TRADE UNIONS AND SOCIAL INSURANCE1

The history of the movements of wage-earners in all ages reveals the machinations of their opponents to disintegrate and destroy their associations. It has not infrequently been accomplished by employing the lawmaking power, and even in our own time the legislative, judicial and executive branches of our federal government, as well as that of the states, have been made the instruments of oppression under the guise of benefiting the workers.

With these facts before us we organized wage-earners cautiously scrutinize every movement launched by outside agencies whose claimants profess devotion to the common weal. Before the American Federation of Labor gives its approval to any plan contemplating the establishment by law of any form of social insurance it must first be assured that the economic freedom of the workers is guaranteed, and that the participation in benefits to be derived from any system of this character is not based upon continuous employment in a certain industry or predicated upon time of service or other devices intended to tie the workers to their jobs.

Organization among the men and women of labor has been the exclusive cause of their achievements. Group concert of action has been the means of compelling society to listen to the wrongs committed against labor by the controllers of industry. Organization, advancing with the passage of each decade, has been the instrument through which at least a partial recognition of the justice of the claims of wage-earners has been secured.

Like every movement based upon immutable fundamental principles, the organized labor movement has attracted the attention of other groups of society which assume that in them and their schemes lie the only solution for the problems concerning the lives of the working people. These groups as a general rule are but little interested in the struggles or perpetuity of the economic organizations of the working people, and only on rare occasions, if at all, appear as their sponsors

1 From article by Grant Hamilton. American Federationist. 24: 122-5. February, 1917.

or extend assistance in the maintenance or advancement of their

organizations.

Let me now draw your attention to the fact that there are many industrial combinations in our country that have and are inaugurating social welfare schemes. Many of them contemplate social insurance of infinite variety. Among them are sickness, accident, superannuation and pensions. All these schemes, however, are primarily based upon length of service and economic loyalty to the concern formulating the schemes. The power to extend or withdraw benefits resides wholly in the hands of the controllers of the industry. Freedom of action by the workers is thereby made a negligible factor. In plain English, the workers under this scheme are chained to their jobs.

It is likewise true that in all the combinations referred to the right of economic organization has been and is denied. In other words, a benevolent feudalism is the translation of the ordinary welfare scheme. In nearly all the plans promulgated for social insurance compulsion appears as the one chief characteristic. Compulsion to do an infinite variety of things on the part of the workers is indicative of control over their lives. Without the safeguard of economic organization, untrammeled and in full influence, the governmental agencies created to establish a system of social insurance would soon destroy the trade unions and transmute the wage-earners into industrial pawns on the governmental chess board.

Workmen's compensation laws now in operation in many states are presenting many intricate problems. While it is not denied that they are conferring upon the wage-earners relief to which they are justly entitled, yet there are questions now arising under their administration that require our utmost vigilance in protecting wage-earners. Simultaneously with the advent of compensation laws came the introduction of systems of physical examinations. Industrial controllers, in their desire to reduce liability, are insisting upon ever increasing rigidity in physical examinations and excluding from employment those who show even non-essential defects. It is well known that able bodied, skilled workmen have been dismissed from employment at the recommendation of the company physicians who found in them the disease of unionism and diagnosed the cases under convenient professional terms.

Any further systems evolved having for their purpose intended benefits to the great mass must contain adequate safeguards to protect the wage-earners from industrial, law or welfare exploitation. The American Federation of Labor stands committed to the welfare of the wage-earning population of our country, but it will refuse now as it has done in the past to endorse or lend its assistance to any scheme, no matter by whom proposed, unless it is first convinced that the same measure of freedom of action as now enjoyed in the trade unions are secured to the workers under any insurance scheme proposed.

