Salary increase

“ But, when it is further alleged that even this insufficient remuneration has a tendency to diminish; that there is, in the words of M. Louis Blanc, une baisse continue des salaires; the assertion is in opposition to all accurate information, and to many notorious facts. It has yet to be proved that there is any country in the civilized world where the ordinary wages of labor, estimated either in money or in articles of consumption, are declining; while in many they are, on the whole, on the increase; and an increase which is becoming, not slower, but more rapid. ”

“ Since profits generally are large, production tends to be stimulated and the volume of production increases. The turnover of industry is quickened somewhat. Plants are more fully utilized, and unemployment is small. More overtime is worked. The total earnings of the wage earners are likely to advance more than wage rates. The extent of the divergence between the increase in hourly or piece rates and weekly or yearly earnings is likely to vary greatly according to the nature of the causes of the price movement. ”

“ With these limitations of the terms, wages not only depend upon the relative amount of capital and population, but can not, under the rule of competition, be affected by anything else. Wages (meaning, of course, the general rate) can not rise, but by an increase of the aggregate funds employed in hiring laborers, or a diminution in the number of the competitors for hire; nor fall, except either by a diminution of the funds devoted to paying labor, or by an increase in the number of laborers to be paid. ”

“ Oftentimes the plea for raising salaries is one which is self-propagating. Expenses have been greatly enlarged and the remuneration must keep pace with them. Yes, but will not this very increase lead to increased expenditure? ”

“ The opening which a raise in pay makes for the correction of existing inequities among employees and for the possible substitution of shorter hours, vacations or sick leaves, in lieu of some part of the proposed increase in pay, suggests the infinite opportunities for bargaining that are inherent in an announced readiness of an employer to increase generally the pay of its employees. ”

“ There is a rise in the work, too, which rather overbalances the increase of pay, but that's understood; for a good many years it will be more work than wage, but at the other end I hope it will be more wage than work. ”

“ In certain instances, especially when the combination has first been made, wages have been increased. The Trust and Wages. On the whole, however, it is probable that as yet the wage-earners have succeeded in getting an increase of wages in circumstances substantially similar to those under which their wages would be increased by single corporations. An increase of wages comes only through pressure on their part. Under a prosperous condition of industry it is possible, without materially lowering profits, to increase the wages. ”

“ But if the output increases not at all or in less than the proportion of the increase in pay, there is an inevitable disturbance of the wage equilibrium. In a competitive industry this would compel a speedy readjustment of wages downward. ”

“ It cannot be too strongly emphasized that high rates of wages do not necessarily mean high earnings—they frequently mean no earnings and no work. Increasing the productive efficiency of labour does increase the ability of industry to pay. ”

“ Fluctuation of wages.—Wages in every employment are just as naturally subject to fluctuation under the law of supply and demand as are prices of commodities. Whatever operates to increase the number seeking employment, or to diminish the amount of employment open to competition, reduces the wages. Whatever increases the opportunity for employment, or diminishes the number of persons seeking employment, increases the wages. ”

“ Adequate salaries will result in economies and improved efficiency in the conduct of Government business--gains that will far outweigh the immediate costs. I hope the Congress will expedite action on salary legislation for all Federal employees in all branches of the Government. The only exception I would make is in the case of workers whose pay rates are established by wage boards; a blanket adjustment would destroy the system by which their wages are kept aligned with prevailing rates in particular localities. ”

“ An average earning power continuously higher than usual.
3. A lower cost per unit to the employer as wages automatically increase.
4. A supplemental earning power, or bonus, to the worker above the day wage, the bonus being based on efficiency.
The premium system is a combination of day wage and piece rate, involving the establishment of standard times for stated tasks. It is based on the theory that if, when a standard time has been fairly established, the worker performs a task in less than standard time, he is entitled to a bonus, or extra pay, for the time saved. ”

“ The case of the living wage policy rests upon the opinion that the introduction of living wage standards will give rise to a series of adjustments in production and distribution. And that the net sum of the results of these adjustments, perhaps only after a temporary period of dislocation in some instances, will be to increase the wages of the lowest grades of wage earners—without doing 192 equivalent harm in any other direction. ”

“ The strongest labor unions have not been able to get more than a fifteen per cent. increase in wages, and such an increase is exceptional, at that. What is a fifteen per cent. increase compared to an increase in the cost of living which approximates more than fifty per cent. ”

“ More—why should the wages of the 18,000,000 be diminished that those of the half million may be increased? For an increase cannot be made in the wage rate of one class without a proportionate decrease in that of others. But the wages of labor in protected industries are not permanently increased by protection. Another very important factor in ascertaining the value of wages is the continuance or the steadiness of the employment. Two dollars a day for half the year is no more than a dollar a day for the whole year. Employment in most protected industries is spasmodic. ”

“ Wage-earners, and all men with fixed incomes, were at the mercy of a far worse demon than “hard times.” Reduce the pay of every laborer and salary-earner in the United States forty per cent within six short months, and what would be the effect? The very foundations of constitutional government would hardly bear the strain. ”

“ Whenever wages rise, population quickly increases, and this increase carries the rate of pay down to its former level. The earnings of labor depend upon the number of laborers; a lessening of the number of workers raises their earnings and an increase depresses them; and therefore, if every rise in pay brings about a quick increase of population, labor can never hold its gains; every rise is the cause of a subsequent fall. ”

