Unpaid labor

“ Now it is an undeniable fact that the condition of many of the wage-workers of the country approximates to this: They must have food, shelter, and clothing for themselves and their families, and the only thing they can offer in exchange for it is their labor. Suppose an honest and industrious man has some misfortune, as an accident, or illness, and loses employment. When once more able to work, he finds his old place filled and new places hard to find; but at last he finds a mercenary employer who agrees to give him half wages. ”

“ This is not a plea of free workmen, but of slaves begging to be better fed.
(b) They may complain of too many hours of labor; but the number of hours of labor is arbitrarily fixed. There is no valid constant reason why one should wish to work less. In the management of one's own work, and the collection of his own earnings, there are times when long hours, of the strain of labor, are necessary, and there are other times when ease can be taken. With no standard of earnings or time, it is impossible to arrive at a just and satisfactory settlement. ”

“ There is nothing strange in the fact that, in spite of the enormous increase in productive power which this century has witnessed, and which is still going on, the wages of labor in the lower and wider strata of industry should everywhere tend to the wages of slavery—just enough to keep the laborer in working condition. ”

“ Another deplorable consequence of this inorganization is the disgust which workmen feel for their employment, in addition to the insufficiency of their wages. And this is quite conceivable, for nothing is done to render their labor attractive, either by variety of occupations, or by honorary rewards, or by proper care, or by remuneration proportionate to the benefits which their toil provides, or by the hope of rest after long years of industry. No—the country thinks not, cares not, either for their wants or their rights. ”

“ The wage system gives them the power. The tyranny and the despotism of the wage system of labor consists in the fact that the wage laborer is compelled under penalty of hunger and death by starvation to obey and accept terms laid down to him by his employer. Hence I have pointed out that it might be difficult for this reason to establish an eight hour rule. What have I said in this connection? I have said to the employers, to the manufacturers and the corporations—the monopolists of America: "Gentlemen, the eight hour system of labor is the olive branch of peace held out to you. ”

“ With the increasing complexity of society, many other problems presented themselves to the worker, but for the most part they were subsidiary to the main question of wages. As long as man’s place was fixed by law or custom, a customary wage left small margin for controversy. But when fixed status gave way to voluntary contract, when payment was made in money, when workmen were free to journey from town to town, labor became both free and fluid, bargaining took the place of custom, 12 and the wage controversy began to assume definite proportions. ”

“ The sale of labor involves the obeying of orders during certain hours specified in the contract. Here again the evil is greatest in the lowest grades of work, while the great majority of wage-earners are left a large measure of choice in the time and manner of their work. Where labor is severe and without joy to the worker, it appears to be little better than a form of slavery. Contrast the condition of the section hand, cursed and beaten by a brutal foreman, with that of the wage-earner in the locomotive-cab, self-respecting, self-directing, and trusted with the safety of property and lives. ”

“ Did they demand more, the competition of others would prevent them from getting employment. Did he offer less, none would accept the terms, as they could obtain greater results by working for themselves. Thus, although the employer wishes to pay as little as possible, and the employee to receive as much as possible, wages will be fixed by the value or produce of such labor to the laborers themselves. If wages are temporarily carried either above or below this line, a tendency to carry them back at once arises. ”

“ Seventh, if your honorable house would adopt some equitable fixed principle for the value of apprentices desirous of purchasing their discharge, either by ascertained rates of weekly labor, or by fixed sums according to their trade or occupation, which should not be exceeded, and allowing the deduction of one third from the extreme value for the contingencies of maintenance, clothing, medical aid, risk of life, and health, it would greatly tend to set at rest one cause of constant disappointment. ”

“ “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.” ”

“ 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? ”

“ In this case it is as clear as in the case of the self-employing laborer that the wages are really drawn from the product of the labor, and not at all from capital. If I hire a man to gather eggs, to pick berries, or to make shoes, paying him from the eggs, the berries, or the shoes that his labor secures, there can be no question that the source of the wages is the labor for which they are paid. ”

“ The employers pay as little as they can. When the world becomes civilized everybody will want to pay what things are worth, but now capital is perfectly willing that labor shall remain at the starvation line. ”

“ If, now, the employers of wage labor, in this country,—who are also the monopolists of money,—and who are ostensibly so distressed lest their own wage laborers should suffer from the competition of the pauper labor of other countries,—have really any of that humanity, of which they make such profession, they have before them a much wider field for the display of it, than they seem to desire. ”

“ It is worth noting that while the expense of this burden of relief is borne by the public and by benevolent individuals, the real benefit goes to the employer of cheap labor. He secures his labor at a wage which will barely maintain its efficiency for a period of years, without any provision for the future, and when that period is over, and the laborer is no longer an efficient producer, he is cast aside with absolutely no responsibility resting on the employer for his future support or care. ”

“ To the slave, his due proportion of the common fund, paid to labor as a whole, is measured out with unerring accuracy. Among free laborers, some receive too much, and others, in a like degree, too little. For be it remembered, that the average wages of free labor are given, not merely as the price of the labor of the day, but also to indemnify the daily expense of producing that amount of future labor, which the future demand is to render necessary. He therefore who labors only, but rears no children, receives more than his just share. ”

