Labor relations

“ The purposes of the union are various. The mutual aid and benefit feature is secondary to the protective purpose, which is to secure the most favorable conditions of labor that can be obtained. This includes efforts to raise wages and to prevent their fall, reduction of hours of labor and prevention of their increase, the regulation of apprentices, overtime, piecework, and many other difficulties which arise in the complicated relations of labor and capital. ”

“ That principle has particular application in the construction of labor legislation which is 'to a marked degree, the result of conflict and compromise between strong contending forces and deeply held views on the role of organized labor in the free economic life of the Nation and the appropriate balance to be struck between the uncontrolled power of management and labor to further their respective interests.' Local 1976, United Brotherhood of Carpenters, etc. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Let us do all we can to help labor. Give it a square deal—an honest and generous wage for an honest day's work. Labor is neither a commodity or a chapel; it's human. Let us inject more of the human element into our dealings with labor and with those of others. ”

“ Without organization of Labor — where Capital, Management, and the Community are organized — what equality of relationship can there possibly be between the four parties to industry? And where, under such a condition, are the individual units of Labor likely to find themselves in the teeth of a world competition, more relentless where Labor is concerned than in the case of Capital or Management? ”

“ Why is it that we have a labor question at all? It is for the simple and very sufficient reason that the laboring man and the employer are not intimate associates now, as they used to be in time past. Most of our laws were formed in the age when employer and employees knew each other, knew each other's characters, were associates with each other, dealt with each other as man with man. ”

“ 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. ”

“ If all employers and all employees knew these men and knew what their laborers thought of them and how their laborers get on with them the face of Labor toward Capital—the face of this country toward the world and toward itself and toward every man in it would be changed in a week. ”

“ I am using the term workers in contradistinction to the owners, those who live by monopolizing the means whereby other men live, and exacting from the others a tribute for the right to work. Also, I should explain that when I speak of labor, I do not mean the old-style labor unions which hold the field today. ”

“ In order to avoid the inconveniency of such situations, every prudent man in every period of society, after the first establishment of the divisions of labor, must naturally have endeavored to manage his affairs in such a manner as to have at all times by him, besides the peculiar produce of his own industry, a certain quantity of some one commodity or other, such as he imagined few people would be likely to refuse in exchange for the produce of their industry.
Labor is the one paramount force which develops the resources of the world. ”

“ It should be said at the outset of this chapter that, in a very true sense, practically all men are laborers. That into which a man puts his energy and by which he earns his living, is his labor, whether it be work of the hand or the head. But the labor we are to consider in this chapter is that of the men who work for wages; and we will also make the arbitrary distinction that it is that of the men who work for wages in some branch of manufacturing, mining, trade, or transportation, the great divisions of modern industry which we have thus far considered. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Labor is here honored and respected, and great examples incite us to action. All around us in the professions, in the marts of commerce, on the exchange, where merchant-princes and capitalists do congregate; in these manufactories and workshops, where the products of every clime are fashioned into a thousand forms of utility and beauty; on these smiling farms, fertilized by the sweat of free labor; in every position of private and of public life, are our associates, who were but yesterday "hireling laborers," "mud-sills," "slaves." ”

“ THE RIGHT TO WORK 10. All citizens able to work have the right to employment at their vocations and for remuneration fixed for such class of work.
Note. The District Exchange Bureaus of the Department of Labor Distribution may, by agreement with the respective unions, assign individual wage earners or groups of them to work at other trades if there is no demand for labor at the vocations of the persons in question. ”

“ The labor union movement, unlike the political socialist revolutionary movement, undertakes in its operation to supply labor with a certain working content, which the administrative scheme of industry has excluded from the experience of its workers. ”

“ As I hinted before, in the new order of things all branches of labor will be organized, similar to the arrangements we see to day in large factories, large estates, or institutions of the government. Unnecessary work will be avoided and the reward for work done will be greater. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ We must hearten and quicken the spirit and efficiency of labor throughout our whole industrial system by everywhere and in all occupations doing justice to the laborer, not only by paying a living wage but also by making all the conditions that surround labor what they ought to be. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Two other functions of the economic organization of society remain to be considered, the distribution of labor and its remuneration. In the organization of industry society will have to achieve a twofold result, a maximum of general, social efficiency, on the one hand, and of personal liberty and comfort to the workers on the other. The state would not only guarantee the right to labor, but, as a corollary, it would impose the duty of labor upon every competent person. ”

“ The emancipation of labor demands the promotion of the instruments of labor to the common property of society and the co-operative regulation of the total labor, with a fair distribution of the proceeds 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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? ”

“ Labor has awakened the state to a sense of responsibility for its great sins of neglect and has made it conscious of its social duties. Labor, like other elements of society, has often been selfish, narrow, vindictive ”

“ Consider, for example, the Industrial Workers of the World: The amount of energy and unselfish devotion lavished upon that organization would have wrought miracles in developing and extending the trade unions ”

“ What is a labor union? An organization formed by wage workers to serve their interest as wage workers. 2. What is the interest of the worker as a wage laborer? To secure an adequate wage, reasonable hours, and good working conditions under capitalism. To overthrow capitalism is the objective of the labor movement. ”

“ In these two years you will happen on your quota of labor stories to cover. The machinists, the railroaders, the miners, the printers, or some one piece of the trade union movement gets more and more of your interest. Put on overalls, break a bone or two, live lean and fight around inside your fellows' union. Beside observing what they don't read, you will learn what men live for and what little they work for. ”

“ 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. ”

“ We believe in the effort of employer and employees to sit down around a table and, meeting thus, face to face, and having a better understanding of each other's position in regard to conditions of labor, to hours, standards, etc., and after reaching an amicable understanding to enter into an agreement for collective bargaining that is to cover wages, hours of labor, conditions of employment, etc. ”

“ We now approach a yet more thorny subject than the organisation of the workers. What should be the remuneration of labor—what the share of the product taken respectively by the individual, the municipality, and the State?
The answer depends on the answer to a previous question. Is the organisation of the unemployed to be undertaken in order to transform them into self-supporting, self-respecting citizens; or is it to be carried on as a form of exploitation, utilising pauper labor for the production of profit for non-paupers? ”

“ The intelligent and considerate spirit in which he looked on the struggles of the working class, while at the same time fully realising both the rights and responsibilities of employers, led to the belief that in his hands the problem of the relations of capital and labour would have found a solution acceptable to all. ”

“ We do not look upon the labour union as an ultimate conception of labour, but we believe that whatever progress has been made in the lot of the labourer has been due wholly to the organization of the wage-workers! ”

“ The effect of the vocations and the division of labor is to produce, in the first instance, not social groups, but vocational types, the actor, the plumber, and the lumber-jack. The organizations, like the trade and labor unions, which men of the same trade or profession form are based on common interests. ”

“ 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 ”