=================================+===================
Cause. | Per cent.
---------------------------------+---------+---------
Drink | 13.7 |
Shiftlessness and inefficiency | 7.5 |
Other moral defects | 2.1 |
Total, Character | | 23.3
---------------------------------+---------+---------
No male support | 5.0 |
Lack of other normal support | 3.6 |
Total, Support | | 8.6
---------------------------------+---------+--------
Lack of employment | 23.5 |
Insufficient employment | 8.1 |
Poorly paid, etc. | 3.3 |
Total, Employment | | 34.9
---------------------------------+---------+--------
Sickness and death in family | 21.1 | 93
Insanity and physical defects | 4.1 |
Old Age | 3.9 |
Other incapacity | 3.2 |
Total, Incapacity | | 32.3
---------------------------------+---------+--------
| 100. | 100.
---------------------------------+---------+--------
[A] Warner, American Charities, Rev. Ed., 53.
The first group of causes indicates misconduct, as the last group
indicates misfortune; the other two shade off into industrial causes,
though lack of employment--the largest single cause--may in turn be
ascribed to any one of several remoter causes according to the bias of
the investigator. This table is a record of the causes of failure on
the part of those who have fallen behind or dropped out altogether in
the race of life. At the other end of the scale stand the members of
labor organization, on the whole, the elite of the labor world. The
following table gives the causes of unemployment of 31,339 cases at
the end of September, 1900, as reported to the New York Bureau of
Labor Statistics:
Causes of idleness, members of trade unions, 1900.
---------------------+-----------
Cause | Per Cent
---------------------+-----------
No work | 75.5
Bad weather | .5
Strike or lockout | 13.0
Sickness | 4.7
Superannuation | 1.6
Other causes | 4.7
|
Total | 100.0
---------------------+----------
This table emphasizes very strongly the industrial causes of
unemployment, three-fourths of which is ascribed to lack of work. In
some cases, as the iron and steel workers, where there is a regular 94
two months’ shut-down to make repairs, and the building trades where
the inclemency of the weather usually prevents work during the winter,
the lack of employment may be regarded as a vacation rather than a
hardship, for the rates of pay are high enough during the remaining
months to offset those of idleness. In other cases, however, as in
coal-mining, there is a large reserve army of workers on hand and
employment is secured for only one-half to two-thirds the time. In
1900, when the average number of days of employment was larger than it
had been in ten years, the bituminous miners were employed only 234
days and the anthracite miners only 166 days in the year. This
indicates a very bad organization of the industry. The same thing was
formerly true of the London dockyards, where there was a reserve army
of some 4,000 surplus workers. Of course the effect of this is to
depress wages. The clothing trade is subject to seasonal fluctuations
and the caprice of fashion, and offers very irregular employment.
Machinery and improved processes were frequently spoken of by
witnesses before the Industrial Commission as the leading cause of
unemployment. If the general conditions of business are good at the
time of the first introduction of machinery the displaced laborer is
reabsorbed again and the hardship is not so noticeable. But if it
coincides with a period of business depression the introduction of
machinery appears to be the cause of a large displacement of labor,
which might more truly be ascribed to industrial depression. This last
cause is responsible for enormous suffering among the laboring
classes, for the method oftenest resorted to by industrial enterprises
to reduce expenses is the wholesale discharge of laborers, who are
thus made to bear the burden of industrial disorganization. This was
well illustrated by the economies effected by the railroads in the
year 1908, in their general reduction of the labor force and of wages.
But even in good years the inconstancy of employment is startling. In 95
the four years 1897-1900 the men in trade unions in New York State
lost 16.2 per cent of their time from unemployment, which is almost
exactly one day in every week. And these, it must be remembered, were
skilled and efficient workers in organized trades. Finally, strikes
are given as a cause of unemployment in the table; these are a
peculiar feature of modern industry, and do not call for further
discussion, except to point out that they are not as important as
often represented.
