whereas in the Eastern mills the Southern and Eastern Europeans constitute 16.1 per cent of all mill men earning $17.50 and upwards. TABLE 123. AND STEEL WORKERS WITH SPECIFIED PER CENT OF SKILLED IRON There is considerable variation in the proportion of skilled and unskilled labor employed in various departments of iron and steel mills. This variation may affect geographical comparisons which take no account of industrial specialization. In order to eliminate this source of error the proportions of employees earning 25 cents per hour and over in productive occupations are compared in Table 124 by departments. The figures show that, in all departments but one, a larger proportion of all employees are paid those rates in the Pittsburgh district than in the South. It may be assumed that the substitution of machinery for human skill in the Pittsburgh district is as far advanced as in the Southern mills; the proportion of skilled * Reports of the Immigration Commission, vol. 9, pp. 134, 355. 2 The following table is confined to "productive occupations" in order to exclude from the comparison, as far as possible, others than iron and steel workers. "The wages of workmen in mechanical trades are much more nearly standardized in the different districts than of the employees in the productive occupations, who are dependent almost entirely on the iron and steel industry for employment." Summary of Wages and Hours of Labor in the Iron and Steel Industry, men in each department of the Pittsburgh mills may, therefore, be accepted as the standard. It follows, accordingly, that in the Southern mills a fraction varying from one sixth to two thirds of all skilled men are paid less than 25 cents per hour, whereas in the Pittsburgh district all men of the same class are paid 25 cents and over. TABLE 124. PER CENT OF EMPLOYEES IN EACH DEPARTMENT EARNING 25 CENTS AND OVER PER HOUR, IN THE PITTSBURGH AND THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT.' The exception noted above applies to eleven miscellaneous rod mills in the United States employing a total of 333 men at 25 cents and over per hour,2 i. e., about per cent of the total in productive occupations. The number is too small to affect the labor situation.3 The preceding comparisons lead to the conclusion that the rates of wages of iron and steel workers vary inversely as the ratio of recent immigrants: The wages of the unskilled, the bulk of whom are Slavs, have kept pace with the cost of living; the wages of the "aristocrats of labor," none of whom are Slavs, have been reduced; the money wages of Summary of Wages and Hours of Labor in the Iron and Steel Industry, p. 32. 2 Ibid., pp. 16 and 25. 3 At the present writing the full report of the Bureau of Labor is still in press, while the published summary does not go into details of a local character. other skilled men, two thirds of whom are English-speaking, have remained stationary-the wages of this class of employees are lower in the South, where they meet no immigrant competition, than in the Pittsburgh District. This correlation between the percentage of recent immigrants and the variation of the rate of wages is not the manifestation of some innate racial predisposition to higher wages, but the working of the law of supply and demand in the labor market. The employment of a high percentage of immigrants in any section, industry, or occupation is an indication of an active demand for labor in excess of the native supply. Absence of immigrants is a sign of a dull market for labor. The wages of the unskilled Slav laborers have been raised because of the increasing demand for unskilled labor, not in the steel industry alone, but in other industries as well. The unskilled Slavs "can dig ditches or heave coal any day just as well as they can throw chains around piles of steel billets or shovel scrap into furnaces." On the contrary, the skilled English-speaking steel workers, though "individually essential to the industry . . . could not enter any other industry without a reduction in earning power, because they are skilled only as steel workers. Hence their acquiescence in a lowered rate of wages, whereas the unskilled Slav with his supposedly "lower standard of living" has been able to command as high a wage (measured by purchasing power) as his Englishspeaking predecessor. 112 Long hours and Sunday work have not come with the new immigration. "Sunday work has been general in blast furnaces in this country from the beginning. In rolling mills the practice has varied. There were some mills which ran on Sundays, as far back as the 80's, before "the Slav invasion." The Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers in the days of its power raised no objection to labor on Sunday. Its main concern was solely with wages, and it is a historical fact, worthy of notice, Fitch, loc. cit., p. 154. p. 168. 2 a Ibid., that the twelve-hour day was staunchly defended by the organized iron and steel workers when the steel manufacturers, prompted by technical considerations, attempted to reduce the day to eight hours. The twelve-hour day was the outgrowth of metallurgical conditions in the old iron mills. In puddling one charge has to be melted, worked, and taken out before the next can go in. From the beginning of the industry in the Pittsburgh District, five charges or "heats" have been a day's work for a puddler. In the mills rolling sheet iron, too, the working day was determined by the number of heats. In the early days of the iron industry five heats took about twelve hours. This was the basis of the twelve-hour day with the two-shift system. With the progress of improvements in furnace construction and methods, it became possible to finish a turn of five heats in a shorter time and the actual working day gradually shrank to one of ten hours and even less. As a result of the shortened time, there came to be periods of idleness between shifts. In a sheet mill this interim between shifts was especially objectionable, for sheet iron is rolled so thin that good results can be obtained only when the rolls are expanded by the heat. The rolls are so shaped that when cold they cannot turn out a sheet of uniform thickness; consequently after a period of idleness hot scrap is sent through them until they reach the correct expansion. To avoid these periods of idleness, the manufacturers, in the 80's, sought to introduce an eight-hour day. This was for a long time resisted by the union, which stood firmly for the twelve-hour shift. The reason for this unusual attitude was that the skilled men who belonged to the union were paid at piece rates and apprehended a loss of a part of their earnings in case they might not be able to turn out five heats in eight hours. The question was discussed at several national conventions. Some of the officers took the ground that a reduction of hours was desirable even if it originally involved a loss of earnings to individuals. The introduction of a three-shift system would create a demand for half as many more skilled men as were employed at the time and would eventually enable the members of the union to win an increase in piece rates. But the rank and file of the membership could not see so far ahead and forced the officers to insist upon the twelve-hour day. Some lodges which had accepted the eight-hour shift were suspended. One of the presidents of the union who supported the manufacturers in their effort to introduce the eight-hour day was denounced by the membership as a traitor to the cause of labor. The controversy lasted several years in the 80's, when the iron and steel workers were all of the Englishspeaking races. Later the union relaxed its rule against the eight-hour system, but the manufacturers had meanwhile readjusted themselves to the old twelve-hour shift.' This episode characterizes the spirit of the Amalgamated Association. The Association was originally organized as a union of skilled iron workers and was very strong in the iron industry. But with the decline of the latter the power of the organization began to wane. It never gained strength in the steel mills. Out of 3800 men at Homestead when the strike began in 1892, only 752 were members in good standing of the Amalgamated Association. "The Association has always been an organization of skilled workers and has centered its efforts on securing better conditions for that class of labor alone," says Mr. Fitch. "It was only in 1889 that the constitution permitted the admission of all men, except, however, common laborers."2 Nevertheless, when the Amalgamated Association struck in 1892, the common laborers, the despised Hungarians and Slavs, stood by it.3 The defeat of the Homestead strike broke the organization. It had been rapidly increas I See Fitch, loc. cit., pp. 90-97. 2 Ibid. pp. 97, 98. "A great cause was in the balance, and in their humble way the army of the poor Hungarians and Slavs understood it," says a tradeunion historian of the Homestead strike.-Myron R. Stowell: Fort Frick, or the Siege of Homestead, p. 86. |