CHAPTER XXXV

STRIKES IN THEIR MORAL AND ECONOMIC ASPECTS

Strikes from an Ideal Standpoint. Strikes in Practice. Trade Unions Prevent Strikes. The Avoidance of Misunderstandings. The Initiative in Strikes and Lockouts. Do Strikes Pay? The Strike Bill of the Nation. The Loss in Time. The Shock from Strikes. Compensating Advantages of Strikes. A Strike Lost may be a Strike Won. Strikes have Benefited the Workman and the Employer. The Right "Not to Work." "Fools do not Strike." The Moral Gain from Strikes. Unrecorded Heroism.

TRIKES may be considered from the standpoint either of ideal or

STRIK

actual conditions. Viewed from ideal conditions, a strike is a barbarous method of settling industrial controversies. It is a struggle of endurance, a question of might, not right; it is war carried into the industrial field, and like all war, attended by cruelty and suffering; it is a feudal conflict, in which many besides the immediate contestants are grievously injured. Thus, from an ideal point of view, the necessity for even occasional strikes constitutes one of the strongest indictments against civilized society.

Doubtless, if in some way or other an all-wise, all-good, and all-powerful government could, without injury to the liberty and prosperity of individuals, determine the rate of remuneration and the labor conditions of all workers, either by some ideal form of Socialism or by so harmonizing the interests of all classes that no two men should covet the same thing-doubtless, in that event, strikes would come to be unnecessary. Even under present conditions, with humanity imperfect as it is, the frequency of strikes may be largely diminished by means of trade unions.

There can be little doubt that with the increasing strength and growing conservatism of labor organizations and with the growth of a fuller and better understanding between labor and capital, industrial conflicts will tend, to become less frequent. There is an ebb and flow in the movement of labor

conflicts, the number of strikes increasing rapidly in periods of great prosperity or sudden depression and decreasing in times of normal business activity. The trade unions, however, have largely stemmed the current of strikes. With each year the capitalists of the country, the men who are entrusted with the direction of great industries, learn to realize more fully the justification of labor organization, and, as a consequence, strikes for the existence of unions are becoming less necessary. Many strikes are due to misunderstanding and may be and are averted by friendly meetings of the parties in interest. When the employers and workingmen can get together about a table and discuss the various differences of opinion in a fair and open manner, many of the rash strikes and wanton lockouts of former times will disappear. More can be accomplished by education of both parties to their mutual interest than by strikes. It is only where either employers or employees absolutely refuse to do what is reasonable, whether in their interest or not, that a temporary cessation of work, in the form of a strike or a lockout, is better than a continuance of work.

Frequently strikes are inevitable, just as there are cases in which lockouts cannot be avoided. It is commonly believed by people unacquainted with the subject that workmen are responsible for strikes and employers, for lockouts. This is not true. When the decisive action is taken by the employees, a cessation of work is called a strike, and a lockout when the initiative is taken by the employers. The responsibility, however, for a strike or for a lockout does not necessarily rest with the person who takes the decisive step, but with the party at fault, either in making unreasonable demands, or in refusing to accede to reasonable demands. Employers are occasionally responsible for strikes, as workmen are occasionally responsible for lockouts. In fact, it is often extremely difficult to draw a line, or to make a distinction between the two, since in many cases it cannot be determined by which side hostilities were begun.

It is often said that strikes do not pay. The anti-union newspapers of the country are a unit upon this point, and even many friends of the workingman claim that it never pays to strike. We frequently hear it

stated that by a strike workmen lose more in a month than they may hope to regain in years, and that consequently practically all strikes are useless and unremunerative. It seems to me that such a judgment, which is based on a calculation of mere dollars and cents, is inherently wrong, because incomplete. One might just as well impugn the common sense of the farmers of Lexington, since the cost of a war with Great Britain was a hundredfold greater than the whole amount of taxation without representation. There is more in a strike than wages or hours of labor, and a strike may be a loss from a money point of view and a great gain in a higher and nobler sense. The cost of strikes has been grossly exaggerated, and the benefits conferred by them unduly minimized. A careful compilation has been carried on during the last twenty years by the United States Department of Labor, and the cost to employers and employees of all strikes in all industries has been ascertained for the period from January 1, 1881, to December 31, 1900. As a result of this work, which was efficiently organized and well conducted, Commissioner Carroll D. Wright says: "The losses to employers and employees under all conflicts, both strikes and lockouts, occurring in this period, 1881-1900, amounted to the enormous sum of $468,968,681."

