Page:William Zebulon Foster - The Bankruptcy of the American Labor Movement (1922).djvu/15

 10 showing with regard to wages, compared with the rising cost of living, than had the American organizations.

But in any event, even if our wage standards are somewhat higher than those in other countries, certainly we have little to brag about. In the March, 1922, wage hearing before the Railroad Labor Board, B. M. Jewell, President of the Railway Employees' Department of the A. F. of L., stated that in 1921, the full-time wages of railroad shop mechanics could purchase only 64% of the meat, fish, milk, and eggs; 77% of the cereal foods; 91% of the vegetables; and 71% of the butter, fats, and oils necessary to maintain their families at the lowest level of safety. The Department of Labor family budget calls for an expenditure of $2,303.99 per year; whereas the wages of the shop mechanics, counted at full-time basis and totally disregarding the terrific unemployment, amounted only to $1,884.90. And since then their wages have been slashed again about 10% on the average. With strategically situated mechanics in such a condition, the deplorable state of the unskilled, who get hardly half as much wages, can better be imagined than described.

"But a far better criterion than wages to judge the strength of a labor movement is the more vital matter of the shorter workday. In this respect American Labor is behind the rest of the modern industrial world. In Great Britain, Australia, Italy, and New Zealand the 8-hour day has been quite generally established by trade union agreements, and in the following countries national 8-hour laws have been enacted for industrial workers:

Austria

Checho-Slovakia

Denmark

Ecuador

Finland

France

Germany

Jugo-Slavia

Luxembourg

Mexico

Netherlands

Norway

Panama

Peru

Poland

Portugal

Russia

Spain

Sweden

Switzerland

Uruguay

Compare this wide-spread application of the 8-hour day with the situation in the United States. Many, if not most of our industries, still have the 9 and 10-hour day, not to mention the barbaric 12-hour day of the steel mills. Despite the United States' great industrial advantages over all its competitors, which should have greatly facilitated the unions in winning shorter hours, this country remains pre-