The United States Steel Corporation, in the annual meeting of its
stockholders, held in Hoboken, N. J., April 21, took a step which may
tend to cause a reaction among that part of the public which had come to
believe, on account of the frequent pronouncements by the corporation of
its kindly intent toward its employes, that it would take any reasonable
and logical step that it might to improve labor conditions.
To make this clear it is not necessary to go back to the addresses in
this vein that have been delivered from time to time by executive
officers of the corporation before the American Iron and Steel Institute
and elsewhere. It is sufficient to refer to the committee of
stockholders, appointed by Judge Gary in the fall of 1911, who made a
report on labor conditions to the stockholders meeting of 1912. Their
report declared that 25¾ per cent of the employes of the corporation
were working twelve hours a day. This figure included all employes in
mines and quarries, as well as in mills and furnaces. The committee made
it clear that “this schedule of work was found in the largest proportion
in its departments which are more or less continuous, such as rolling
mills, open hearths, and blast furnaces, where the percentage of work
for the twelve hours varies from 50 to 60.”
Speaking of the effects of the twelve-hour day, the committee said:
“We are of the opinion that a twelve-hour day of labor, followed
continuously by any group of men for any considerable number of years
means a decreasing of the efficiency and lessening of the vigor and
virility of such men.
“The question should be considered from a social as well as a physical
point of view. When it is remembered that the twelve hours a day to
the man in the mills means approximately thirteen hours away from his
home and family—not for one day, but for all working days—it leaves
but scant time for self improvement, for companionship with his
family, for recreation and leisure. It is important that any industry
be considered in its relation to the home life of those engaged in it,
as to whether it tends to weaken or strengthen the normalness and
stability of family life. By a reasonable conserving of the strength
of the working population of today may we be best assured of a
healthy, intelligent, productive citizenship in the future....
“That steps should be taken now that shall have for their purpose and
end a reasonable and just arrangement to all concerned, of the
problems involved in this question—_that of reducing the long hours of
labor_—we would respectfully recommend to the intelligent and
thoughtful consideration of the proper officers of the Corporation.”
As a result of this recommendation, the finance committee of the
Corporation appointed a subcommittee of its members, “to consider what,
if any, arrangement with a view to reducing the twelve-hour day, in so
far as it now exists among the employes of the subsidiary companies, is
reasonable, just and practicable.” Their findings are published in the
annual report of the corporation for the year 1912, which has recently
been issued. The committee calls attention to the fact that the
stockholders’ committee found that “only about 25 per cent of the total
number of employes” were working twelve hours a day. This, in spite of
the fact that the committee distinctly reported that 50 to 60 per cent
of actual steel workers were twelve-hour men. But as to relieving the
situation, the report reads “it is believed that unless competing iron
and steel manufacturers will also enforce a less than twelve-hour day,
the effort to reduce the twelve hours per day at all our works will
result in losing a large number of our employes, many of them preferring
to take positions requiring more hours of work per day.”
The report then points out that a considerable number of men during the
past year have left the employ of the Steel Corporation because they
have enforced the six day week, and have gone to the employ of other
companies where they could work seven days, and expresses the fear that
the same thing would happen if an eight-hour day were adopted by the
corporation.
Of course, nothing is said in this report, nor was anything said at the
stockholders’ meeting of April 21, as to the real reason why workers
leave their positions when hours of labor are shortened. The inference
to be drawn from the report is that steel workers are so consumed with a
passion for work that they do not desire to leave it, even for one day
in seven.
The facts are that the cost of this reform was borne by the men. The
Steel Corporation did not pay its men their old earnings for their new
six day stint. It would be interesting to know the actual wages received
by the larger proportion of those who left the employ of the Corporation
in order that they might work seven days a week for other companies. We
should then be able to draw our own conclusions as to whether it was a
passion for work or a desire to support their families in decency and
comfort that led them to look elsewhere for work when their earnings
were reduced by one-seventh.
But the Steel Corporation found itself, according to its own testimony,
in a quandary. A committee of its own stockholders had recommended an
abolition of the twelve-hour day. The finance committee had considered
the matter carefully and reported back that because its competitors had
not changed from the twelve-hour day, they could not. It was a practical
difficulty and they intimated that they were unable to solve it. It was
to cut this Gordian knot that Charles M. Cabot, the Boston stockholder
who was responsible for the investigation conducted last year by the
stockholders’ committee headed by Stuyvesant Fish, went to the meeting
on April 21 with this resolution:
“Voted, that in view of the Finance Committee’s report that the change
from the twelve to the eight-hour day in continuous twenty-four hour
processes in our mills and plants is impracticable unless similar
action is taken by our competitors; and, further, in view of the
fruitful results which followed the appointment by the American Iron
and Steel Institute at the instigation of officers of our Corporation
of a committee on seven-day labor, which action has led to the very
general establishment of the six day week in the steel industry of the
United States; that the stockholders request the directors to enlist
the co-operation of the steel manufacturers of the United States in
establishing the eight-hour day in continuous twenty-four hour
processes.”
The purpose of this resolution was to provide the quickest, most
efficient manner of solving the dilemma in which the Corporation found
itself, and to provide a way whereby there could be restored to the
workers such a working schedule, as would not sap their vitality or
prevent them from having what the stockholders’ committee thought was
necessary time for relaxation and for association with their families.
That this resolution was tabled with the consent of the officials of the
Corporation, will undoubtedly be interpreted by many as an indication
that the Corporation was not sincere in its plea that its hands were
tied in trying to meet the demand of the Fish committee for a reduction
in hours.
Yet Mr. Cabot performed in offering this resolution possibly his
greatest service since he began his campaign to improve the labor
conditions in the steel industry even though it was an achievement that
he did not have in mind. He forced the Corporation to show its hand; he
gave it an opportunity to prove whether or not it really desired, as it
was on record as desiring, a fundamental reform. The Corporation gave
him an unmistakable answer.
It would have been better if they had not forgotten the wise counsel of
William B. Dickson, their former vice-president, when he said, in a
speech advocating one day of rest in seven, that if the steel companies
themselves did not institute this reform, they would be compelled by law
to institute it, and that the law would be far more drastic than the
manufacturers of steel would find comfortable.