In other words, the direct losses resulting from strikes and lockouts during the last twenty years were about $469,000,000, of which about 5/6 were attributed to strikes and 1/6 to lockouts. This seems to be a large sum, but when spread over the whole period, it amounts to an actual loss. of only 38¢ per year, or about 3¢ per month for each inhabitant. As a nation we spent during this period more than five times as much upon pensions as upon strikes, and the American people have expended more during the last four months for railroad transportation than they have lost in strikes and lockouts during twenty years. Roughly speaking, the average workingman has spent very much less than 1% of his income on strikes or lockouts.

The same is true of the time lost through strikes. If we multiply the number of days of unemployment by the number of men who are out of

work, the total loss amounts to 194,000,000 days; but spread over the whole period, this loss amounts to very much less than one day per year for each adult worker. In other words, the workmen of the United States have lost less time from strikes and lockouts than from the celebration of the Fourth of July or any other legal holiday, and the leisure resulting from strikes has not been 1/50 of that caused by the general observance of the Sabbath. The total amount of time lost by strikes and lockouts during the last twenty years would be more than counterbalanced by the addition of four minutes to the average working day. Much of even this comparatively slight loss, moreover, is merely apparent. "The days so lost," says Commissioner Wright, "do not represent absolute loss, as cessation of work or production often does away with the necessity of stoppage at some other time for restricting the output to the demands of trade and making repairs." Thus, in the coal mining industry, which furnished almost one-third of all strikes during the last two decades, a large portion of the time lost through strikes would probably have been lost in any case, since the number of idle days in the anthracite regions, due to no fault of the miners, averaged 111 working days per year, while the days lost by strikes certainly did not exceed ten per year. The result of many of the coal strikes preceding that of 1902, had been to close the mines at one time, instead of closing them at another.

I do not wish to argue that strikes are not a great evil, nor that much hardship is not caused by them. The loss to the whole body of workmen may be very small, and still the hardship to individuals be acute and severe. In every strike individuals are bound to suffer, and the fasting of to-day is not compensated for by the feasting of to-morrow. There are many losses in a strike, moreover, which do not fall upon either of the two contestants. Thus, in many railroad and street railway strikes, the greatest sufferers are the public, who are deprived of comforts or even of necessaries. Another loss to the community results from a feeling of insecurity, which is shown in the strike clauses to contracts, as well as in the shock which the community experiences whenever a great strike is declared.

There are, however, great compensating advantages in strikes, espe

cially when inaugurated for a good purpose and carried on in the proper spirit. The shock of which I have just spoken is in itself frequently of considerable advantage to the community. Workingmen, like employers, get into ruts, and the strike, or anything else which changes the ordinary constitution of industry, frequently leads to the adoption of better methods of production and to increased output. In many cases, strikes have resulted in the adoption of labor-saving devices or improved machinery, and the output of an industry after a strike has often been much greater than before its inception.

Apart from this fact, it can scarcely be doubted that the really justifiable | strikes and the majority of the strikes in the United States have been justifiable-have resulted in a great advantage to the workmen. Strikes have paid, and strikes, when for a good purpose and conducted in a proper manner, will continue to pay. While the workingman has lost during the last twenty years less than one per cent. of his wages in strikes and lockout.. and the loss in time from this enforced idleness has been less than one day per year, the gains derived from strikes, or what has been the same thing, the fear of strikes, have been very much in excess of one per cent. increase in wages. Not only have wages been largely increased, hours of labor reduced, and conditions generally improved, but the whole moral tone of the workingmen of the community has been appreciably elevated.

It is, of course, not true and it cannot be claimed, that all that has been gained by the workingmen has been obtained through strikes. Some of this advance has been due to, or, at least, has been rendered possible by, the increased intelligence and productivity of labor, by the adoption of new machines, and by the better organization of workmen in factories and mines; but a large percentage of gain, a percentage far in excess of the one per cent. cost, has resulted from the fact that through organization the men were able and willing, in case of necessity, to strike effectively. While any particular strike may not have been a paying investment, there can be little doubt that strikes in the aggregate have benefited the working classes much more than they have cost or injured them.