§ 7. Limitation of competition among workers. In order that the representatives of organized laborers may act ef fectively in collective bargaining, the first condition necessary is that a large proportion, if not all, of the workers of the trade in the establishments concerned shall be organized. A com mon sense of wrong is one of the strongest motives to bring workers together, and has prompted the origin of many a local chapter. Then constant and strenuous efforts are made to bring workers into the organized ranks. Experienced or ganizers knowing all the arts of persuasion devote their whole time to this task, being paid regular salaries. When friendly argument fails, threats may be used, and sometimes personal violence. The public opinion and class feeling fostered among members of an organization in times of difficulty are analogous to the sense of patriotism in the nation at large, and at times may displace it in the hearts of organized labor ers, as is seen in opposition to the militia and to the main tenance of order in times of strikes. The most effective of all peaceful methods is petty persecution, rising at times to social ostracism. The individual who declines to enter the union is denounced as a traitor to his fellow workers, and is made to feel their scorn. The use of the union card to be carried by every member to show whether he is in good stand ing is an effective way of enforcing these measures. Finally, when all these measures fail, pressure may be brought upon the employer to get him to force unwilling workers into the Further to give control over those working in a trade and to reduce competition among workers, unions often limit the number of apprentices and determine who shall have the privilege of learning the trade. By a variety of regulations they limit the output, and in many cases (though less fre quently now) have opposed the use of labor-saving machinery. Further to enforce these policies, they seek to have each special kind of work controlled by a special union. This gives rise to disputes between rival unions, and causes annoyance and loss to the workers themselves, to the employers, and to the general public.
§ 8. Strikes in labor disputes. A strike is a concerted stopping of work by a group of employees to enforce a de mand upon the employer. A lockout is an employer's closing of his shop because of a disagreement with his employees. The strike is, in its direct and indirect, immediate and ulti mate, effects the most important weapon of the organized wage-earners in their relations with their employers. To newly organized laborers the union appeals mainly as an in strument for striking, for threatening the employer, or for making him suffer to compel him to accede to their demands. The effectiveness of a strike lies in the loss it threatens or occasions in the stopping of machinery, the ruin of materials, the loss of custom, and the failure to complete contracts that have been undertaken.
The employers will often, to break a strike, pay to others for a time more than the current rate of wages. The suc
cess of the strikers being dependent on their ability to keep the employer from filling their places, their energies are bent upon that end. The losses that strikes cause to workers in stoppage of wages, to employers and investors in destruction of plant and in suspension of profits, and to the public in the 6 See below, § 13, on the closed shop.
• interruption of business, aggregate an enormous sum. The direct losses to employers and strikers in the twenty years between 1881 and 1900 were estimated to have been nearly $500,000,000, a large sum, but amounting to less than 1 per cent of the wage-earners' incomes. It is, however, impossible to estimate at all exactly losses that in many cases are indi rect and intangible. The strikers are concerned in each case, not with the balance of total losses and total gains to society as a whole, but with the net gain that they expect to accrue in the long run to themselves. Viewed in this way, it is true that there are various indirect benefits in strikes that are not easily calculable, particularly the advances of wages made by employers to avoid strikes which they know will otherwise occur. In regard to the wisdom of any contemplated strike, opinion is always somewhat divided, as it is in regard to the value of strikes in general.
§ 9. Frequency and causes of strikes. Strikes were rela tively decreasing in number from 1880 to 1900, but from 1901 to 1905 the annual average was more than twice as large as in the preceding decade. On the whole, strikes have been more numerous in periods of business prosperity, when there was a better chance to get concessions from the employers. But they occur also in the periods following crises, when the workers seek to minimize cuts in wages and to prevent the depression of working conditions. More broadly viewed, strikes appear to accompany readjustments to dynamic condi tions. Since wages, as a rule, rise more slowly than general prices,' it was to be expected that the period since 1900, in which the general price level was rising at the rate of about 3 per cent a year, should have been marked by increasing resort to strikes.
The immediate causes of strikes have been changing in rela tive importance. In 1881, at the time of the very rapid or ganization of unions, more than 71 per cent of all strikes were directly connected with wage demands (61 per cent for in 7 See Vol. I, pp. 223-224, and above, ch. 6, § 10.
crease and 10 per cent against reduction). But in 1905 the total for these causes was only 37 per cent, whereas the pro portion of strikes for reduction of hours nearly doubled (from 3 to 3 per cent) and the proportion of these concerning recog nition of unions and union rules increased fivefold (from 6 to 31 per cent). Ultimately nearly every demand of the laborers is related to the question of wages; but these figures show that when organization is new this relationship is more immediate, whereas later more effort is directed toward secur ing the stronger strategic position that comes with recognition of the union.