Here’s hoping the day will not be long coming when an employe [sic] may bargain with his employer in a manner suited to the dealings of two traders, both of whom have something of a known value which can be measured for its worth in a given quantity from the store of the other. While commodity prices have dropped to maybe half or one-third, the market for employment dropped out of sight. An employer knows he holds in his little industry a strong power of persuasion which he can exercise with little fear of losing a good trade. He knows that all his opposing bargainer can do is bluff; and all he has to do to call the bluff is pass on to the next man – there are plenty of others standing in line.
The employer who throws up to his employes the fact that hundreds are waiting, willing to step into their places, and uses that to enforce long hours, doubled duties, and slashed wages gives little room for all of the little extras that make effort and industry a fair trade – and then some – for the dollars and cents paid out for it. The conscientious worker puts in more time than his eight hours a day would indicate. In the first place, that man more than likely had to learn his trade with no small expenditure of money and time. Behind his ability are years of servitude at small wages, study, and worry incident to selecting an occupation. The conscientious worker, furthermore, spends part of his wages and part of his spare time improving his own capacities and acquiring the latest information relative to his trade. It is not likely that a man’s mind is entirely vacant of his daily routine when he goes home at night, and no doubt many weighty problems are solved in the wakeful hours of the early night. The employer is not charged with this time, and yet they are the best hours of a man’s life. The conscientious worker is always an advertisement for his employer, and that is about 16 hours a day – twice the time he turns in.
