UNSKILLED LABORER NOT DIFFERENT FROM WELL-TO-DO

"Almost everybody, college students included, makes the mistake of thinking that the unskilled laborer is different, especially if he talks broken English or comes from a foreign land," declared Whiting Williams in a recent interview for the CRIMSON.

Mr. Williams, Director of Personnel of the Hydraulic Steel Company of Cleveland, Ohio, from 1918 to 1920, spent seven months in 1919 working as an unskilled laborer under an assumed name in three steel mills, two coal mines, two shipyards, an oil refinery, and a railway roundhouse. During this period he kept an interesting diary which has since been published by Scribner's under the title of "What is on the Worker's Mind," and has gone into the second edition. In the summer of 1920, Mr. Williams spent three months working in the coal mines of New South Wales and trying to get jobs as a man out of work in the steel slants, docks, and shipyards of England, Scotland and Wales. He has been lecturing this year in the Graduate School of Business Administration on "Labor Problems."

"If a person can approach such a laborer in the right way, he will find that he is very much like the average person. In my experience, I have found that the hard luck story was the opening wedge. As soon as I told an ignorant worker that I had failed to make good as an insurance agent during the war and had been forced to try to earn a living with my hands, all his suspicions would disappear and he would immediately tell me a hard luck story either about himself or a friend, and would accept me as an equal. At times it rather humiliated me to find that I was so thoroughly and quickly classed as an ordinary 'low brow.'

"In almost every case when I became acquainted with the foreigners who make up the greater part of the labor gangs in the iron and steel mills, I found that they resembled everyone else in the important points if not in the minor. They were always anxious to take good care of their families and to give their children an education. They were anxious to stand well among their neighbors but we must remember that their neighbors' viewpoint was different, perhaps, from that of ours.

Should Influence Labor Leaders

"The fact that some, if not most, of the foreign groups in a manufacturing city stick very closely together and bring the prejudices of particular communities into the plants suggests the desirability of the manufacturer trying to get into closer touch with the leaders of such districts as well as with the individuals who work in the plant. The influence that could be exerted upon these leaders by the business executives would prove to be a most important factor in the satisfactory adjustment of labor relations.

"In America the job is the most important property in so far as its income producing ability is concerned. The attitude of well-to-do people differs from that of the unskilled worker only in so far that the people better off are able to stand a few weeks or months of unemployment while the other chap may be forced to the verge of charity by only a few days of joblessness. The unskilled laborer often cannot earn enough to save; the skilled laborer can. Ever since I faced the situation of having to get a position as an unskilled worker before the twenty-five dollars in my pocket was exhausted or else, according to a pledge, live the life of a hobe for six months, I have better comprehended the terrible fear of joblessness that haunts the mind of the unskilled laborer and consequently forces him to restrict output so as not to work himself out of a job.

"The well-to-do are all too likely to assume that everything is all right for the workingmen if 500 are out of work in Pittsburg but there are 500 jobs open in Chicago. Contrary to the general opinion, this situation does not balance, for the unskilled man in Pittsburg is quite unlikely to have enough funds saved to permit him to go to Chicago. Even if he should let the employment agent pay his expense, he might reach that city only to find that he couldn't keep the job, and yet had no money with which to return to Pittsburg. For this reason the laboring man is inclined to stay in the same community or in the immediate vicinity.

Worker Constantly Fears Unemployment

"His limited financial means keep the laborer in almost ever constant fear of losing his present job, if he is fortunate enough to have one. He is very sensitive as to the treatment he receives at the factory gate at the hands of the officers of the law and the factory officials. Moreover he considers it highly unjust that the foreman can fire him from his job for little or no reason and believes that in such a case he should have the right to bring the matter before a court of appeal.

"As the workingman is usually in constant fear of losing his job, he is inclined to go too far in enjoying the unusual and pleasant situation created for him by exceptional conditions such as in the past war. Realizing that he may be forced back into his old job and compelled to sit tight in a short time, he makes the most of his opportunity by moving from factory to factory and trying job after job so that he can pick out the best position while he has the chance.

Jealous of Rank

Another important matter connected with the question of jobs is their rank. Because one man only receives a few cents more per day than another, most of us jump to the conclusion that they are very much on the same basis, but this is not true, or at least the workingman does not consider that it is so. A 'pair-heater' on a furnace in a rolling mill may get only a little more than his helper but, in the eyes of the workingman, his position is vastly more desirable. Among the workers in a plant there are a thousand variations in pay, skill and privileges, emoluments that represent an almost infinite number of standings. These are vastly more important, in the opinion of the workingman, than the differences in the pay envelope. Few people realize what an enormous amount of trouble is caused by failure on the part of the management to pay attention to these subtle but extremely important distinctions. People should appreciate the fact that workers of every type from top to bottom, from the manager's office to the shovellers in the laborer's gang, are trying to demonstrate their importance by the nature of their jobs.

"The best thing I know about the human being is that under normal conditions he wants to demonstrate his standing as a man among men by proving himself a worker among other workers. In America at least the workmen do not want a larger share in the management so much as they want the satisfactions which should go with the job but are too often taken away from them by the hard-fisted and driving foremen.

"Without question the biggest need in connection with industrial unrest is jobs,--steadier jobs, better jobs, jobs whose value and importance to other people and the world in general is better understood by the doers of them, jobs under officials who are more anxious to aid the full enjoyment of the satisfactions that the doers of those jobs and the renderers of those services feel themselves entitled to enjoy."