“ Thus we see that the pig-iron handler with his 60 per cent. increase in wages is not an object for pity but rather a subject for congratulation.
After all, however, facts are in many cases more convincing than opinions or theories, and it is a significant fact that those workmen who have come under this system during the past thirty years have invariably been satisfied with the increase in pay which they have received, while their employers have been equally pleased with their increase in dividends. ”

“ Except as it may affect his fixed capital or current engagements, a diminution of wages can benefit, and an increase of wages injure an employer only in so far as it gives him an advantage or puts him at a disadvantage as compared with other employers. The employer who first succeeds in reducing the wages of his hands, or is first compelled to pay an advance, gains an advantage, or is put at a disadvantage in regard to his competitors, which ceases when the movement includes them also. ”

“ If the salary is fixed without any regard for that law, as, for instance, when I see two engineers leaving college together, both equally well trained and efficient, and one getting forty thousand while the other is satisfied with two; or when I see lawyers and hussars, having no special qualifications, appointed directors of banking companies with immense salaries, I conclude that the salary is not fixed in accordance with the law of supply and demand, but simply through personal interest. ”

“ In judging of the relative merits of fixed salaries as compared with other methods the experiences of individual firms offer no certain data. The relative merits and demerits are best disclosed by a psychological analysis of the manner in which the various devices appeal to the employee's instincts and reason.
When wages are based on commission, piece rate, or a bonus or premium system, the stimulus to action is constantly present. Every stroke of the hammer, every sale made, every figure added, increases the wage. The wage thus continuously beckons the worker to greater accomplishment. ”

“ The ordinary wage system has at least the merit that the reward of the laborer is made dependent only on his own efforts. The lot of the modern worker is too unstable and employment too unsteady to add a new element of uncertainty in wages. If the laborer has really earned the premium, say labor leaders, why not add it to his wages instead of adopting this roundabout method. The sliding scale, or a system of premiums or bonus payments for increased output, would be better than profit-sharing, and is rapidly spreading. ”

“ The increase of production is the very fact which is assumed. Nor is the increase of remuneration denied—the only question is of the proportionate remuneration. Before passing from this point, however, I should like to dwell a little on the fact already referred to, of an improvement in the quality of nonmechanical labor, because, as this labor is largely the subject of direct exchange without much intervention of capital, the mere fact of improvement implies almost a proportionate increase of remuneration. ”

“ The employers are not likely to seek such wage rates as will not procure the needed labor supply; and only in rare cases are the wage earners likely to press for increases of wages that would bring about an increased measure of unemployment. ”

“ No matter how their salaries may increase they are proportionately behind with their hauling all the time. When an employe gets $50.00 a month he is owing $75.00, he is working hard at the catching-up game all the time. ”

“ The workmen are shown the prices that the goods are now sold at, and told that there is but one thing for the factory to do: to meet this 'competition,' or close up. And, of course, the meaning of this is another reduction in the already well-reduced wages. I declare, a man must have a good deal of gall to be drawing a salary of from $1,800 to $3,500 per year and ask a workman to take 10 per cent. ”

“ Any increase in wages has to be divided over the average strength of a family, which will show how disproportionate the increase in wages is to the increase in prices. In a family of five with one or two earning hands the increase in wages is two-fold at the most. ”

“ The strain of responsibility increases in some degree with the number of operative laborers employed, and successful oversight of many hands may be essential to their profitable employment. In that case the salary of the overseer gains something of the nature of profits, since the manager gauges the pay by profits expected. If, as in great stock companies, a manager is hired at a stipulated salary, his personal abilities, as tested by accomplishment, are likely to be the sole [pg 244] gauge of wages. ”

“ Nobody would have believed a few years ago that a railway president, when he had occasion to reduce the wages of several thousand employees 10 per cent., would begin by reducing his own salary 30 per cent., and the salary of all the officials all the way down 15 per cent., or 20 per cent.
Nobody would have believed some time ago that an organizing inventor would be evolved who would meet his directors and tell them that, if they would have their work done in their mills in three shifts instead of two, the men would work so much better that it would not cost the Company more than 10 per cent. ”

“ This question 200of climate has a curious effect on the labour market. So many young fellows of large brain but weak bodies have flocked to the town that an office man cannot approach the wages paid to a labourer or a mechanic; good office men could be got for from $40 to $50 per month at the time when labourers could get $1.75 per day, carpenters $3.50 for eight hours’ work, and masons $6.50 per day. I had a negro raker working under me who was getting the same salary as myself, and we had a cement sidewalk finisher who was drawing more pay per week than the superintendent. ”

“ And, secondly, what may be called for a lack of a better name, the doctrine of special reward—by which is meant, that the wage differentials between the standard wage levels of different types of labor should be regarded as special rewards, given in order to 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, irregular, dangerous and disagreeable work will command the service of as much labor as at present. ”

“ We have found this condition of affairs to interfere somewhat with the scheme, that certain of our help are entitled to a rise in salary more than others, and they are naturally not as well satisfied with an even distribution according to previous salaries as they would be by varying it and recognizing the value of each in a special way, by increasing the salary when they deserve it, and I am at a loss today to know which is the safest basis on which to proceed. ”