TRADES UNION TACTICS IN GREAT BRITAIN.

Otago Witness, Issue 2325, 22 September 1898, Page 28

TRADES UNION TACTICS IN GREAT BRITAIN.

'A STUDY IN TRADE UNIONISM. (Concluded.') The plain man (not merely the economist and the statesman, as Mr Sidney Webb suggests) must judge trade unionism not by its result in (apparently) improving the position of one particular section of workmen at one particular time, but by its permanent effects on the industrial efficiency •of the nation as a whole. And Mr Webb says that If any of the methods and regulations of trade unionism result in the choice of less efficient factora of production than would otherwise have been used; if they compel the adoption of a lower type of organisation than would liave prevailed without them; and especially it they tend to lessen the capacity or degrade the character of either manual labourers or brainworkers—that part of trade unionism, however advantageous it may seem to particular sections of workmen, will stand condemned. And our contention is that the methods of brade unionism have done all this and more also ; that they have in especial so lessened the' capacity and degraded the character of the. British working man that he seems to l»e losing the knowledge of good and evil and to be becoming a mere automaton. We need not, however, confine ourselves to the A.S.E. in seeking for evidence of the degrading influence of trade unionism, and of its demoralising qualities. These are not to fee found anywhere in a more glaring form than in the associations of carpenters and joiners, which in the shipbuilding yards are collectively called the "white squad." Once upon a - time there was no brisker, busier, and more cheery worker than the shipyard carpenter, whose object in life seemed to be to get through as much good honest work in the day. as possible. No class of workman was held in more respect by employers, and no workmen took more pride in their craft and in their own personal industry. And now? Why now the carpenters and joiners are the abjectest slaves of their own trade unions. They cannot call their souls their own, for they dare no longer act on their own conceptions of honesty. For a day's wage they must not render the best service they can give, but just- a certain maximum of work marked out by their paid officials. There are cases where they have refused work because they were not allowed by the union to do enough to keep themselves warm in cold weather. For instance, the union declares that 90ft of caulking is a day's work, and an official of the union goes round periodically to see that no workman exceeds this amount. If he does he -is called before his lodge and severely fined. Yet a boy can caulk GOft in a day, and in the pre-union days an industrious man could do his 300 or 400 ft. For direct testimony on this point take the following letter from "a working carpenter to the Glasgow Herald -of a few weeks j&go: — Sir, — As an old chip, and with considerable experience and connection with the shipwrights, it may not be out of place for me to throw a glimmer of light on "Orcadia's" question asked -in your issue of the 25th or 26th. I have been connected with the Shipwrights' Society since the days when it was bossed by Ned Campbell, Willie Munn, Wattle Boss, and pan M'Cann, and when their meeting place was in Grace street, Anderston; that was in 1859. Then later the worthy man James Lu'dFow was appointed secretary, and kept the society tool shop in Argyll street, which, as everyone knows, was a white' elephant. Ludlow, in Risgust, 'threw up the secretaryship, and our friend and counsellor Mr Alexander Wilkie was appointed. At the beginning of his reign the society was of the grand old type — viz., for sickness and death ; every man at work was allowed .without let or hindrance to do a fair day's ,work for a fair day's pay. There was none of .the new unionism, thought of then ; every man was allowed to use his own discretion as to what was right and fair. In these days I have known Wilkie caulk between 300 and 400 feet -with three threads of oakum, spin it, and pay his own berth, and have done the same myself alongside of him. At night we were quite pleased with ourselves, and had the satisfaction Df knowing that a fair day's work had been done. But now, alas! things have sadly changed, and I feel not for the better. Since Wilkie has been promoted to the secretaryship of the Amalgamated Society and joined in with the Socialistic fraternity all these happy days have changed; the "ca-canny" element has been introduced, and the employees or workmen are now taught to look upon employers as their natural eneinieß. The 'true measure of work done in my young days was that every 100 lineal feet of a single thread driven home was worth lOd ; thus hours' work, 2 treads, in p. p. or teak 130 f t; of 5 threads at lOd equal 4s 2d, and so on. The society have now introduced, and are enforcing, the following scale, viz.:— For nine and a-half hours work, 2 threads,' in p. p. or teak 130 feet, an yellow pine 150 feet;' 3 threads, in p. p. or teak 120 feet, in yellow pine 130 feet ; 4 threads, in p. p_. or teak 110 feet, in yellow pine 120 feet ; 5 threads, in p. p. or teak 100 feet, in yellow , pine 110 feet; 6 threads, in p. p.. or teak 90 feet, in yellow pine 100 feet. Now, I think that "Orcadia" or the general public may judge .whether that restriction is iair or not. As one of the fraternity, I have no hesitation in saying, B,nd have said repeatedly, it is a black burning phame, and many others of the fraternity are heartily ashamed of it, and would not -be sorry, now that the employers have a federation, that they would exercise their power in having a fair day's work for a fair day's pay. — I am, etc., * An Old Chip. "A black ' burning shame" it certainly is that the shipyard knows the honest, industrious, self-respecting, and' dignified carpenter no more. 