PUBLIC REGULATION OF HOURS AND WAGES § 1. Spread of the shorter working-day. § 2. The shorter day and the lump-of-labor notion. § 3. Fewer hours and greater efficiency. § 4. Child-labor. § 5. Child-labor legislation. § 6. Limitation of the work ing-day for women. § 7. Limitation of the working-day for men. § 8. Broader aspects of this legislation. § 9. Plan of the minimum wage. § 10. Wage theory in the minimum wage. § 11. Limitations of the minimum wage, § 12. Mediation and voluntary arbitration. § 13. Compulsory arbitration. § 14. Organized labor's attitude toward labor legislation. § 15. Organized labor's opposition to compulsory arbitra tion. § 16. The public and labor legislation. § 17. The public and compulsory arbitration.
1 By the Secretary of the American Federation of Labor.
358 § 2. The shorter day and the lump-of-labor notion. The shorter working-day is advocated by most workers in the be lief that it will result, not in less pay per day, but in even greater pay than the longer day, even if the output should be decreased. This view is connected with the lump-of-labor It assumes that men will work no faster in a shorter day, and that there is so much work to be done regardless of the rate of wages; and concludes that the shorter day will reduce the amount of labor for sale and cause wages to rise. To the extent, however, that laborers, as consumers, mutually buy each other's labor, evidently this loss due to curtailing production must fall upon the laborers as a class. The work ers naturally desire and strenuously demand the same daily pay for a shorter day, which means a higher wage per hour.
If wages per hour increase less than enough to make up for the fewer hours, the purchasing power of the workers must be re duced. If the output per hour is increased proportionately to the pay per hour, the existing wages equilibrium would not be disturbed. But if the output increases not at all or in less than the proportion of the increase in pay, there is an in evitable disturbance of the wage equilibrium. In a competi tive industry this would compel a speedy readjustment of wages downward. If a certain group, or large number, of workers were to begin turning out only 80 per cent as large a product as they did before, while getting the same money wage, the costs per unit would be thereby increased. Prices must rise or many of the establishments must close, and then prices would rise as a result. This must throw some of the workmen out of employment and create a new bargain ing situation for wages. ' But, it is said, let the general eight-hour day be applied to every industry and to all wage workers at once,—then all workers and all employers in the industry would be in a like situation. At once, however, there must occur changes of consumers' choices in a great number of ways. If there are 2 See Vol. I, pp. 458-467.
one fifth fewer goods, evidently at least one fifth of the con sumers must go without. These would largely be the wage workers. The things of which wage labor makes up a large part of the costs will rise in price relative to the things of which self-employed labor and of which materials and ma chinery make up a relatively larger part. This must com pel a reduction of the demand for the products of wage labor relative to other things, and be reflected to labor in a lower wage. This reduction would not necessarily be just in proportion to the reduced output (that is, say, 20 per cent if from ten to eight hours, or 11 per cent if from nine to eight hours). It might even be more, but probably would be some what less. In any case, both the money wages and the real wages of laborers, either in the particular trade or generally, must be reduced by a general reduction of hours that results in a decreased output. In such cases, even when the workmen by a strike or general movement secured the same wage scale for a day of fewer hours (a higher wage per hour), they would be unable to hold it excepting where they had monopo listic control of the trade.