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Among the many charges against the recent immigrants not the least important one is that their ignorant acquiescence in dangerous and unsanitary working conditions is a menace to the safety of the older employees. The Immigration Commission has accepted without criticism the employers' defense in work accidents, viz., that the majority of accidents arise from the negligence, the ignorance, and inexperience of the employees. There is, however, another side to the question. Many experts hold that most of the risks are humanly preventable, and their continuance is due to economic conditions beyond the control of the employee. Effective prevention of accidents in mines presupposes a carefully planned equipment involving considerable expense. But competition forces the mine operator to follow unsafe mining methods, which inevitably result in unneces sary sacrifice of human life. It is not the carelessness of the mine workers, but the carelessness of mine operators and their representatives that is, according to expert opinion, the cause of the high fatality rate in American mines. Similar dangerous conditions once existed in France and Belgium, but they were removed by stringent legislation and by an effective enforcement of the law. The theory which shifts the blame for accidents from the mine operator to the Slav miner tends to prevent the enactment of such legislation in the United States.

In the iron and steel mills there is the same popular disposition to shift the responsibility for accidents to "the ignorant foreigner," whereas expert opinion views the tremendous speed at which the plants are run as the real cause of danger. The greatest risk of death and personal injury is assumed by railway trainmen, who are all either Americans or natives of Northern and Western Europe. They have strong organizations and could not be replaced by nonEnglish-speaking immigrants. Yet "acquiescence in dangerous and unsanitary working conditions" appears to be the general attitude of organized and unorganized workers alike, irrespective of nationality. Obviously, organized

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labor does not feel strong enough to make demands which would involve large outlays by employers for safe equipment.

Organization of labor is nowadays generally recognized in the United States as the most effective of all existing agencies for the increase of wages and improvement of working conditions. It would therefore be a cause for grave concern if it were true, as claimed, that the recent immigrants were not organizable, and that their employment threatened the existing labor organizations with disruption. The fact is, however, that the origin and growth of organized labor in the United States are contemporaneous with the period of "the new immigration," and that the immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe are the backbone of some of the strongest labor unions. A notable example is the coal-mining industry, where the mine workers' organization has gained strength only since the Southern and Eastern Europeans have become the predominant element among them. One of the most troublesome problems which the organization of these immigrants has had to face has been the competition of the unorganized Americans of native stock.

Before 1880 all labor organizations were small in membership and their effect upon economic conditions was negli-. gible. Like everywhere, during the infancy of organized labor, a union would spring into existence under the impulse of a strike, would flourish for a while, if successful, and would soon disintegrate. The work of organization has since been proceeding at an ever increasing pace. During the first decade of the new immigration, 1880-1890, more labor unions were organized than throughout the previous history of the United States. The majority of the trade-unionists and Knights of Labor were of foreign birth, whereas the native Americans contributed less than their quota to the membership of labor organizations. The greatest success rewarded the efforts of union organizers during the first decade of the present century, the membership of labor

organizations growing faster than the number of wageearners. Thus the greatest activity in the field of organization coincided with the unparalleled immigration of the past decade. The best field for observation of the effects of immigration upon trade-unionism is the State of New York, which receives more than its proportionate share of immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe. A comparative study of trade-union statistics compiled by the New York Bureau of Labor and of the federal immigration statistics shows that union membership rises and falls with the rise and fall of immigration. The fluctuations of union mem⚫bership depend upon the business situation, which likewise determines the fluctuations of immigration. The harmonious movement of immigration and organization among wage-earners is thus accounted for by the fact that both are stimulated by business prosperity and discouraged by business depression.

The question arises, however, whether the progress of trade-unionism would not have been greater had there been no immigration from Southern and Eastern Europe during the past decade of industrial expansion. An answer to this question is furnished by the comparative growth of tradeunion membership in New York and in Kansas. The ratio of foreign-born in Kansas has been steadily decreasing since 1880. At the same time Kansas has shared in the recent industrial expansion. Statistics show that the relative number of organized workmen is much higher in New York with its large and growing Southern and Eastern European population than in Kansas, where more than nine tenths of the population are of native birth.

These comparisons prove that recent immigration has not retarded the progress of trade-unionism, except, of course, where it is the policy of the unions to exclude the recent immigrants by prohibitive initiation dues and other restrictive regulations intended to limit the number of competitors within their trades.

Language is nowadays no longer a bar to organization

among immigrants. The membership of every union includes a sufficient number of men of every nationality through whom their countrymen can be reached.

Many of the more recent immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe had acquired a familiarity with the principles of organization in their home countries. In Italy organization has lately made rapid progress not only among industrial workers but also among agricultural laborers. In Russia, previous to the revolution of 1905, labor organizations and strikes were treated as conspiracies, but the revolutionary year 1905 outmatched the labor-union record of any other country. The strikes of that year affected one third of all the factories employing three fifths of all factory workers. The total number of strikers, at a conservative estimate, exceeded three and a half millions. The strikers drew together wage-earners of all those nationalities which make up the bulk of our immigration from Russia: Hebrews, Poles, Lithuanians, Russians, and Ruthenians (Little Russians). In this connection, it is worthy of note that the organizations of clothing workers in New York City, nearly all of whom are Russian and Polish Jews and Italians, comprise a higher proportion of the total number employed in the industry than the average trade-union in the United States.

If organized labor in the United States has not succeeded in welding together a majority of the wage-earners, the fault is neither with immigration in general, nor with immigration from Southern and Eastern Europe in particular. The primary cause is the substitution of machinery for human skill, which is taking the ground from the craft union. The latter, however, as a rule, does not seek to organize the unskilled laborers. Situations have arisen where the interests of the craft union have been antagonistic to organization among the unskilled. That organization among the unskilled is feasible, however, has been demonstrated in the coal-mining industry and recently in the Lawrence strike.

Another obstacle to the progress of trade-unionism is that the principal industries to-day are controlled by combinations, which have reduced competition among employers of labor to a minimum. In a contest of endurance between

a trust and a trade-union, the former is able to hold out longer, since it can shift the losses to the consumers. The only successful strikes against trusts have been those in which the majority of the strikers were immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe, viz., the strikes in the anthracite coal mines of Pennsylvania and in the woolen mills of Lawrence.

One of the reasons for the greater power of resistance exhibited by the Southern and Eastern Europeans is the predominance among them of men without families. The single European wage-earner who manages to save a portion of his earnings can fall back on his savings, if necessary. This relieves the pressure upon the strike fund. On the other hand, the families of recent immigrants, being inured to the most simple life in their home countries, can more easily endure the hardships of a strike than the families of native American wage-earners. The Southern and Eastern European strikers are therefore able to hold out longer in a wage contest than the native wage-earner.

The defeat of many strikes is charged against the immigrant, who, though supposedly too tractable under normal conditions, is said to be inclined to violence when aroused. Suffice it to say that strike riots are as old as strikes in the United States.

On the other hand, however, the United Mine Workers of America, whose members are mostly immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe, has put into practical operation an industrial parliament, with separate representation

The proportion of married men among the recent immigrants employed in bituminous coal mines varied from 49.4 per cent to 77.2 per cent; the proportion of married men whose families were living abroad averaged 27.9 per cent for all races, varying from 19.5 to 80.4 per cent.— Reports of the Immigration Commission, vol. 6, Tables 102 and 104.

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