Since this migration the best grade of silk has been made in Paterson, and there has been no competition to speak of that the Paterson manufacturers needed to fear. Yet they have been making only moderate profits while the Pennsylvania manufacturers of cheap silk have been making fortunes. Under the system of multiple looms, the business of Pennsylvania, has expanded 97 per cent in the last six years; under the one and two loom systems of Paterson its business has expanded only 22 per cent in the same time. Therefore the Paterson manufacturers propose to compete in the manufacture of cheaper silks and consequently decided to introduce the multiple loom system. To them this is only a natural economic development, and the opposition of the workers they feel is irrational, as opposed to progress. This view is made apparent in a statement issued by the silk manufacturers’ association:
“As regards the three and four loom system, it is applicable only in the case of the very simplest grade of broad silks and as a matter of fact has for a long time been worked successfully and on a very large scale in other localities. Paterson cannot be excluded from this same privilege. No fight against improved machinery has ever been successful.”
The beginning of the change came in one of the big Paterson mills about a year ago and the strike of last spring[[1]] was at first against the four loom system. The strike became general, however, and this demand was completely lost sight of before the strike came to an end. Since then nine or ten other mills have installed the four loom system and a score have begun to require the weavers to tend three looms instead of two.
[1]. See The Survey of March 16, 1912.
The strikers claim that the new system will cause unemployment, as did the installation of the two loom system together with other improvements in the mechanical equipment of the loom some years ago, and that the logical consequence will be the employment of unskilled women and children in place of the skilled weaver, and a forcing down of the level of wages until the Paterson average of $11.69, as given in the federal report for the year 1908, becomes as low as the Pennsylvania average of $6.56. As the percentage of women employed in Paterson mills has increased in the last few years and as the average of wages given out by the manufacturers this year is under $10, there is basis for these fears. Nor do the manufacturers deny these possibilities; they claim that the loss of skill is an inevitable accompaniment of improved processes, and the replacing of men by women and children is only in line with the development in all the textile trades.
Some of the claims of the strikers are thus summarized by the Paterson Evening News:
“The best information obtainable appears to show that the alleged mechanical advantages of the new system have not proved themselves sufficient to offset the additional strain to which the care of three or four looms subjects the weavers; that the premium wages first paid as an inducement to users of the system have been pared down; that at present a day’s work under the system is proportionately less well paid than a day’s work at two looms; and, finally, that the wages of two loom workers have been depressed with the scaling down of the piece-rate paid to the three and four loom workers.”
In spite of the fact that it is only the large manufacturers who propose to install the new system, the strike is general. The multiple looms, which are large and equipped with automatic devices, can only be installed in large mills. By this system cheap silks alone can be made; the smaller mills must use the Jacquard or other small looms fitted to the making of the fancy grades of silk for which Paterson is famous. The small manufacturer, therefore, does not fear the installation of the new system in the large mills; but he does feel strongly that he has a grievance toward the workers in his mills who struck sympathetically for a wrong not their own.
But it is a very real fear that the entire industry will be undermined that has made the workers stand together, regardless of individual grievances.
While the desire to keep up with industrial progress and to realize large profits is the reason for the importing of the four loom system into Paterson; the desire to save their present standard of living and prevent their industry from coming into the hands of women and children like the other textile trades is the reason for the workers’ opposition. Today Pennsylvania and New Jersey present different phases of the industry, and New Jersey has had a higher wage standard; tomorrow with the triumph of the four loom system they may tend to an equalization of conditions.