'Some of the men, as we see, are disgusted with the practice, but they are all the victims of the spy system, and are all afraid of the weekly "inquisition " before which they will be hauled if reported to have been seen doing too much. It is not in caulking alone they are lefitricted, and the limitation of industry has, it is computed, raised the cost of shipwrights' work by at least 30 per cent, within the last three or four years.' An employer lhas told us of the case of a carpenter, whom he accused of laziness, declaring with tears 3n his eyes that he knew he ought to be fioing double what he was turning out, hub that he "dare not." In these' shipwrights' unions, too, though there is no open attempt to limit apprentices, limitation is practised all the same. When an employer starts a number of new apprentices llie knows to a certainty that, after a short time, first one and then another of the boys will dro]> off, until perhaps only one is left. 'And he knows that this is the result of the " persuasive " powers of the union officials.

who make it, somehow, plain to the boys that they are "de trop " and had better turn their attention to some other trade. That the men allow the present dishonest practices to be continued proves that the majority of them have become themselves dishonest under the influence of trade unionism. But when these able-bodied, originally honest, men are content to sit on a ship's deck all day long twisting and untwisting the same two or three inches of oakum, to keep up a false appearance cf being actively employed, what miserable creatures they seem to those who know the real meaning of their listless movements ! Kegard them well : these are the choice products of trade unionism, the degraded victims of the power of combination. How trade unionism can destroy a trade the flint-glass makers well know. Forty years ago flint-glass making was a flourishing and lucrative industry in Great Britain ; and 40 years ago the Flint-glass Makers' Union spent £50,000 on a strike over the apprenticeship question. They -won the power to strictly limit the number of apprentices — and from that moment the industry began to decline under the pressure of the extravagant wages demanded, which ranged up to 70s and 80s a week. Glasshouse after glass-house was closed until the industry disappeared from all but a very few districts. This trade union created a monopoly in labour, and the monopoly has driven the trade into the hands of foreigners. All but the most costly of our table and household glassware is now imported from Belgium and Germany ; and in one glassworks on the Rhine are now employed more men than belong to the entire National Flint-glass Makers' Society in Great Britain, whose out-of-work list increases portentously year by year. This trade union has not only lost to the country an old and lucrative business, but it has driven numbers of men, no longer able to find work as glass-makers, to compete for employment in other avenues of labour already overcrowded. Even that great apostle of trade unionism, Mr Sidney Webb, admits that any limitaton of the persons from Avhom vacancies can be filled must both lower the quality of the recruits and deteriorate that of the men } already in the trade. It is admitted by Mr Webb that "in those trades in which the device of restriction of numbers is effectually practised, an employer habitually puts up with a higher degree of irregularity, carelessness, and inefficiency in his existing stoii than he would if be could freely promote a learner or an assistant to the better-paid situation." Where there is a close corporation of workmen the individual worker has no interest in enlarging the business, and, . therefore, none in the efficent application of his labour. He is a participator in a monopoly with -only his own labour to sell, and that ,at the highest possible price for the least possible expenditure of it. His sole aim becomes to obtain as much money as he can extract for the smallest outlay of energy. He has nothing to gain by cheapening the joint product — indeed, the dearer it becomes the more margin he imagines ior further extraction from the employer. The work, he thinks, will last his time, and after . that— the Deluge. That what he calls the " device of restriction of numbers " is injurious to industrial efficiency Mr Webb admits, but he does not perceive how much worse it is ; how essentially sordid, selfish, and destructive of moral fibre j how it is both an ethical error and an economic wrong to the Slate. It is just in another form that restriction of output which presents the most mischievous aspect of trade unionism. And it is carried to sxich an extent that the