The Wages Question – The Drapers’ Journal – February 1914

At a period when we hear so much about salaries, wages, conditions of employment, higher cost of living etc., and when all these questions affect shop assistants and clerks, more immediately, and, perhaps, more seriously, than any other section of the community, the time has undoubtedly arrived when we must seriously take stock in regard to these matters.

As our readers are aware, the establishment of a fair Minimum Wage has been dealt with previously on many occasions, so frequently indeed that some members have come to the conclusion that the subject has become rather hackneyed, and that we have said enough in regard to it to convince (if such conviction were necessary) all concerned of the great urgency of bringing the matter to a head. The establishment of a Minimum Wage will not, in our opinion, solve the question, but it will, at least, go some distance in that direction.

We have always believed that raising of workers on the lower plain to a higher level will, in itself, help in the upliftment of all, because it is common sense to state that if a large proportion of any section of workers is paid but a miserable pittance, all in that particular employment, except in the case of a few privileged individuals, must suffer as the result. And where the standard is high in a department in any particular trade, this standard will undoubtedly be held up as a basis upon which all other departments should be placed.

At this time of the year employers and boards of directors are having the figures compiled or completed, they are comparing the incomes and expenditures, the profits and the outlay, and are, no doubt, notwithstanding the alleged depression, compiling glowing reports, containing the all-important notification of the usual or increased dividends. Now, during this yearly half-yearly stock-taking, we would suggest to those employers, or boards of directors, that a most important item, which has frequently been neglected, and which must not be overlooked in the future, is that of an equitable division of the profits which, after all, have been produced in many cases by those who are inadequately and disgracefully remunerated for their work.

No doubt we will be told “competition is keen,” “we cannot afford to pay any more,” “our neighbours are underselling us,” etc., etc. This is all very fine for traders who have consistently adopted the cut-throat system of competition, whose sole object is to make money for themselves at the expense and to the detriment of their employees, but we say in reply to these, and to all whom it may concern that if the public are to be granted privileges by grasping, greedy employers, this must not be done at the expense of the workers, at the cost of cheap, sweated, and in many cases unpaid labour.

Greedy employers who work their business largely through the labour of boys and girls , who are not only unpaid for their services, but who, in many cases, are the victims of designing individuals, who induce them, under false pretences, to serve their apprenticeship in shops , and incidentally, of course, to pay substantial fees for doing so. If employers are anxious to give their stuff away for nothing, that is no affair of ours, but we must see to it that they are not going to be philanthropists at our expense, at the cost of the sweat and blood of the workers. Frequently we have suggested to employers and to employers’ associations that one of their main functions should be the regulation of prices, and the standardisation, as far as possible, of the cost of certain commodities. By doing this they would be securing a fair and equitable ground of competition and at the same time curb the designs of greedy employers in the mad race to get rich quickly, which seems to get hold of most employers nowadays. We would suggest to them to pause in this dangerous career as it must inevitably lead to the overthrow and the crushing out of that upon which their hearts are set.

When employers, managers, and directors come to peruse, as they will during the coming week, their balance sheets, let them consider carefully and conscientiously, as far as their conscience will permit the portion which is the workers’ due – those who have made the profits and dividends. Let them, as in the case of some shops, which we could name, consider the boys and girls, the men and women, who have been working 60 or 70 hours per week for a miserable penny an hour, and if they do not take heed of what we say, the reckoning undoubtedly will come, and come much sooner than they anticipate.

When a badly treated and indignant section of the workers rise up in their wrath let them not hypothetically turn the whites of their eyes to heaven, and say, “you have taken us unawares, we are willing to treat you well,” and so forth. We would advise employers to take time by the fore-lock, to grant their employees a fair living wage, and not to wait until these employees have put the force of redress and regeneration into such a state of motion as to become furious and extremely dangerous. Our warning on this occasion will no doubt, in many cases at least, fall on deaf ears, but we are satisfied that the seed is being sown, the employers cannot say they did not get timely notice. As business men they do not live in the moon, but if they desire to live in the moon in so far as the conditions of their employees are concerned, then it behoves the employees to assert their rights, and to bring these employers down to terra-firma, and to a sense of their duties and responsibilities.

Michael O Lehane