Twentieth Century Socialism: What It Is Not; What It Is: How It May Come

by Edmond Kelly

The higher the wages exacted by trade unions the more employers are compelled to have recourse to cheap labor of women and children, and this labor is all the cheaper because the unionist himself contributes to the supply; for the unionist supports his wife and children, and the very fact of the support he gives them permits them to accept a lower rate of wages than if they were not supported. To understand the operation of this principle it must be borne in mind that rates of wages are determined, not by the wishes of the employee or even by the greed of the employer; they are determined by the market price. Unionists are not the only persons who object to the labor of women and boys. There is indeed no divergency of opinion as to the unwisdom of working boys before their education is complete or their bodies matured; or the unwisdom of employing women, destined by Nature to perform other more important functions. No better witness to the control exercised by the market on this important subject can be found than a member of the English Ministry, the Right Honorable H.O. Arnold-Forster, who says:

"The great cotton industry of Lancashire, the wool and worsted industry of Yorkshire, and many other industries in a less degree are at the present time dependent upon child labor. It is interesting to observe that as lately as the autumn of 1907 a deputation waited upon the responsible minister to urge upon him the desirability of raising the age of half-timers from twelve to thirteen. The desirability of the change was not denied, but it was not considered possible to give effect to it.

"Those who have any acquaintance with the cotton trade are well aware that that great industry, employing as it does no less than half a million persons, is conducted upon the most minute margins of profit and loss. The rate book of the cotton trade, in which wages of every kind of work are calculated out to the tenth of a penny, is a miracle of painstaking and intelligent computation. These fine calculations are absolutely necessary. Both employers and employed know perfectly well that the trade is, so to speak, balanced on a knife edge, and that any sudden increase of cost, whatever may be its cause, is likely to upset the balance, and turn the hardly won profit out of which operators as well as employers obtain their living, into a loss. The fierce competition of the world, especially of those countries in which child labor and long hours are prevalent, has to be met, and the persons principally concerned are only too well aware of the fact."[98]

Nothing then is better established than that every employer is forced by the pressure of competition to keep wages down, and that any employer who either under the compulsion of a trade union or out of generosity of heart attempts to raise wages one cent above the price permitted by the market, must expiate his mistake in the bankruptcy court.

There is only one way in which this competition can be met—the way imagined by Karl Marx: a comprehensive organization of trade unions, not only within one nation, but amongst all nations; in other words, the famous—and at one time loudly proclaimed as the infamous—International. The fact that the international plan of organization imagined by Karl Marx failed, is little argument against it. But the fact that trade unions do not succeed in securing all the members of a trade in any nation—that indeed in the United States organized labor includes at most 2,000,000 members, whereas the working population is over 20,000,000, ought to be a convincing argument that a comprehensive organization of workers all over the world is still less possible.

One word must be said in this connection about the sweating system and its relation to trade unions. It is a current statement that sweating is confined in America to a few industries, such as tobacco and garment making. This, however, is a great mistake. Sweating may be defined as the reduction of wages to starvation or even below starvation level. It is true that sweating in this country is in large part due to an ignorant, unorganized, and poverty-stricken class of immigrants. But sweating is also to be found in a much higher order of employees. I refer to the sweating of certain factories and department stores where the rate of wages is determined, not by the cost of living, but by the price which half-supported women are willing to take for their week's work.

In many factories and in practically all the department stores the wages are below the sum necessary for a working woman to live; and they are made so at least in part by the fact that the daughters of well-to-do workingmen, being supported at home, are able and willing to give their time for a sum less than sufficient to support life. In some cases this work is rendered in a laudable desire to contribute to the common expense of the home. In many cases it must be attributed to vanity and the attractiveness of this kind of work.

We find, therefore, the workingman put in this singular position: Through his trade union he secures a high rate of wages; with this high rate of wages he seeks to establish a decent home; the desire of a decent home permeates the entire family; the daughters want to contribute thereto and, because they are partially supported themselves by the high wages received by the father, they accept a rate of wages so low that their less fortunate sisters are doomed to starve.

So on every side the trade unionist is hoist by his own petard. The high wage he is in a position to exact is perpetually menaced by the competition of the women and children of his own family whom his own high wages put in a position to compete with him. These high wages throw out of employment all save those of the highest efficiency, and by permitting the half-supported members of his family to work for low wages, reduce others who are not half supported below the level of starvation.

I shall not insist on other problems which still divide the members of trade unions, such as what is called "right of trade," or "the conflict between industrial and craft organization," both of which occasion loss of employment and division in the ranks of labor, because these are not insoluble. It is true that they have not yet been solved, but there is nothing in their very nature that makes a solution impossible. I do, however, insist upon the problems above referred to, because they are not only unsolved, but by their very nature can never be solved. No trade union can ever include all the men of the trade, because all cannot earn the high standard of wages set by the union; because the trade never can give employment to all the men in the trade—at the best of times there are over 3 per cent unemployed; because by insisting on a high rate for unionists, they compel the employer to have recourse to the cheaper labor of women and boys; because the very sense of family responsibility which makes a unionist support his wife and children is exploited by the employer to secure the services of these last at half wages; because the existence of a half-supported population creates and maintains sweated trades; because the employers, were they Angels of Mercy, cannot, thanks to the pressure of the market, raise wages or dispense with the cheap labor of women and boys without either incurring bankruptcy or shutting down; because either contingency would deprive the unionist of work and therefore of wages; because both employer and employee are perpetually being chased round a vicious circle by the devil of competition which, by keeping down prices and wages, keeps both in danger of ruin and unemployment.