Abstract

Labor Finds Out for Itself

The anti-union campaign of the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Chamber of Commerce has been a great thing for organized labor in Philadelphia, at least in one respect. It has forced labor to find out for itself some very useful facts. What labor has found out in Philadelphia it will find out elsewhere. Of that there is little doubt. Philadelphia Labor has found out that the textile mill owners of that city in the year 1918 could have paid an average wage of $1,632 to the 60,500 workers in the mills and at the same time could have reduced the price of their product 21 percent in one year to the public and yet made 6 per cent return on the capital invested in their business. Philadelphia labor has found out that instead of this, the mill owners in 1918 were paying an average wage of $792 per year to the workers, $840 less than the minimum amount necessary to maintain a family of five in health and decency were boosting prices some 210 percent above the 1914 level, and pocketing for themselves profits that were approximately 117 percent of their invested capital.