Labor Unions and Limited Production
By L. A. S.
ONE of the chief evils of the trusts is that they limit production in certain lines of trade, in order to raise the price of their goods, and thus enhance their profits. The same thing also, it appears, may be charged against the labor unions. They assume the right to limit the amount of work a laborer shall perform in a given time. On this point a recent issue of The Independent has the following:— It is sometimes denied that labor unions aim to limit the amount of output for their work. But the Glass Blowers’ Union has an order limiting the amount of window glass which a man is allowed to make in a month, and the order of the president of the union removing the limit is so sharply antagonized that it is not likely to stand. Such limiting the work of ambitious men gives occasion to most effective criticism of labor unions. The arbitrary interference with the law of supply and demand is not the worst result of the systems by which the forces of capital and labor seek to increase profits or to maintain a set standard of wages. The interference with individual ambition and the restraint of legitimate enterprise constitute an evil which strikes at the very root of national prosperity. When an organization can dictate the conditions under which an individual may be allowed to work, and he can neither choose his place of employment nor his hours of work, nor exercise his productive capacity beyond an arbitrary limit fixed by a labor union, ambition and hope are destroyed, and the qualities which lie at the foundation of industrial prosperity are swept away. It is the opportunity to rise, by the exercise of individual genius, enterprise, and energy, unhampered by arbitrary restrictions, which has given to this nation such a measure of prosperity in its past history. L. A. S.