Glassmakers' Union (to give one example) have been known to refuse to allow a small employer to apprentice his own son to his own trade — which the operatives wished to keep to themselves. In that model trade union, the 'United Society of Boilermakers and Iron and Steel i Shipbuilders, the general secretary of which (Mr Robert Knight) is held up as a pattern of all that a labour leader should be, there is the following remarkable rule (44, section 2): — "Any member or members applying for v the position of a foreman or leadinghand must not nc:ept such a positon at a lower salary than has previously been paid to the foreman or leading-band who occupied the position. Should an underforeman be advanced to the position of head foreman in the same firm, he must get the full salary paid to his predecessor within 12 months of taking the position." The penalty for violating this rule is £5 for the first offence and expulsion for the second. Now consider the arrogance and unreason of this. The employer is to have no option in the matter. It is the post which has to be rated, not the man — just as the engineers have tried to rate machine tools, irrespective of the capacity and the industry of the machinists. Once a salary is given to a man for performing certain duties, that salary must be continued for all time to his successors, however inexperienced and comparatively incompetent they may be. The retiring foreman jn&y be a grey-beard who has lived his life in the works, and who is worth his weight in gold to the firm ; the new foreman may be a callow youth with, his spurs as " gaffer "to win. No matter ; the trade union decrees that the youth shall be paid, not according to his own ability, but according to the worth of his predecessor.' And in promulgating such a rule the Boilermakers'* Society presents another example of the demoralising tyranny of trade unionism. This Boilermakers' Society is a very close corporation indeed. Mr Knight has managed to draw into it practically all who go down to the river in iron ships, and all those who make noises in big boilers with hammers. It is the members of this society who, in their several grades put together the whole framework and affix the plates of a modern ship. A large portion of their labour is purely muscular, , and needs the minimum of intelligence. But, by combination, these men now obtain wages which are fully 50 per cent above the average price of mere manual labour. Indeed it has been estimated that the work of riveting now costs twice as much as when the labour market was open. When working on time wages members of the Boilermakers' Union can leave the yards before noon, having completed before breakfast all the woik they are allowed to do by the union within a working day,. Whoa

working on piece wages and in gangs, as is most usual with the riveters, the ganger works his men like a slave-driver, and will hardly allow his attendant labourers time to sneeze. These men make large wages, but they prefer to earn all in four days of six or seven hours each, and to spend the rest of the week in boozing. And while the head of the riveters' gang boozes, or sleeps off the effects of his boozes, not a man belonging to his gang dare do a hand's turn, and a great portion of the work of the yard must stand still. To turn now to another trade — that of vie bricklayers. A medical gentleman was leeently having his garden wall rebuilt, and one day went oiit to see how the work was getting on. He noticed that one of the bricklayers had his right hand strapped behind his back, and was working away by picking up the bricks and using the trowel with his left hand only. As a surgeon his interest was excited in a possible " case," and he called for the foreman to bring the man to him for a surgical examination. After much evasion the foreman had to confess that there was nothing whatever wrong with the man's arm. He was so smart a worker that he got through double and treble the amount of work that the others did, and as this was against the rules, l'e had to submit to having one arm tied up so as to put him on an equal footing with his "mates." The poor man, of course, had to submit or be shouldered out of employment; but what a degradation for the " mates " ! The restrictions in tho building trades are notorious, and very stringent are the limitations of the modex-n tale of bricks. But if one class of small employers more than another is to be pitied, it is the Master Plasterers of Scotland. In consequence cf long-continued activity in building, the Operative Plasterers' Union have got the employers in the hollow of their hand. It is not that they have exacted extravagant wages, for the scale of pay is not accounted excessive for good work, but that they do not work for the wages they receive. This is a trade conducted entirely on time wages, and in which some considerable training is indispensable, so that new labour cannot easily be imported. The union officials have drawn up an elaborate code of rules specifying the minimum time to be expended by each member on every part of the work. He may spend as much more time as he likes over each job — and he usually does — but if he gets through any job in less tlicvw. the scheduled time he is called before his lodge and fined in heavily repealed penalties