The book before quoted expresses, somewhat vaguely, an opinion in accord with these facts and principles when it says: "It is an error to think that the trade-union seeks to determine the rate of wages. It cannot do that. It can do no more than affect them." With organization as well as without it, the wages of individuals and of classes of laborers are determined by the general principles of competitive price as applied to their services, where neither the employer has a monopoly of employment nor the organized laborers have a monopoly of the labor supply.
§ 12. Monopolistic aspect of organization and particular wages. The action of organized labor is not, however, lim ited to the competitive field. Wages in particular industries may, by the action of trade-unions, be raised and maintained above a true competitive rate. This, of course, can be done only in accordance with the principles of the service value to the consumer and of service price in the employment market. The supply of labor is in a variety of ways artificially lim ited by the efforts of the unions. (1) It may be done tem porarily by striking when a failure to fill orders will cause the employer exceptional loss. (2) Violence in strikes and boycotts is often the desperate attempt to create and assert a measure of monopoly power where of itself it does not exist, i. e., where other workers stand ready to take the jobs at the prevailing rates of wages. (3) It is created if appren tices are limited to fewer than in the long run would be attracted into the trade by the prevailing wages. (4) It is created if the unions artificially limit output to less than is consistent with the health of the worker. (5) It is created if unions strong enough to keep "scabs" from getting work, fix their dues high or put other obstacles in the way of in creasing the membership. Probably the most striking cases of high wages for organized labor are of this kind. The ele ment of labor monopoly evidently is mingled in all degrees, from the slightest to a very great amount, in particular eco nomic situations.
notably the Railroad Brotherhoods, have not urged this point. The existence of a closed shop is evidence that the union is strong enough to compel the employer to act on this principle and thus virtually to force all his employees into the union.
The refusal of a demand for the closed shop is often the ground for a strike. If union and non-union men work side by side there are so many ways in which the employer is able to discriminate so as gradually to break down the union. If business slackens, the union man may be the first to be dis charged; if any preference is given it is to the non-union man. Therefore, most spokesmen of organized labor believe and declare that efforts of employers to secure or to maintain the open shop are disguised attacks upon the very principle of organized labor. Labor leaders ridicule as hypocritical the employers that say they are trying, in keeping their shops open, to protect the workmen's liberty to join or not to join a union, which in the eyes of the law is a voluntary organiza tion.
While these accusations may too often be true, it would seem, on the other hand, that an unmodified closed shop, with the conditions of membership in the control of the union, creates a distinct monopoly of labor, leaving the employer helpless in any wage dispute and enabling the union to en force its every demand, regardless of the competitive condi tions of the labor market for that class of services. The employers, in their more moderate claims, profess to aim at an open shop only in the sense of the principle laid down by the governmental Anthracite Coal Commission of 1902, as one where no person is "refused employment, or in any way discriminated against, on account of membership in any labor organization"; and where there is "no discrimination against or interference with any employee who is not a mem ber of any labor organization, by members of such organiza tion." Such an open shop, with its conception of two-sided duty, fairness, and toleration, nearly commands public ap proval, acquiescence, and acceptance by both sides. But un fortunately, in practice, whichever side chances to get the upper hand in the situation is too often tempted greedily and ruthlessly to push its advantage far beyond the ideal point of toleration.