UNITED WORKERS OF EURASIA.
I was introduced to the President of the United Workers of Eurasia and
he told me that all the working men and women were united in one great
union and that the present Minister of Labor was a lady who for years
had championed the cause of Labor and that she was unceasing in her
efforts to better their condition now that she was at the head of the
Department of Labor. The wages of all Government employees were fixed
by law and could not be raised or lowered except by a two-thirds vote
of the people, and only one bill from each department could be
submitted by the Parliament to the people to vote on at each election,
so that graft and corrupt practices could gain no footing by appealing
to selfish interests.
The law provided a liability fund for sickness, injuries and death
among working men and women; one-half of the fund payable by the
working men and women and the other half by the employers. The money
for the fund had to be paid monthly. Every working man and woman had to
pay out of his or her wages a fixed sum for which the employer was held
responsible and every employer had to pay an equal sum for every person
in his employ. This law applied equally to every person in Eurasia, the
employer as well as the employed. There was no charge for membership in
the labor union and no walking delegates, for the Government gave them
permission to hold their meetings in the churches, which were all
Government property, and in the public schools. Whenever the members of
the union in any district wanted an increase of wages the law required
them to serve a written notice on the employer and a copy of it on the
District Court. The Chief justice then called both parties before the
Court and ordered them to each select one person as arbitrator, and for
those two selected to settle the dispute and if they could not agree,
then the case went immediately before the District Court and a majority
vote of the Court settled it. As a result of this common-sense method
of settling labor disputes there were no strikes.
Every corporation, before shutting down its works, had to serve ten
days' notice on its employees and also file a copy of it with the
District Court, stating its reasons for so doing, and if the labor
union protested, the Court heard the case and if there was unsufficient
cause shown by the corporation it had to continue work until such time
as it showed good and sufficient reasons to stop work. The Government
strictly enforced the eight-hour law, and no working woman was
permitted to work overtime. Children were not allowed to work for wages
under any circumstances for they were the wards of the State, but men
could work overtime if the union permitted them, with double pay for
it. The Government granted a pension of half the wages yearly received
by every working man and woman that was over sixty years of age and a
full pension wage to every working man or woman over seventy years of
age, no matter what their financial condition was at that time.
Every person before casting a ballot at the polls was required to show
a receipt from the Department of Health that two dollars had been paid
into the Old Age Pension fund for the previous year, which was a
salutary measure in preserving the purity of elections by eliminating
the shiftless and improvident from participation in the election.
The Government obeyed the Fourth Commandment, "Honor thy Father and thy
Mother that thy days may be long in the land which the Lord thy God
giveth thee."