Chapter XXXIV: Section CLXXVII: Wages-Policy.--Strikes and the State

Should the state tolerate the existence of strikes or strike-unions? Legislation in the past most frequently gave a negative answer to the question, as well from a repugnance for high wages as for the self-help of the masses.[177-1] But even leaving the above reasons out of consideration, every strike is a severe injury to the national resources in general,[177-2] one which causes that part especially to suffer from which those engaged in the various enterprises and the working class draw their income. And, even for the latter, the damage endured is so great that it can be compensated for only by very permanently high wages.[177-3] How many a weak man has been misled by a long cessation from work during a strike, which ate up his savings, into lasting idleness and a devil-may-care kind of life. When employers, through fear of strikes, keep all large orders, etc. secret, the workmen are not in a condition to forecast their prospects and condition even for the near future. And in the end a dread of the frequent return of such disturbances may cause capital to emigrate.[177-4]

However, where there exists a very high degree of civilization, there is a balance of reasons in favor of the non-intervention of governments,[177-5] but only so long as the striking workmen are guilty of no breach of contract and of no crime. Where every one may legally throw up his employment, there is certainly no plausible legal objection to all of them doing so at once, and then forming new engagements. Coalitions of purchasers of labor for the purpose of lowering wages, which are most frequent though noiselessly formed, the police power of the state cannot prevent. If now it were attempted to keep the working class alone from endeavoring to correspondingly raise their wages, the impression would become general, and be entertained with right, that the authorities were given to measuring with different standards. Where the working classes so sensitively feel the influence of the government on the state of their wages, they would be only too much inclined to charge every chance pressure made by the circumstances of the times to the account of the state, and thus burthen it with a totally unbearable responsibility. Since 1824, freedom of competition has prevailed in this matter on both sides in England.[177-6] The dark side of the picture would be most easily brightened by a longer duration of contracts of labor.[177-7]

Whether the trades-unions, when they shall have happily withstood the fermentative process now going on, shall be able to fill up the void created by the downfall of the economically active corporations of the latter part of the middle ages, we shall discuss in our future work, Die Nationalökonomik des Gewerbfleisses. One of the chief conditions precedent thereto is the strict justice of the state, which should protect members of the unions from all tyranny by their leaders, and from violations of the legal rights of non-members.[177-8]

[Footnote 177-1: Thus even 34 Edw. III., c. 9. Journeymen
builders were forbidden by 3 Henry VI., c. 1, to form
conspiracies to enhance the rate of wages, under pain of
felony. Finally, 39 and 40 George III., c. 106, threatened
any one who, by mere persuasion, should induce a workman to
leave his master's service, etc., with 2 months in the
work-house, or 3 months' imprisonment. In France, as late as
June and September, 1791, all conspiracies to raise wages
were prohibited under penalty, the incentive to such
prohibition being the opposition to all _intérêts
intermédiaries_ between the _intérêts particulier_; and the
_intérêt general_ which is characteristic of the entire
revolution. Compare the law of 22 Germinal, 11. The German
Empire on the 16th of August, 1731, threatened journeymen
strikers even with death, "when accompanied by great
refractoriness and productive of real damage." (Art. 15.)]

[Footnote 177-2: The strike of the spinners of Preston, to
compel equal wages with those of Bolton, lasted from October
to the end of December, 1836. The spinners got from their
treasury 5 shillings a week (previously 22-1/2 shillings
wages); twisters, 2 to 3 shillings; carders and weavers
lived on alms. In the middle of December, the funds of the
union were exhausted. Altogether, the workmen lost 400,000
thalers; the manufacturers, over 250,000; and many merchants
failed. (_H. Ashworth_, Inquiry into the Origin and Results
of the Cotton Spinners' Strike.) The Preston strike of 1853
cost the employers £165,000, the workmen, £357,000.
(Edinburgh Rev., July, 1854, 166.) The North-Stafford
puddlers' strike, in 1865, cost the workmen in wages alone
£320,000. Concerning 8 strikes that failed, mostly between
1859 and 1861, which cost in the aggregate £1,570,000, of
which £1,353,000 were wages lost, see Statist. Journ., 1861,
503. A great mortality of the children of workingmen
observed during strikes!]

