Labor combination

“ But division of Labor would be useless were it not for Trade. Each of those frontiersmen must trade his share in the other’s habitation for the other’s share in his habitation; each of those messengers must exchange his claim to compensation for delivering one of the other’s two messages for the other’s claim to compensation for delivering one of his. This, then, is the sum and substance of Trade in Economics—adjustments of compensation for specialized Production through division of Labor. ”

“ The task is far beyond our present opportunity. It is worth while, however, for present purposes, to delimit the task sharply, and to attempt a brief enumeration of the most important of the conditions which determine, on the one hand, the need of the productive system for labor, and, on the other hand, the supply of labor—that is, of the relative plenty or scarcity of labor. ”

“ How Improvements which call Labor to a Particular Establishment may displace Labor from a Group.—Another typical case is afforded when some one employer has for a time the exclusive use of a labor-saving device, and pushes his production to the utmost in order to get the full benefit from it. Here are seen the more characteristic effects of such an improvement. It draws labor to the employer who for the time being monopolizes the new instrument of production, but it turns labor from the subgroup of which this employer is a member. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Without organization, the helpless workers were compelled to labor sixteen hours a day.
At the beginning of the nineteenth century factory workers a to be on the job at 4 A. M. and work until dark for a wage that was a mere pittance. A first class mechanic got 50c a day. Laborers worked for three and four dollars a month and board. Women toiled in the cotton mills from dawn till dark for $1.50 a week. ”

“ All this is due to a minute division [pg 182] of labor into as many tasks as there are different operations, each man having, if possible, but one distinct kind of motion. The saving is not only shown in the increased quantity of work, but in the uniform quality as well. All the workmanship is essentially perfect. These advantages appear more strikingly in the manufacturing arts, where the so-called factory system has brought division of labor to perfection. ”

“ To sum up: the more productive capital grows, the more it extends the division of labor and the application of machinery; the more the division of labor and the application of machinery extend, the more does competition extend among the workers, the more do their wages shrink together. ”

“ Thus we see how the mode and means of production are continually transformed and revolutionized, and how the division of labor necessarily brings in its train a greater division of labor; the introduction of machinery a still larger introduction; and production on a large scale—production on a still larger scale. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The sudden and extensive introduction of machinery at the close of the eighteenth century drove hand labor out of employment, and, for a time, caused great suffering among the masses; but in the end it created an ever increasing demand for labor—a new labor more skillful than the old. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The Rise of Trade Unions.—One of the most manifest effects of the introduction of the factory system was the intensification of the distinction between employers and employees. When a large number of laborers were gathered together in one establishment, all in a similar position one to the other and with common interests as to wages, hours of labor, and other conditions of their work, the fact that they were one homogeneous class could hardly escape their recognition. ”

“ And this fact limits the differences of wage levels that may arise between different kinds or groups of labor. For substitution of one type or group of labor for another is one of the ways in which changes in the relative plenty or scarcity of the different types or groups are brought about. ”

“ This we may hope to do by several methods; for example, by reducing the daily hours of labor, by promoting vocational education, by the restriction of child employment, by a better organization of the labor market (see p. 418) , and by providing wholesome recreation for the workers.
Labor is a service. Is Labor a Commodity?—Labor, as a factor in production, receives its return in the form of wages. A generation ago it was customary to speak of labor as a commodity and to say that the worker “sold his labor” for wages. But labor is not a commodity. ”

“ The wage differentials that are established should be such as will make it reasonably certain that industry will be provided with at least the existing proportion of the more skilled grades of labor, and to make it reasonably certain also that the more arduous, dangerous, irregular, and disagreeable work will command the service of as much labor as at present. ”

“ In fact, they will freely choose the kind of productive labor they prefer, and all kinds of work will, in accordance with the law of supply and demand, be reduced in varying proportions to definite quantities of ordinary labor. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Thus, on the verge of each occupation, stand those to whom the inducements between one occupation and another are so nicely balanced that the slightest change is sufficient to determine their labor in one direction or another. Thus, any increase or decrease in the demand for labor of a certain kind cannot, except temporarily, raise wages in that occupation above, nor depress them below, the relative level with wages in other occupations, which is determined by the circumstances previously adverted to, such as relative agreeableness or continuity of employment, etc. ”

“ The division of labor embracing all the particular kinds of productive occupations, is the complete expression of social labor in its material aspect viewed as labor creating use-values. But from the standpoint of commodities and within the process of exchange, it exists only in its results, in the variety of the commodities themselves. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ If the productive organization has at its command a plentiful supply of capital; if in the community there are many men possessed of a high order of business ability; if then, 55 labor for the commoner tasks of production is relatively scarce, the work of the ordinary wage earner will be a means of adding considerably to the total of market values produced. Or, as it is sometimes put, each use of labor will be an important use. Labor will be in great demand, and wages will be high. ”

“ It will be neither an easy or rapid task to make the work in factories and mines very attractive. Beside the attractiveness of labor another power of attraction will come into operation through the wages of labor. ”

“ That not, as in former times, the individual works alone and for his own account, but dozens, hundreds and thousands of men work together in shops, in mines, on huge farms and lands, coöperating according to the most efficient division of labor, while the fruits of this cööperative labor are not reaped by the workers themselves, but are in a great measure appropriated by the owners of the means of production. ”

“ What is said of hand labor applies also, though to a slighter extent, to homework and hand-work done in the factory. The division of labor in the production of a single article among innumerable working-men paves the way for the introduction of machinery. ”

“ In its simpler form, division of labor merely meant that each workman confined himself to a simple occupation and carried through all the processes of production in that particular trade. The cloth-maker, the shoemaker, the implement-maker performed all the work of making cloth, shoes, or implements from start to finish. ”

“ Some of the greatest economic restrictions are not legislative but are what have grown out of customs and practices, especially of labor unions. I shall not here discuss the effect of labor unions upon wages, except in a general way. Wages spring from production and represent the division thereof among capital, management and labor. The aggregate of their shares of the three parties can exceed 100 per cent by no possibility. The conditions of modern civilization are too complex to permit a division of produce in kind. ”

“ But craft union struggles have not always failed in that which they set out to accomplish, although victories are becoming increasingly difficult and impossible with the advance of productive machinery that abolishes the need of skilled laborers. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Let us also observe here that although the division of labor is in this case a mere administrative device, economic results are obtained from it that are similar to those which flow from the division of labor necessitated by the use of machinery: namely, greater efficiency of the worker in the particular branch of work especially assigned to him; increase of the intensity of his toil; decrease, however, of his general skill, and, consequently, "cheaper labor."—Note to the American Edition. ”

“ Perhaps a certain number of yards of cotton cloth, for instance, when sold, actually pay for the wages of laborers and leave a surplus, which the employer appropriates. Perhaps six hours of labor per diem might enable the laborer to create products enough to support himself and to rear up an average family ”

“ Of Capital as a Requisite of Production.
But another set of laborers are to be placed in distinct contrast with these, so far as the grounds on which they receive their remuneration is concerned. These are the men engaged previously in providing the subsistence, and articles by which the former classes of labor can carry on their operations. The previous employment of labor is an indispensable condition to every productive operation, on any other than the very smallest scale. Except the labor of the hunter and fisher, there is scarcely any kind of labor to which the returns are immediate. ”

“ In a factory there are 1000 workers. Their labor-power they have sold at its exchange value, $1 per day per man, a total of $1000. They use up $1000 worth of labor-power, then. They also use up $1000 worth of raw material and wear out the plant to the extent of $100 in the course of their work. Now, instead of working five hours each, that being the amount of time necessary to reproduce the value of their wages, as above described, they all work ten hours. ”