MICHIGAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. 49 



men from takiug tlieir tools on the job before they were employed 

 was to prevent men from gathering around the places of employ- 

 ment prepared to work, because the employers used their presence 

 to intimidate the journeymen on the job; i. e,, according- to his 

 theory of life, men who were out of employment would place them- 

 selves where they could underbid their fellows who were employed. 

 To illustrate the underlying force of 1heir fixed group demand 

 theory, one of the officials said that they were in favor of a raise 

 of wages to 70 cents per liour because there was a certain amount of 

 work to be done and the carpenters could get 70 cents per hour as 

 well as 65 cents. Thus consciously or unconsciously, tJie carpenters 

 supported all of their rules by some of their theories of life. Let 

 us consider these theories and theif Jsignificance after careful 

 analysis. 



First, the theory of standardization. By means of the standard 

 day, minimum wage, rushing, prohibiting tools on the job before pro- 

 curing work, contract, piece and lump work, definite pay day, and 

 union shop, the carpenters establish standards and uniform units 

 of measurements. Why these standards and uniform units of 

 measurements? There is one answer given by the men. By these 

 standards all of the men can be judged on a uniform basis in order 

 to detect undercutting which they think will exist as long as men 

 compete. (*151).) They express the hypothesis, in explaining these 

 demands if not the theory, that there is a strong or even inherent 

 tendency for men to underbid each other. Some have expressed 

 this underbidding in the following manner: If A, B, C, D, ... N 

 should be the supply of workmen and the demand for labor were 

 for A, B, C, D, N — X, the assumption is that the one un- 

 employed man (X) would offer his services for less than (A) was 

 receiving. Thereui)on (X) would be employed and (A) would be 

 discharged. (A) would then do as (X) had done before him, and 

 A. B. C. D. ... X would do the same in their turn. (X) would 

 shortly find himself underbid on the wage at which he originally 

 underbid (A), and would now be obliged to underbid again at a 

 still lower point. They assume a constant over-supply of labor, 

 which the theory presupposes will be temporarily removed by the 

 process of underbidding. 



Second, the theoi-j- of undercutting. In speaking of the minimum 

 wage, one official said, "the men are all willing to underbid the 

 others on the slightest appearance of emergency." (*23.) This 

 theory also appears in the once prevalent practice of giving the fore- 

 man a present on all big jobs. In this connection, several journey- 

 men said that the "men continually slip things over to the boss," 



