Still more strikingly was the same proposition recently demonstrated in San Francisco.A sympathetic strike called out a whole federation of trades' unions.Thousands of men, in many branches of trade, quit work,--draymen, sand teamsters, porters and packers, longshoremen, stevedores, warehousemen, stationary engineers, sailors, marine firemen, stewards, sea-cooks, and so forth,--an interminable list.It was a strike of large proportions.Every Pacific coast shipping city was involved, and the entire coasting service, from San Diego to Puget Sound, was virtually tied up.The time was considered auspicious.The Philippines and Alaska had drained the Pacific coast of surplus labor.It was summer-time, when the agricultural demand for laborers was at its height, and when the cities were bare of their floating populations.And yet there remained a body of surplus labor sufficient to take the places of the strikers.No matter what occupation, sea-cook or stationary engineer, sand teamster or warehouseman, in every case there was an idle worker ready to do the work.And not only ready but anxious.
They fought for a chance to work.Men were killed, hundreds of heads were broken, the hospitals were filled with injured men, and thousands of assaults were committed.And still surplus laborers, "scabs," came forward to replace the strikers.
The question arises: WHENCE CAME THIS SECOND ARMY OF WORKERS TOREPLACE THE FIRST ARMY? One thing is certain: the trades' unions did not scab on one another.Another thing is certain: no industry on the Pacific slope was crippled in the slightest degree by its workers being drawn away to fill the places of the strikers.Athird thing is certain: the agricultural workers did not flock to the cities to replace the strikers.In this last instance it is worth while to note that the agricultural laborers wailed to High Heaven when a few of the strikers went into the country to compete with them in unskilled employments.So there is no accounting for this second army of workers.It simply was.It was there all this time, a surplus labor army in the year of our Lord 1901, a year adjudged most prosperous in the annals of the United States.{2}
The existence of the surplus labor army being established, there remains to be established the economic necessity for the surplus labor army.The simplest and most obvious need is that brought about by the fluctuation of production.If, when production is at low ebb, all men are at work, it necessarily follows that when production increases there will be no men to do the increased work.
This may seem almost childish, and, if not childish, at least easily remedied.At low ebb let the men work shorter time; at high flood let them work overtime.The main objection to this is, that it is not done, and that we are considering what is, not what might be or should be.
Then there are great irregular and periodical demands for labor which must be met.Under the first head come all the big building and engineering enterprises.When a canal is to be dug or a railroad put through, requiring thousands of laborers, it would be hurtful to withdraw these laborers from the constant industries.
And whether it is a canal to be dug or a cellar, whether five thousand men are required or five, it is well, in society as at present organized, that they be taken from the surplus labor army.
The surplus labor army is the reserve fund of social energy, and this is one of the reasons for its existence.
Under the second head, periodical demands, come the harvests.
Throughout the year, huge labor tides sweep back and forth across the United States.That which is sown and tended by few men, comes to sudden ripeness and must be gathered by many men; and it is inevitable that these many men form floating populations.In the late spring the berries must be picked, in the summer the grain garnered, in the fall, the hops gathered, in the winter the ice harvested.In California a man may pick berries in Siskiyou, peaches in Santa Clara, grapes in the San Joaquin, and oranges in Los Angeles, going from job to job as the season advances, and travelling a thousand miles ere the season is done.But the great demand for agricultural labor is in the summer.In the winter, work is slack, and these floating populations eddy into the cities to eke out a precarious existence and harrow the souls of the police officers until the return of warm weather and work.If there were constant work at good wages for every man, who would harvest the crops?
But the last and most significant need for the surplus labor army remains to be stated.This surplus labor acts as a check upon all employed labor.It is the lash by which the masters hold the workers to their tasks, or drive them back to their tasks when they have revolted.It is the goad which forces the workers into the compulsory "free contracts" against which they now and again rebel.
There is only one reason under the sun that strikes fail, and that is because there are always plenty of men to take the strikers'
places.
The strength of the union today, other things remaining equal, is proportionate to the skill of the trade, or, in other words, proportionate to the pressure the surplus labor army can put upon it.If a thousand ditch-diggers strike, it is easy to replace them, wherefore the ditch-diggers have little or no organized strength.
But a thousand highly skilled machinists are somewhat harder to replace, and in consequence the machinist unions are strong.The ditch-diggers are wholly at the mercy of the surplus labor army, the machinists only partly.To be invincible, a union must be a monopoly.It must control every man in its particular trade, and regulate apprentices so that the supply of skilled workmen may remain constant; this is the dream of the "Labor Trust" on the part of the captains of labor.