[Footnote 177-3: _Watts_ assumes that the strikers seek to
attain, on an average, an advance in their wages of five per
cent. Now, a week is about equivalent to two per cent. of
the year. If, therefore, a strike lasted one month, the
increase of wages it operates must last one and three-fifths
years to compensate the workmen for their loss. A strike
that lasts 12-1/2 months would require 20 years to effect
the same, and this does not include interest on lost wages.
(Statist. Journal, 1861, 501 ff.) However, it is possible
that the striking workingmen themselves should lose more
than they gained, but that, for the whole working class, the
gain should exceed the loss; since those who had not
participated in the strike would participate in the
increased wages. _Thornton_ is of opinion that employers
have won in most strikes, but surrendered in the intervals
between strikes, so that now English workmen receive
certainly £5,000,000 more in wages than they would be
getting were it not for the trades-unions. (III, ch. 3-4.)]

[Footnote 177-4: By the Norwich strike, about the beginning
of the fourth decade of this century, what remained of the
industrial life of that city disappeared. (_Kohl_, Reise,
II, 363 ff.) Similarly in Dublin. (Quart. Rev., October,
1859, 485 ff.) In Cork, the workingmen's union, in 1827,
allowed no strange workmen to join them, and, it is said,
committed twenty murders with a view to that end. The
builders demanded 4s. 1d. a day wages. This discouraged the
erection of new buildings, and it frequently happened that
they found employment only one day in two weeks. (Edinb.
Rev., XLVII, 212.) When workingmen struggle against a
natural decline of the rate of wages, they, of course, add
to their misfortune.]

[Footnote 177-5: The grounds on which _Brentano_, following
_Ludlow_ and _Harrison_, justifies the intervention of the
state, have a very dangerous bearing, inasmuch as they do
not suppose, as a condition precedent, a perfectly wise and
impartial governmental authority.]

[Footnote 177-6: 5 George IV., c. 95: "provided no violence
is used." Further, 6 George IV., c. 129, and 122 Vict., c.
34. The law of 1871 declares the trades-unions lawful,
allows them the right of registration, and thus empowers
them to hold property. In France, the law of May 25, 1864,
alters articles 414 to 416 of the _Code pénal_ to the effect
that only such strikes shall be punished as happen _à l'aide
de violences, voies de fait, manoeuvres frauduleuses_;
also coalitions against the _libre exercise du travail à
l'aide d'amendes, défenses, proscriptions, interdictions_.
But these amendments were rendered rather inoperative by the
fact that meetings of more than 20 persons could be held
only by permission of the police.]

[Footnote 177-7: As, for instance, the coal workers in the
north of England required a half year's service. So long as
the trades-unions consider themselves, by way of preference,
as instruments of war, it is conceivable how they oppose all
binding contracts for labor. So now among the German
journeymen book-printers, and so, also, for the most part,
in England. (_Brentano_, II, 108.) In quieter times, when
the trades-unions shall have become peace institutions, this
will be otherwise. We cannot even enjoy the bright side of
the freedom of birds without enduring its dark side! In
Switzerland, breaches of contract by railroad officers are
guarded against by their giving security beforehand; in
manufactures, by the holding back of from 3 to 14 days'
wages. (_Böhmert_, Arbeiterverhältnisse, II, 91, 388 ff.)]

[Footnote 177-8: In Switzerland, the trades-unions have
shown themselves very powerful against the employers of
tradesmen, but rather powerless against manufacturing
employers, and thus materially increased the already
existing inferiority of the former. (_Böhmert_, II, 401.)
They may, however, by further successful development,
constitute the basis of a new smaller middle class, similar
to the tradesmen's guilds at the end of the middle ages; and
indeed by a new exclusiveness, in a downward direction. This
would be a bulwark against the destructive inroads of
socialism similar to that which the freed peasantry in
France were and still are. While this is also _Brentano's_
view, _R. Meyer_, Emancipationskampf des vierten Standes,
1874, I, 254 ff., calls the trades-unions a practical
preparation for socialism to which the English "morally went
over" in 1869 (I, 751); which indeed loses much of the
appearance of truth from the fact that _Marx_ (_Brentano_,
Arbeitergilden, II, 332) and the disciples of _Lassalle_
(_Meyer_, I, 312) hold the trades-unions in contempt. _John
Stuart Mill_ approves of all trades-unions that seek to
effect the better remuneration of labor, and opposes all
which would bring the wages paid for good work and bad work
to the same level. (Principles, II, ch. 14, 6; V, ch. 10,
5.) Compare _Tooke_, History of Prices, VI, 176. Reports of
the Commissioners appointed to inquire into the Organization
and Rules of Trades-Unions, 1857.]