RIGHT IDEAS ON INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS
To the Editor:
I have read the various contributions to your symposium on the work before the new Commission on Industrial Relations. In my opinion it is the duty of the employer to provide the necessary safeguards and protection for his employes, such for instance as good light and air, sanitary surroundings, protection against fire and other dangers, reasonable hours of labor, adequate wages, no child labor, facilities for education and self-improvement, healthful living quarters, opportunity for recreation, etc. These and other advantages should be supplied under all circumstances, and there should be co-operation and good feeling between employer and workingman. It seems to me quite probable that the better results which would thus be obtained through the greater efficiency of the employes would more than compensate the employer for any extra outlays which he may have to make to provide such protection, so that in the end it would cost him nothing. The hearty co-operation and friendly spirit which would thus be engendered between the employer and his workingmen would be apt to prevent strikes and other troubles and would decidedly be to the interest of both employer and employe. Any excuse that a manufacturer or other employer of labor might make that if he had to provide this protection to his employes he could not make his business pay seems to me similar to the excuse of one who contemplates putting up a building but says he cannot afford to make the necessary expenditures to provide for the safety of those who will occupy it because with such extra cost the income from the building would not be sufficient to pay a good interest. If he cannot make it pay he should of course not undertake it, but under all circumstances he must build safely. In the same way an employer should see that his employes and workmen receive the necessary protection and he should provide for their absolute safety and do the right thing by them all the time.
Adolph Lewisohn.
[President General Development Company.]
New York.