“ It must not be supposed that all labor troubles are merely wage controversies—that is to say, that they are all incidental to the settlement of the wage incomes of the laborers. Many of them arise in whole or part from a shifting and conflict of ideas about various other aspects of the 2 industrial order. ”

“ This report stated that all of the unemployed, the under-employed, and the unemployable were the results of three types of trades; first, the subsidized labor trades wherein women and children are paid wages insufficient to maintain. ”

“ This is also in large part the implied countercharge against organized labor. The most serious count in the wage-earner's indictment of other classes is not primarily that these classes draw too much pay, but that they are not doing the work that their revenues are supposed to represent. They are exploiting their fellows instead of serving them. ”

“ By demanding for labor such remuneration as will allow the laborer to share in the profits resulting from his toil, [Pg 461] either by treating it as an investment in the business in which it is employed, or by the payment of such compensation as will allow a surplus for investment—refusing to wear out their lives in procuring a bare subsistence. ”

“ And as it holds that so-called “pauper labor” is cheaper than free labor, it gives the employers in each country a constant motive for reducing their own laborers to the lowest condition of poverty, consistent with their ability to labor at all. In other words, the theory is, that the smaller the portion of the products of labor, that is given to the laborers, the larger will be the portion that will go into the pockets of the employers. ”

“ We cannot let pass without qualification the assertion that there is a considerable difference between the laborer's wages and the means of subsistence requisite for his scant maintenance. It is exactly this point, the rate of wages, upon which practically the whole great social question turns. ”

“ The worker, wholly separated from the land and the tools, with his skill of craftmanship rendered useless, is sunk in the uniform mass of wage slaves. He sees his power of resistance broken by class divisions, perpetuated from outgrown industrial stages. His wages constantly grow less as his hours grow longer and monopolized prices grow higher. ”

“ The number of expedients to which I have known manual workers resort—in other respects honest, upright men—in order to scamp the job, or cut time, would be perfectly surprising to those not conversant with industry. To-day the moral obligation to work seems inverted into a duty to do as little as possible for the wages. Sometimes the motive is to make the job last longer, at other times, to assist unemployment by making work go round, and, where remuneration is based on payment by results, for less altruistic reasons, to force up the prices paid for the job. ”

“ There has never been a free people, a civilized nation, a real republic on this earth. Human society has always consisted of masters and slaves, and the slaves have always been and are today, the foundation stones of the social fabric.
Wage-labor is but a name; wage-slavery is the fact. ”

“ On the other hand, look at him, who "eats his bread in the sweat of his brow," look at the laborer who works for wages. If he is skillful, industrious and strong, and if he is lucky enough to find employment, he may even be able to save a little. But the large majority of laborers cannot even think of that, in spite of all hardships they undergo, When they have to stop work, they are as poor as when they began it. ”

“ The inhabitants of the area become the manual wage earners of the company, and too often in the lust for profits, or as an offering to the god of commercial efficiency, the once easy and free life of the native is lost for ever and a form of wage-slavery takes its place with doubtful effects on the life and health of the workers. ”

“ We can scarcely credit it, yet it is an undoubted fact that under the old Poor-law, if a labourer was known to be thrifty or putting away his savings, he was refused work till his money was gone and he was reduced to his proper level. ”

“ We shall have to fare as the rest have—ever decreasing prices of labour, ever increasing profits, made out of that labour by the contractors who will employ us—arbitrary fines, inflicted at the caprice of hirelings—the competition of women, and children, and starving Irish—our hours of work will increase one-third, our actual pay decrease to less than one-half. ”

“ But provided each one furnishes the quantity of labor demanded of him, whatever be the time he employs, they are entitled to equal wages.
Shall the laborer who is capable of finishing his task in six hours have the right, on the ground of superior strength and activity, to usurp the task of the less skilful laborer, and thus rob him of his labor and bread? Who dares maintain such a proposition? He who finishes before the others may rest, if he chooses ”

“ Think of hanging the tormented soul who could say as he was taken to the gallows: "I went away from my native place because I was frequently moved to tears at seeing little girls of eight or ten years obliged to work fifteen hours a day for the paltry pay of twenty centimes. Young women of eighteen or twenty also work fifteen hours daily for a mockery of remuneration.... ”

“ When men who do not employ labourers, are obliged to pay a portion of the earnings of those employed by their neighbours—when thieves and robbers are supported at the public expense—when prostitutes with illegitimate children receive larger allowance from the overseers of the poor than honest widows with their legitimate offspring—when able-bodied men, refusing to work, are supported with weekly stipends, equal to the wages of honest industry, can we he surprised at the enormous increase of the poor rates? ”

“ At such times, when men need work most badly, the private employment offices put up their fees, and keep the unemployed from going to work until they can pay $2, $3, $5, and even $10 and more for their jobs. ”

“ The Unemployment Agent glared at me angrily. "Who cares if it is safe? Of course it isn't! You may be blown to shreds and splinters any wake! But what of that? Is anything safe in modern life? It's all a matter of the degree of risk! And, besides, the salary is high."
"I'm not greedy for a high salary," I remarked.
"Oh, well, if that's the way you feel, of course we can fix you up!" returned the chalk-face, contemptuously. "There's never much demand for low-paying jobs." ”