The foregoing analysis of the causes of unemployment shows that they
are deep-seated in the nature of modern industry, and that it would be
unjust to the workingman to attribute them in any large measure to his
incapacity or indisposition to labor. The care of the unemployable
must of course be undertaken by society, and such persons prevented as
far as possible from depressing the wages of competent labor by their
competition. Exceptional periods of distress may and should be met by
temporary relief measures. But what we may call the normal
unemployment in modern industry, which amounts to 2-2½ per cent of
the labor force, cannot be overcome by direct methods. The remedy for
this lies “in a better organization of employers and employes, more
steady expansion of trade, and greater stability of industry and of
legislation affecting industry. These are not problems directly of
unemployment, but rather of taxation, currency, monopoly, immigration,
over-production, and technical advances in industry. Their treatment
must be undertaken, not primarily as measures of providing for the
unemployed, but as measures for improving the conditions of
business.”[26] The problem of unemployment would thus seem to be a
permanent one, bound up in the very nature of a dynamic society; it
may be regarded as the price of progress. But the question may fairly
be raised as to whether the laboring classes should foot the bill, 96
or whether the cost might not fairly be borne by society as a whole.
This has suggested, as a solution of the problem, insurance of
workingmen against unemployment, a discussion of which, however, must
be deferred to the end of the section. Some methods of alleviation, if
not of abolition, of the evils of unemployment may be suggested. Free
public employment bureaus and agencies, national in scope and well
integrated, would do much to secure a better adjustment of demand and
supply in the labor market, and secure a better distribution of the
labor force and greater mobility of labor. Better organization and
mutual understanding on the part of both employers and employes is
needed, to prevent the loss through strikes and lockouts. And finally,
improved industrial and technical education is essential, whereby the
loss in skill through the introduction of new inventions and machinery
may be minimized, and the productivity of the laboring class be
increased.
Among the measures of relief for unemployment due to accident,
sickness, and old age, none is more important or more deserving of a
hearing in the United States than that of insurance against these
evils. The earnings of the average male wage-earner are so small--half
of the number earn annually less than $436, and half of the adult male
factory workers earn less than $400 a year--that the unemployment,
sickness, disablement, or old age of the breadwinner must throw a
large proportion of families so afflicted into a condition of periodic
poverty. Any remedies that will alleviate the miseries caused by
fluctuations in employment, industrial accidents, diseases incident to
industry, etc., deserve a respectful hearing.
No adequate statistics of industrial accidents exist in the United
States, but a recent estimate by F. L. Hoffman[27] gave the number of
fatal accidents among occupied males in 1908 as between 30,000 and
35,000. An analysis of the reports of the New York Bureau of Labor 97
Statistics from 1901 to 1906, shows that of the total number (39,244)
of industrial accidents reported in that state a little over 2 per
cent were fatal, almost 17 per cent resulted in permanent disablement,
and 81 per cent resulted in temporary disablement. More than half of
the accidents in industry are the result of machinery in motion. Mr.
Hoffman calculates that “it should not be impossible to save at least
one-third or perhaps one-half by intelligent and rational methods of
factory inspection, legislation, and control.” Prevention of accidents
rather than compensation to the workingman after they occur should be
the aim of society, in order to avoid the wasteful loss of productive
power, not to mention the suffering and misery entailed by such
accidents. “Immunity, not compensation,” has been the demand of the
British trade unions. Of first importance then is careful factory
legislation, safeguarding of machinery, and factory inspection. But
here we are interested primarily in the question of responsibility and
compensation. In the United States, legislatures and the courts have
taken the position that the workingman was responsible unless he could
prove the employer responsible for his injury. How impossible such
proof is and consequently how intenable such a position, is clear from
the following table, compiled by the German Government for purposes of
accident insurance:
Accidents in German industries traceable to different causes.
==============================+=============+==========+========
Causes. | Agriculture | Industry | Mining
| (1891) | (1887) | (1887)
------------------------------+-------------+----------+--------
Fault of employer | 18.2 | 19.8 | 1.3
Fault of injured workman | 24.4 | 25.0 | 29.8
Fault of both | 20.1 | 4.4 |
Fault of third person | 2.8 | 3.3 | 4.3
Unavoidable or indeterminable | 34.5 | 46.9 | 64.6
+-------------+----------+--------
Total | 100.0 | 100.0 | 100.0
------------------------------+-------------+----------+--------
Statistics from both Germany and Austria show that a full half or 98
more of all industrial accidents are due to causes for which neither
employers, injured workmen, nor fellow employes are responsible, but
which are incidental to the nature of the industry itself. But besides
the danger of injury from machinery, there are numerous specially
dangerous or injurious trades, in which injury by poisoning, disease,
etc., is almost unavoidable as trade processes are at present
conducted. These have been classified as follows: trades in which lead
is a poisonous element, trades which produce other chemical poisons,
trades in which lockjaw is an incident, trades in which the danger
arises from injurious particles in the air, or from dust, processes
that require a sudden change from heat to cold and vice versa, and
those that require artificial humidity, and trades in which accidents
are so frequent as to demand special legislation. Before we try to
decide who in justice should bear the cost of sickness or injury
arising from these causes, let us inquire as to the practice in the
United States and in other countries, so as to have the data necessary
for a fair conclusion.