The purpose of social health insurance is to provide for emergencies and to prevent suffering of wage-earners and those dependent upon them. Well-to-do citizens do not make special provisions for such eventualities because they have a surplus upon which to draw. But wage-earners have no such surplus. Benevolent society has been moved to compassion for the suffering of the poor and their children-they offer a new form of charity, benevolent supervision and compulsory social insurance. Benevolent society does not go to bed-rock questions-why the meager wages, starved lives and the restricted opportunities of those who toil with their hands. It offers palliatives, not remedies. This new form of charity provides for the division of society into classes based upon wages received. Those who receive less than a specified sum, automatically come under government supervision upon the theory that they are unable to care for themselves and their dependents properly. Therefore, the state and their employers set aside money for their upkeep in times of emergency. The workers themselves make but meager contributions. Thus the fundamental principle of social insurance is to make permanent distinctions between social groups and to emphasize that distinction by governmental regulation. What wage-carners want is not benevolently administered saving of pennies but opportunity to do the world's work like free men and women and to receive honest returns for their labor in the form of adequate wages. Get off the backs of the workers and there will be no need for "insurance," for then wage-earners like employers will have enough to live on and to provide for emergencies without "aid."

Sympathetic advocates of health insurance justify the plan

by indicating the members injured, incapacitated, and exhausted by modern production. Organized labor has also called attention to the number of debilitated and physically deteriorated men and women thrown aside as useless by industrial managements, and has demanded the eradication of the inhuman speeding up devices that have marked many human lives. Driving workers at high tension, over-fatigue, unsanitary conditions of work are fundamental in ruining the health of the workers. If the speeding-up sentiment pervading industrial managements is continued the physically fit must soon be transferred to the unfit class, thus we are confronted with a constantly increasing number of industrial defectives. This question alone is serious and must be solved first. Without the removal of the causes for sickness health insurance is not even a safeguard, for the burdens upon society would become steadily heavier until too great to be borne.

FROM THE WORKINGMAN'S STANDPOINT 1

Roughly, and for the purpose of considering this insurance problem, our working classes may be divided into three groups. First, there is the friendly and trade society class, fairly well provided for. These men are usually members of two societies, or some kind of a club besides a bona fide society. They may be said to be entitled to double sick pay, they have been entitled to a doctor, and, when needed, special hospital treatment.

Second, there is the club class, somewhat poorly provided for -men not in first-class societies, but just in a club or dividing society, the general unskilled labouring class. These are merely entitled to a single sick pay and hospital treatment, and are occasionally assisted by collections among workmates or neighbours.

Third, there is the casual class, in no society or club, not sufficiently respected, as a rule, to get credit from doctors or collections from mates or neighbours. These are usually dependent upon charity or Poor Relief. They are generally found in the workhouse hospitals when sick. Such, briefly, are the

1 By T. Good. World's Work (English edition). 21: 514-16. April,

conditions apart from the Insurance Act. Such was the position before we got this measure. Now let us proceed.

There is the question of pauperism. We have been promised that this new scheme will diminish pauperism, its cost, and its degradation. There is no foundation for such a promise. The bulk of our paupers come from the third class, specified above -the poorest of the poor. It is just this class for which the scheme provides no real assistance, but actually does a great deal to make them still poorer, more helpless, and more dependent upon Poor Relief.

Even in this time of good trade many widows and casual labourers are losing their jobs, not merely because their employers are taxed a few coppers a week, but because of the little troubles, inconveniences, and inquiries involved, and because the scheme is so repugnant to some people that they are resolved to have nothing to do with it if they can escape, and are having their work done otherwise than by direct labour.

Here is a case in my village. Husband a cripple, but able to do light jobs in gardens and greenhouses, and so (hitherto) earn a few shillings now and again. Wife goes out charing. Children go errands.

With a trifle as out-relief from the Guardians, and the produce of a small allotment, the family has managed to live. Now, as a direct result of the Insurance Act, most of the employment has been lost. At least some members of the family will have to enter the workhouse, for the present fierce struggle cannot be kept up much longer.

Here is another case. A woman left a widow, with four boys all serving apprenticeships in the shipbuilding line. By going out to work about five days a week the woman so managed to supplement the meagre wages of the boys as to maintain her respectability.

Under the Insurance Act all the boys are taxed under both parts-unemployment as well as sickness--that is, eight sets of contributions weekly, although the boys, being bound, have no need of unemployment benefit at any rate. That constitutes a preposterous tax on that family income. Besides that, the woman lost some of her work, was reduced to terrible straits, and has since lost-well, her dignity.

Now consider the next class—the fairly well employed, but