for each repeated offence. The scheduled times are such as the merest " duffer " can overtake with ease ; but that is not the worst of it. In order to fill up the working day the men may go off to the nearest public-house, or otherwise divert themselves, until it is time to finish the job. ; and the master has to pay not only for this idle time, but also for the time of the labourers who are kept waiting the plasterers pleasure. A significant note in the plasterers' rale book is to this effect : " The committee are desirous that where any of our members are working along with apprentices that said member or members see that apprentices do their work proper, because they are of opinion, if that was done, there would not be such an amount of work done by them as stated at times by our members." This, it will be seen, is another instance of training the young idea how to shoot in deceit and dishonour. The official " district delegate " of the Plasterers' Union goes daily the round of the buildings where the members are at work, and checks whatever individual instances there may be of a disposition towards undue industry by marki ing up the maximum of work to be done in that building for the day. Woe to them who exceed this. Although Mill thought the restrictive j rules which forbid the employment of nonunionists and which limit the number of apprentices are " sometimes indispensable to the complete efficacy of unionism," he also said : " There is no keeping up wages without limiting the number of competitors for employment, and all such limitation inflicts distinct evil upon those whom it excludes — upon that great mass of labouring population which is outside the union" — and which, it may be added, outnumbers union labour by five or six to one. Why should this great mass of labour submit to such an cvil — an evil so great, as Mill admitted, that if trade unionism be rigorously enforced it will prevent unskilled labourers or their children from ever rising to the condition of the skilled? There is abimdant proof that this system is rigorously enforced wherever the trade unions are strong enough. We have seen in the case of the A.S.E. systematised effort, of so determined a character that it produced the greatest strike on record, to prevent the elevation of labour in the engine shops. We see in all the trade unions a consistent design to reduce the standard of labour to the level of the meanest capacity, and to elevate the wage of the least capable to the level of the most meritorious. It is, of course, dinned into us by labour leaders, and academic economists that if the workmen did not combine the masters would be able to grind the men to the dust and keep them slaving on starvation wages. But does anybody seriously believe that? Employers are not charged with a larger dose of original sin than trade unionists, and employers cannot alone' make the price of labour any more than they can alone make the price of the commodities they have to sell. Price in both cases is, and must always be, ultimately regulated by the relations between supply and demand, and if trade unionism has raised wages, and therefore the cost of production, more than natural economic evolution would have done, it is undoubtedly a vast economic wrong. The community is suffering from it both in pocket and in moral fibre. As to wages, however, there is every reason to believe thai the level in this country would now have been higher but for trade unionism, which, by ils pernicious operations, has* driven industries abroad that we would have kept here. Every industrial opening afforded to foreigners has pro tanto narrowed our own avenues of employment and swollen the ranks of our unemployed. Had not the trade unions given away our trades we would have been working for, instead of in

competition with, Germany, and Belgium, and France. Two great lessons are to be derived from the engineers' strike. The one is as to the mischievous and potentially destructive character of trade-union doctrines as taught and practised by the largest and wealthiest and most powerful trade union in the world — a union, too, composed for the most part of men of education and intelligence, not mere hewers of wood and drawers of water. The second is as to the antidote for the bane. We have, indeed, had a lesson in industrial homoeopathy. What the engineer employers have done other employers will have to do, or their days are numbered. The failure of the Master Cotton Spinners of Lancashire to hold together recently has placed the cotton-spin-ning industry at the mercy of trade unions. Trade unionism, of course, is not to be condemned merely because it is based on selfishness. What makes it dangerous ia that in its modern form it has become flavoured with the Socialistic longing for the transmutation of private capital. What makes it harmful is that it aims at collective success through individual demoralisation. It is not possible for any human institution to be beneficial in operation which climbs to power by the degradation of its own supporters. The beauty of the theory of trade unionism fades before the ugliness of the facts we have submitted — f acts which go to show that when the union delegate comes in at the factory door, honest industry flies out at the window. Benjamin Taylor.