observed fact that the laborers have less property of any kind than their employers; otherwise they would not be laborers. This being the fact, it does not help much to point out what the laborer might do if the facts were otherwise.

Another reason given for the disadvantage of the laborer in the bargaining process is that he is usually less skillful in the matter of bargaining than his employer. His expertness is more likely to consist of manual skill than of skill in bargaining. The entrepreneur is peculiarly a bargaining person. He literally bargains for everything. If he borrows capital, if he rents land, if he buys raw materials, secures transportation rates, and hires labor, and also organizes a selling department, -every part of his work has to do with bargaining. He becomes, therefore, the bargainer par excellence. Those whose expertness lies in other directions are therefore at a disadvantage when they come to deal with him. This argument is undoubtedly correct as far as it goes.

Employers are few, but laborers are numerous. The third fact, however, which militates to the disadvantage of the laborer and the advantage of the employer is that laborers are numerous and employers are few. There is more competition among laborers for jobs than among employers for men. Wherever this fact does not exist, there is no great advantage on the part of the employer. One conspicuous example would be that of domestic servants. The employer in this case doubtless has more power to wait than the maid. The employer may, on the average, be somewhat more intelligent than the maid. Nevertheless there is no great advantage in bargaining, for the simple reason that there are approximately as many employers as there are employees. Observation seems to show that, in this part of the country at least, it is far more difficult for an employer to find a maid than for a maid to find an employer. When they meet to arrange terms, there is no visible advantage on the side of the employer or disadvantage on the side of the employee. In fact, it sometimes appears

that the advantage and disadvantage are of the opposite kind. There are at least a reasonable number of cases where the employee is very independent and must be placated by an almost obsequious attitude on the part of the employer. A multitude of other illustrations might be given, which in the aggregate seem rather important, though as compared with the number of cases where the employer is at an advantage and the employee is at a disadvantage they are probably insignificant.

It appears, therefore, that the fundamental and permanent remedy for the laborer's disadvantage in bargaining would be such a reduction of the number of laborers and such an increase of the number of employers as would give the laborer at least an equal advantage in the bargaining process. This remedy, however, like all fundamental and permanent remedies, is slow and difficult to bring about. It is slow in the sense that it would take a generation or so to bring it about; it is difficult, not for economic but for political and social reasons. Economically it is perfectly easy; politically it is difficult simply because it would be difficult to get a majority of the voters to vote for such a policy. It may take several generations before a majority vote could be secured for a constructive policy of this kind. Meanwhile the existing laborers would still be at a disadvantage and in need of relief. It would be cold comfort to them to point out that future generations of laborers may be exceedingly well off if the right policy is adopted. Therefore they are inclined to take matters into their own hands and adopt a more speedy remedy, even though it be less fundamental and less permanent.

Collective bargaining. This remedy is that which is known as collective bargaining as against individual bargaining. In a trade where laborers are oversupplied, each individual laborer is in a weak position, because he can easily be spared. He is almost superfluous; he is certainly not indispensable. If he stops working or leaves the community, he will scarcely be missed. Industry will go on approximately as well without him

as with him. Because there is a superfluity of labor his place can easily be filled. Under such conditions his bargaining power is very weak; he is practically compelled to take whatever terms are offered to him. His kind of labor as a whole, however, may be absolutely indispensable. While he as an individual could be spared without much inconvenience, all the members of his trade are absolutely indispensable when considered as a whole. If they were all to stop work, business would have to stop; if they were all to emigrate, the whole business in which they were engaged would be permanently destroyed.

The group may be indispensable, while the individual could easily be spared. The fundamental principle involved in the trade-union policy of the present is the substitution of the indispensable group as a bargaining unit for the dispensable individual. Since the group as a whole is indispensable to industry, if they can bargain as a whole the laborers are in a strong position. As a group they cannot possibly be spared. The difficulty, however, has always been to hold the group together and get them to bargain absolutely as an indispensable group and to refrain from making individual bargains independently of group action.

The trade union. This underlying principle has given rise to one of the largest social movements of modern times; namely, the organization of laborers. Several types of organization, however, have entered the field, and there is still some rivalry among them. In the first place, there is the trade union pure and simple; this is an organization of the men who ply the same trade; that is, the men whose work is of the same kind. The Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers is an example of this kind of organization.

The industrial union. In the second place, there is the industrial union, which includes all the laborers plying various trades who are engaged in the same general line of industry. The United Mine Workers of America is one example of this

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type of organization; the Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen of America, which attempts to take in all the railroad workers, is another.

The labor union. A third type of organization is what may be called the labor union, which attempts to organize all laborers, of whatever trade or occupation and in whatever industry they may be engaged. The Knights of Labor form an organization of this type and lately the Industrial Workers of the World have attempted a similar type of organization. The federation of trade unions. The trade union seems in

recent years to have been som at stronger than either the industrial union or the labor union, but it has felt the need of some larger and more nearly universal type of organization. This has been secured by the federation of trade unions into a national organization known as the American Federation of Labor. This type of organization recognizes that each trade has certain special and peculiar interests of its own and therefore has a special reason for organizing as a trade. This is a principle which seems to be ignored by the labor union especially. By organizing the special and peculiar interests of each trade the federation becomes stronger at this most vital point. By federating the different trades for the furthering of the interests which are common to all it becomes stronger at another important point; namely, the need of concerted action on a nation-wide scale.

The attempt to ignore the special interests of each trade and to unite all workers, of whatever trade or industry, into one universal, undifferentiated organization, has had certain idealistic features which make a strong appeal to men of idealistic temperament. There is the attempt to ignore any possible rivalry of interests among different classes of laboring men. While this sounds attractive, it hardly accords with the observed facts. It is perhaps a little more humanitarian in its philosophy but a little less effective in its methods of work. It might be compared to an attempt to create a unified nation by

ignoring all local interests and internal conflicts, whereas the federation idea might be compared to a system of government which would recognize local and state interests, and allow a certain amount of self-government to the local units, but which would unite them all under a national government for the carrying out of national aims.

Necessity of controlling the supply of labor in its own market. Like all attempts in all fields to bargain to better advantage for the sale of either a commodity or a service, an organization of laborers must get control of the supply of the service which it is trying to sell. This leads to the policy of the closed shop. That is the policy under which none but members of the organization are to be employed in a given shop or series of shops. If any considerable number of outsiders are permitted to work in these shops, they will of course bargain independently and be in a weak position. That very fact also tends to weaken the power of the organization in the bargaining process. Unless the organization can control the supply of labor which is permitted to work in a given trade, can withdraw them as a body or put them back as a body, it will find itself unable to secure advantageous terms. If, for example, there were so many nonunion laborers available as to make the employer more or less indifferent as to whether the members of the union worked as a body or withdrew as a body, he would not be likely to pay much attention to the demands of the union. If he knew that, even though the union as a body withdrew from his shop, he could easily fill places with nonunion men, the bargaining power of the union would at once be destroyed.

The closed shop. An absolutely closed shop is very difficult to maintain when there is a surplus of laborers available for a given occupation. So long, for example, as indefinite numbers of foreign-born laborers can be had for the recruiting of the ranks of any trade, nothing but the most drastic measures on the part of the organization of laborers can preserve its control.