per cent." The employers are also mostly immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe. A large proportion of the strikers were recent immigrants from Russia who had taken an active part in the revolution of 1905 and in the labor movement at home. The Board of Sanitary Control is characterized by the writer in the Bulletin of the Bureau of Labor as "the most original feature of the Protocol [by which the strike was settled] and one with great possibilities for good, not only for those directly interested in the industry, but for those interested in all practicable means of securing higher standards of sanitation, ventilation, and safety for the thousands of workers in the factories." The Board consists of representatives of the Cloak and Skirt Makers' Union, of the Cloak, Suit, and Skirt Manufacturers' Association, and of the public. For the enforcement of its standards it has established "a unique, practical, militant striking machine. . . . The strike on account of the unsanitary conditions of the shop is an entirely new weapon, and is unique in that it directs the full strength of the associated employers and employees alike against the offending party."3 During the first year since the establishment of the Board, there were twenty-seven sanitary strikes.4 During the twenty-year period 1881-1900, 37,845 establishments in the State of New York were involved in strikes for various objects; in only eight of that number the grievances related to sanitary conditions.5 Charles H. Winslow: "Conciliation, Arbitration, and Sanitation in the Cloak, Suit, and Skirt Industry in New York City," Bulletin of the Bureau of Labor, No. 98, p. 269. 2 Ibid., p. 253. 3 Ibid., p. 254. 4 Ibid., p. 255. 5 Sixteenth Annual Report of the Commissioner of Labor, pp. 348-351, 387-394. The average number of strikers per establishment during that period was thirty; the total number of persons involved in strikes over sanitary demands may accordingly be estimated at 240 for 18811900. The total number involved in sanitary strikes approved by the Joint Board of Sanitary Control was 350. Certainly, the sanitary strike is the last recourse against an obdurate employer who fails, after due notice, to bring his shop up to the standard required by the Board. Only in rare cases was it necessary to resort to this extreme measure. During the first year of its existence the Board investigated 916 buildings and inspected 1738 shops in which 45,199 persons were employed. "Sanitary certificates" were issued to manufacturers who had complied with the standards of the Board. There was a great demand for these certificates. The number granted up to February 15, 1912, was 312, and 508 applications were pending. In about 1000 establishments delay was caused by the necessity to make structural changes for which official authority had to be obtained.1 These results are the contribution of the "undesirable immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe" to the improvement of working conditions in the United States. 1 Winslow, loc. cit., pp. 261, 267, 268. PART IV CONCLUSION CHAPTER XXIII PROBABLE EFFECTS OF RESTRICTION OF IMMIGRATION T is recognized by the Immigration Commission that the industrial expansion of the past twenty years would have been impossible without "the new immigration." But the Commission holds "a slow expansion of industry" preferable to "immigration of laborers of low standards." The Commission has accordingly recommended that “a sufficient number be debarred to produce a marked effect upon the present supply of unskilled labor." At the same time the Commission is very careful to place no obstacles in the way of the skilled immigrant and recommends legislation that would facilitate the importation of skilled labor under contract.2 If the recommendations of the Immigration Commission were carried out, there would soon be an oversupply of skilled labor. In a modern mill or mine there is a fixed proportion of skilled to unskilled laborers. Were the immigration of skilled mechanics to continue unimpaired, while the expansion of industry slowed down in consequence of a reduced supply of unskilled labor, it is evident that a portion of the skilled immigrants could find no employment at their trades. In the long run the immigration 1 Reports of the Immigration Commission, vol. 1, p. 45. • Ibid., p. 47. of skilled men would adjust itself to the demand for skilled labor. Temporarily, however, the skilled crafts whose organizations are urging the adoption of the recommendation of the Commission for the exclusion of unskilled immigrants would be the first to suffer from its effects. The slowing down of the pace of industrial development must necessarily curtail the opportunities for advancement of the wage-earners who are already here. On the other hand, the unemployed could gain nothing from a slow growth of industry. In times of rapid industrial expansion the demand for labor is more active than in times of industrial stagnation. Inasmuch as unemployment is not due to an absolute oversupply of labor, but results from seasonal and cyclical variations in the general demand for labor, as well as from variations in the demands of individual employers, it is clear that these causes could not be removed by reducing the supply of labor. If the industries of the United States can furnish steady employment all year round to eighty per cent of all wage-earners and in times of maximum activity to ninetyfive per cent,' but must have the full one hundred per cent ready on call, there being no agency for dovetailing the demands of scattered individual employers, these ratios will not be affected by the scale of national production. If instead of letting the number of factory workers grow to seven million by 1909, the law had kept it at 5,600,000, as it had been in 1904, i.e., twenty per cent below the 1909 figure, the industrial reserve of twenty per cent would not have been wiped out, but would have only been smaller in proportion. Yet the 1,120,000 irregularly employed in 1904 exerted the same economic pressure on the 4,480,000 who were employed all year around, as the 1,400,000 on the 5,600,000 in 1909. The problem of the 5 per cent irreducible minimum of unemployed was no less All figures in this example are merely estimates based upon the statistics of the XII. and the XIII. Census. They are used only for purposes of illustration. serious when they were only 280,000 in 5,600,000, than when they grew to be 350,000 in 7,000,000. The mere exclusion of unskilled immigrants, and even of all immigrants, will not provide employment for all masons and carpenters in the winter, or for the full winter force of a Wisconsin logging camp in the summer. Nor will the restriction of immigration revolutionize the world of fashion, so as to permit of the filling of orders for ladies' garments out of season. In order to provide regular employment for the industrial reserve, all industries would have to be run upon a common time schedule, like railway trains are run on connecting lines. No plan of such a reorganization of industry has as yet been proposed that would be acceptable to all advocates of immigration restriction, let alone the proprietors of half a million independent mining, manufacturing, and mercantile establishments. It is hardly reasonable to expect a systematic adjustment of business activity on such a gigantic scale to grow up spontaneously from a purely negative measure shutting out immigration. As a theoretical proposition, it seems quite plausible that the exclusion of "a sufficient number" of immigrants "to produce a marked effect upon the supply of unskilled labor" must force employers to pay scarcity rates of wages. It is needless, however, to indulge in abstract speculation on the possible effects of a reduced supply of unskilled immigrant labor, when such a condition actually exists in the United States throughout the agricultural sections. Few immigrants seek employment on the farms. At the census of 1900 the total number of Southern and Eastern European male farm laborers in the United States was only 37,401. The number of all foreign-born male farm laborers had actually decreased from 1890 to 1900.2 Moreover, there is a constant stream of native labor from the farms to the cities, which has led to an actual decrease of the rural population in many agricultural counties. Farmers gen 1 Reports of the Immigration Commission, vol. 1, Table A, pp. 821-829. Occupations, XII. Census, Table XXXIV, p. cviii. 2 |