in the steel industry being toward elimination of human skill, the advancement of the minority to skilled and semiskilled positions depended upon the employment of everincreasing numbers of unskilled laborers. For reasons explained in Chapter VIII.,

English, Irish, and German immigration began to fall off at just about the time that the steel industry began to expand so rapidly and at the same time to introduce the automatic processes. This created a tremendous market for unskilled labor just as the field of immigration was shifting from Northwestern to Southeastern Europe. Slavs coming to America to perform the unskilled manual labor, and finding it in the steel industry, sent for their relatives and neighbors. These automatic accretions, through letters and friends returning to the old country and spreading the tidings of where work is to be had, are at once the most natural and most widespread factors in mobilizing an immigrant labor force.'

Mr. Fitch is careful to note that "the newer immigrants are not working for less pay for a day's rough work than the races they replaced. The money wages paid for common labor in the Pittsburgh steel mills have been going up during the period referred to. "2 It is clear that the recent immigrants were not "brought" to this country to undercut the wages of the older employees.

The Irish were not driven out of the blast furnaces by a fresh immigration with lower standards of living [says Mr. Fitch further]; rather the conditions in the industry-the twelve-hour day, the days and the weeks without a day of rest, the twenty-four-hour shift-made the life intolerable. They could make as good a living working fewer hours a day, and only six days in the week, in other positions and in other industries. So the Irish worker went out and the Slav came in.3

The effect of these readjustments on the distribution of the working force by race and occupation in the Pittsburgh district can be seen from Table 121.

The average proportion of Southern and Eastern Europeans among the iron and steel workers, according to the investigations of the Immigration Commission, was 44.5 2 Ibid., pp. 142–143.

1 Fitch, loc. cit., p. 143.

3 Ibid., p. 146.

TABLE 121.

per cent in the East and 49.4 per cent in the Middle West.' The proportion of Slavs among the employees of the Carnegie Steel Company was accordingly above the average, which ought to emphasize the effects of immigration upon labor conditions in the iron and steel industry.

The classification of employees by the Carnegie Steel Company is different from that followed in Table 34.2 The Immigration Commission draws the dividing line between skilled and unskilled occupations at $1.45 a day, whereas the Carnegie Steel Company includes among the unskilled some occupations with a higher average wage. Moreover, the Immigration Commission has disregarded the semiskilled class. According to the classification of the company, a little over one sixth of the "unskilled" employees in 1907 were English-speaking; of the semi-skilled two fifths were immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe; among the skilled only one tenth were of the new immigrant races.

The wages of each of these classes have been variously affected by the changes in machinery and methods. The wages of unskilled laborers, five sixths of whom are immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe, "have increased in the last few years. In 1892 they received 14 cents an hour at Homestead. In 1907-08 their pay was 162 cents an hour in the mills of the United States Steel Corporation— an advance of 18 per cent over the hourly pay of 1892. This increase fell short by 4 per cent in keeping pace with the increased cost of necessities as indicated by the Bureau of Labor Bulletin. . . . In May, 1910, announcement was made of a general increase in wages for all employees of the United States Steel Corporation. It was described as approximating 6 per cent over existing rates. Common laborers' pay was increased in the mills of the Corporation in the Pittsburg district from 161⁄2 cents an hour to 172 cents. This is an increase of 25 per cent over the 14-cent rate paid in 1892."

Compiled from the Reports of the Immigration Commission, vol. 8, Table 23, pp. 34-35. See Chapter VII.

At the opposite extreme are placed, by Mr. Fitch, "the men of highest skill, headed by the rollers and heaters, who have gangs working under them and are practically foremen. These men represent not over 5 per cent of all employees." They are only a minority among the men classed by the company as skilled. Of the latter class, as stated, only one tenth are Southern and Eastern Europeans; it is reasonably certain, however, that none of them are among "the men at the top." These "aristocrats of labor" have had their earnings reduced since 1892. The cuts vary, according to position, from 5.39 per cent to 41.20 per cent.

The intermediate 35 per cent are "the real steel workers. They are men skilled in steel manufacture. . . These men are individually essential to the industry." Their wages have remained in a "stationary condition, and if compared with the increased cost of living,” exhibit a "downward tendency." The proportion of Slavs among them can be estimated at 31 per cent. This class holds in every respect an intermediate place; they have not fared as well relatively as the immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe who form the bulk of the unskilled force; still with one third among them drawn from the new immigration they have done better than the "aristocrats of labor" who do not come in contact with the new immigrants.

The question arises, has not the competition of the Slav prevented the wages of the skilled men below the grade of foreman from rising apace with the cost of living? An

"I was unable to learn of any Slavs who had worked up to positions as rollers or heaters in the Pittsburgh mills,” says Miss Byington in her study of Homestead. "This is due without doubt to the poorer industrial equipment of the immigrants, as well as to the unwillingness of the foremen to give the better positions to them."-The Pittsburgh Survey, "Homestead," p. 148.

This ratio is obtained by computation from Table 121, allowing 5 per cent of all employees for the "men at the top" and placing all skilled and semi-skilled Southern and Eastern Europeans in the intermediate class.

answer to this question may be found if the wages of the Pittsburgh skilled men are compared with those of the skilled men employed in the Southern mills where there is very little competition from new immigration.

The boundary line drawn by the Immigration Commission between skilled and unskilled workers-$1.45 per day-obviously does not fit the conditions in the Pittsburgh district, where common laborers were paid 16.5 cents per hour previous to the recent raise. The recent report of the United States Bureau of Labor on labor conditions in the iron and steel industry divides all employees into three classes: (1) The lowest class, of the same grade as common laborers, whose earnings are less than 18 cents per hour; (2) the highest class, whose earnings are 25 cents and over per hour; and (3) the intermediate class, from 18 to 25 cents. The proportions of these classes in the total number of employees are: 49.7 per cent for the unskilled, 23.6 per cent for the skilled, and 26.7 per cent for the intermediate. The latter class differs too widely from the intermediate class of the Pittsburgh Survey to be comparable with it. A fairly uniform basis, however, can be selected from the three classifications, as follows:

I

(1) From the Pittsburgh Survey: all employees earning over $2.50 per day.2

(2) From the report of the Bureau of Labor: all employees earning 25 cents and over, per hour.

(3) From the report of the Immigration Commission: all male employees 18 years of age and over who earn $17.50 and over per week.

The close similarity of the three groups appears from the comparative table on page 406.

The proportion of Southern and Eastern Europeans in this grade was 16.1 per cent in the East, while in the South the aggregate of Southern and Eastern Europeans and

1 Summary of Wages and Hours of Labor from the Report on Conditions of Employment in the Iron and Steel Industry in the United States, p. 26. Fitch, loc. cit., Table 8, p. 163.

2