or the services of any other useful workers who participate in the intricate processes of Economic production. All are within the Labor category. ”

“ That labor is best, in which the laborer knows that he will derive the profits of his industry, that his employment depends upon his diligence, and his reward upon this assiduity. He then has every motive to excite him to exertion, and to animate him in perseverance. He knows that if he is treated badly he can exchange his employer, for one who will better estimate his service ”

“ Although these conditions were favorable at first, owing to the simple reason that the employers had to make them favorable in order to obtain a sufficient number of workers, they soon deteriorated when the supply of available labor power increased. ”

“ After the enactment of the Fair Labor Standards Act, by interpretations of the Wage and Hour Administrator, it was held that certain preparatory activities such as sharpening the tools, oiling the machinery, preparing his machinery for work, were so closely related to his productive activity that the employer must compensate the employee for it. ”

“ Institutions and persons employing paid labor shall inform the Local Department of Labor Distribution and the respective professional union of each wage earner who quits work, stating the date and the reason thereof. ”

“ The employment of men, the fixing of their wages, hours of labor, and working conditions, the bargaining in respect of these things-whether carried on separately or collectively-each and all constitute intercourse for the purposes of production, not of trade. ”

“ The three kinds of labor are combined in some proportion in every life, but the best and most productive life his most room for hard thinking and self-control.
Operative, executive, speculative labor.—In the advancing complexity of society a still more important classification of labor is apparent. If a man's effort of any kind is simply to follow directions in an established routine, it is called operative labor, and the laborer becomes an operative. He works usually by the day, hour or piece, under a foreman or overseer. ”

“ But such cases are rare compared to the much larger number of instances in which the non-union laborer is to be considered as essentially the individual industrial derelict. In the competition among laboring men for work there will always be a certain considerable proportion who, in order to get some kind of work for a while, will accept almost any conditions of labor or scale of reward offered to them. ”

“ Thus the reader will see that when the manufacturers could not induce a single overseer to give up their poor to be worked in the factories, they had recourse to the Poor Law Commissioners, who here offer them all the means at their disposal to enable them to effect their purpose. It would occupy too much of our space were we to follow in detail, this scheme of the manufacturers to reduce the wages of labor. ”

“ What buyers and sellers, that is to say, the whole practical world, needs, is not disquisitions on Morals from Press or Pulpit, but an inner ear to hear the true click of Conscience, and the quick and open answer in honest action.
(2) A second general cause of the Labor-troubles of the past and present has been a strong tendency to neglect the special preparation for their peculiar functions by both capitalists and laborers. A successful employer of laborers year in and year out to their advantage and his own is always one who has been trained to that function by special preparations. ”

“ The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 regulates wages and hours not only of employees who are 'engaged in commerce' but also those engaged 'in the production of goods for commerce.' Sections 6, 7, 52 Stat. ”

“ Taking American industry as a whole, labor has had no share in ownership or management. |The human relation in industry.| The relation of the worker to industry has been strictly that of a hired employee who does his job, takes his pay, and calls the account square. But of late years it has been becoming apparent that this relation does not satisfy the workman altogether and that he does not regard wages alone as a sufficient recompense for his share in industrial production. ”

“ I believe that under modern industrial conditions it is often necessary, and even where not necessary it is yet often wise, that there should be organization of labor in order better to secure the rights of the individual wage-worker. ”

“ The minutest system of subdivided labor now rules here as in all trades. When a coat is in question, it is no longer the master-tailor, journeyman and apprentices who prepare it, but a legion of cutters, basters, machinists, pressers, fellers, button-hole, and [Pg 36] general workers, who find the learning of any one alone of the branches an easy matter, and so rush into the trade, the fiercest and most incessant competition being the instant result. ”

“ In other words, there is a tendency for work to be highly valued when the number of men available for doing it is small and when the work is performed with the aid of highly perfected machinery, in a community in which able business men are plentiful. Each laborer will find his services easily sold for good wages; for his labor will be an important aid to production. ”

“ If the numbers in any group of wage earners are high relative to the uses in which the employment of the members of that group results in a considerable addition to the product of market values, the wages of that group will be low, and vice versa. The need of the productive system for any kind of labor, relative to the supply available to fill that need is an important factor in determining the reward paid for that labor. ”

“ Each wage earner, on entering the employment of an enterprise, establishment or institution employing paid labor, shall present his labor booklet to the management thereof, or on entering the employment of a private individual—to the latter. ”

“ In the most common tasks one has to watch the average workingman in order to prevent his bungling a job. Hands are worth little without some brains; as in the work done, so in the pay won. Our labor is quite as largely uninterested—having no more heart than brains back of the hands. Work is done mechanically by most workingmen, with little pride in doing it well, and little ambition to be continually doing it better.
2. There is too commonly as little sense of identity with the employer's interests, or of concern that any equivalent in work should be rendered for the pay received. ”

“ Local Expulsions of Labor.—When a single employer who is one of many competitors in an industry adopts an important labor-saving device, it may be possible for him to keep all his men employed and to let the improvement show itself wholly as a means of increasing the output. ”

“ The strained and too often disturbed relations existing between the employees and the employers in our great manufacturing establishments have not been favorable to a calm consideration by the wage earner of the effect upon wages of the protective system. The facts that his wages were the highest paid in like callings in the world and that a maintenance of this rate of wages in the absence of protective duties upon the product of his labor was impossible were obscured by the passion evoked by these contests. ”

“ Scientific management, on the contrary, has for its very foundation the firm conviction that the true interests of the two are one and the same; that prosperity for the employer cannot exist through a long term of years unless it is accompanied by prosperity for the employee, and vice versa; and that it is possible to give the workman what he most wants—high wages—and the employer what he wants—a low labor cost—for his manufactures. ”

“ The employers' cry has consistently been: 'We claim to manage our business in our own way, and we will allow no outside interference.' Very well, we examine these industries, solely managed by the employing class, and discover what an appalling state exists in practically every industry. ”

“ I hope that no manual workman who reads these lines will deduce from what I have written that, as things are now, his labour is necessarily more useful than that of the clerk, the lawyer or the shopkeeper. For every unnecessary distributing agent referred to above several producing agents could be named whose work is useless or harmful in the national economy. ”

“ But can the condition of labor be improved? Yes, if labor is entirely in earnest about it. Labor’s principal need is brains. I don’t mean they must increase their own brains; but in their conflicts with employers the laboring men should be led, or their interests should be managed, by men who know both sides of the question. Are there such men in the ranks of the laborers? ”