It has been a
losing battle all the way."
The small percentage of highly skilled, organized workers lead in the
struggle for better conditions. Craft unions, by limiting the number
of men available for any one trade, manage to procure better pay,
shorter hours and other advantages for their members.
Disaster, in the form of famine, pestilence, tidal waves, earthquakes
or war, sometimes limits the number of available workers. Then those
who live in parts of the world that are not affected, or who stay at
home during wars, reap a temporary advantage. These advantages,
however, are quickly offset by increased prices, or by competition for
jobs when soldiers return from war. This form of limitation of numbers
works to the advantage of labor as long as it is available, but great
disasters are not constantly in operation while the worker's
reproductive ability is. So in a few years they have lost what
nature's destructiveness won for them.
The great mass of the workers--including children and women--are
unskilled and unorganized. Not only that, they are for some
considerable part of the time seeking employment. They are, of course,
poorly paid. Thus, through their low wages and their seeking of
employment, they always come into direct competition with one another
and with the skilled and organized workmen.
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