The original legal doctrine regarding liability for accident in
England and America, which is still practically unmodified in the
latter country, was based on the principle of individual
responsibility for acts of negligence. Briefly stated the common law
doctrine is that an employer must provide reasonably safe conditions
of employment, and that then the employe assumes the risks incident to
the occupation, or arising from the carelessness of fellow-servants;
moreover, even if the employer has been remiss, the employe cannot
collect damages if he has been guilty of contributory negligence.
These three doctrines--assumption of risk, doctrine of the
fellow-servant, and contributory negligence--have been used
practically to free the employer from all responsibility in cases
where injured employes have sought to secure damages. Moreover, as
has been shown above, many cases exist where it is impossible to fix 99
the blame on either employer, employe, or a third party, and in such
cases no compensation could be secured for injury under the law. The
full rigor of the common law, which has worked out so unfairly for the
workingman in modern machine production, has been modified in about
twenty-seven states by statutes defining more exactly the duties of
the employer, and repealing the fellow-servant doctrine in regard to
railway employes and in a few states in regard to all mechanical
industries. With these exceptions, however, the law of employers’
liability has not been changed, and compensation for industrial
accidents must be sought by injured employes through a suit for
damages against the employer. In 1906 and again in 1908 Congress
passed a federal employers’ liability act, limited to common carriers,
which, however, represents only development along the lines of
negligence law. That is, we are still proceeding upon the assumption
that in every accident which occurs somebody is to blame. We shall
have to look to foreign countries for a practical application of the
principle that the cost of accidents in modern industry should be made
a charge upon the industry itself, and ultimately be incorporated in
the higher price of the article produced.
Germany was the first country to introduce the principle of compulsory
accident insurance in 1884. Employers are there organized into
associations and sections and are compelled to bear the expense of
granting to injured workingmen compensation, which amounts to about
two-thirds their average wages. England in 1897, by the passage of the
Workmen’s Compensation Act, adopted the principle “that a workman is
entitled for all accidents of occupation to a moderate and reasonable
compensation.” Twenty-three countries, or practically all the advanced
industrial nations of the world except the United States, have passed
laws to compensate sufferers for all accidents of industry, thus 100
placing the burden of industrial accidents upon the industry as such
and not upon the laborer.
As we have seen, sickness and old age are still more usual causes of
poverty and unemployment than accident. All the arguments for
compulsory insurance therefore apply with redoubled force to these
evils. Germany was again the pioneer in the establishment of these
forms of insurance. In 1883 sickness insurance was organized, being
made compulsory for all persons with incomes under $500; the expense
is borne one-third by the workers and two-thirds by employers, the
main purpose being to secure a sufficient relief--amounting to
one-half the wage--for a period of thirteen weeks. In 1889 invalidity
and old-age insurance was introduced for the same class; contributions
are made in equal proportion by employe and employer, the state
contributing about $12 a year to each annuity. Pensions are granted
after thirty years of payment or to those over seventy. In 1908 Great
Britain passed a still more comprehensive measure, providing for
pensioning all citizens of seventy years or over, who have been
residents for twenty years, in accordance with a sliding scale based
upon private income, the pensions ranging from five shillings weekly
down to one shilling. The pensions were expected to cost $35,000,000
the first year, but will probably entail double that amount. Finally,
insurance against unemployment was tried in Switzerland in 1893 to
1897, but was finally abolished, owing to abuses and difficulty of
administration.
There are probably no more important practical economic problems than
those connected with unemployment and workingmen’s insurance. Slowly
the conviction has spread that under present conditions of industry
workingmen cannot fairly be held responsible for industrial accidents,
and that with prevailing wages they cannot be expected to save enough
to maintain themselves in sickness and old age. It therefore becomes
the duty of society so to organize industry and legislation that the 101
terrors of accidents, sickness, and old age, shall be reduced to a
minimum.