The National erectors' association and the International association of bridge and structural ironworkers - Tapa blanda

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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1915 Excerpt: ...lathers in Chicago adopted a graded scale. Three classes of workmen were created, each with a different wage scale. In a dull season they all became third class workmen and in a busy season they were all first class. The net result was a reduction in wages in dull seasons. The plan was discarded and a uniform minimum scale adopted. A bonus over the minimum scale has been tried in some trades, but that would not be practicable in the building trades where the work is seasonal. Every man would expect to receive the bonus in busy seasons and no one would receive it in dull seasons. The work of the building mechanic cannot be apportioned with a degree of accuracy that is possible in a shop or factory. In a shop or factory, where the work is minutely sub-divided, hundreds of workers may be performing exactly similar operations, under exactly similar conditions. In the building trades the facilities for work vary and the operations are seldom exactly the same. It is impossible, therefore, to standardize a day's work as may be done in the shop or factory. The minimum wage scale, adopted by the unions and the employers, appears to be the most practical and equitable method of adjusting wages. The minimum scale does not reduce all workmen to a "dead level" as is so often asserted. It is true that it protects the average man when he is employed. But in dull seasons it will invariably be found that the less efficient men are out of work. A lower wage scale for the less efficient would not create more work and furnish them employment. It would, however, pull down the wages of the more efficient, who would still continue to do the work, but at a lower rate of pay. If the unions did not set a minimum scale of wages, the minimum would be set by the necessity of ...