ECONOMICS OF THE FISHERIES 323 



control and not amenable to discipline. Little in the way of benefits from 

 specialization is accomplished. Few worth while economies are effected by 

 bigness. Diversification is in fact to some extent realized, but in spite of it, the 

 earnings (and losses) of large fishing companies are erratic, the historical 

 record is not good and they are unpopular with investors. 



To these difficulties are added that of securing managers for decentralized 

 operations who are, as employes, able and willing to make the necessarily 

 quick and risky decisions which are better made by principals. 



Cooperatives are discussed under Primary Marketing, p. 327. 



Fishing Not Primarily for Subsistence of Fishermen. While fishermen 

 make use of their own produce as food for themselves and families, fishing is 

 not primarily an important subsistence industry, as is small agriculture, 

 where a well-rounded diet can be produced in home gardens and with 

 chickens, pig, and cow. With only 125,000 fishermen in this country produc- 

 ing an average of 32,500 pounds of fish per man, it is evident that fish is 

 mainly a cash crop. In any event, fish could supply only the protein part of 

 the diet. In some countries, such as Newfoundland and Japan, and in some 

 of our small communities in this country remote from the big markets, fish is 

 a more important element in the diet of the fishermen. In some of the larger 

 fisheries such as trawling for cod, etc., menhaden and sardine fishing, their 

 own products hardly enter the fishermen's diets at all. The fishermen are 

 therefore under the necessity, in most cases, of marketing their produce for 

 cash. 



Unions have made very considerable progress in organizing fishermen in 

 the trawling and other fishing operations where labor can be definitely distin- 

 guished from capital ownership, even though the fishermen's compensation 

 is mainly in the lay or share. In trawling there is (or was) a small guaranteed 

 wage. This and the terms of sharing the catch, length of watch and other 

 conditions of work, time in port, number of crew members and such matters 

 are subjects of negotiation between owners and union crews. In New England 

 the fishermen's union also attempted to control prices by limiting the amount 

 of catch to 134,000 pounds of fish per trip; unlimited catching would be 

 perhaps 200,000 pounds average.^* The shore handlers of sundry kinds 

 including employes in commission markets and processing plants are union- 

 ized in the familiar industrial pattern. In the Pacific Northwest the Halibut 

 Vessel Owners Association and the Fishermen's Union deal with each other 

 and act jointly in marketing arrangements affecting both. This is also true 

 of the California Sardine Vessel Owners and Fishermen's Union who nego- 

 tiate the prices of sardines with the canneries and reduction plants. There are 

 also fishermen's cooperative canneries. 



14. This practice was found by a Massachusetts Superior Court on August i, 1947, to be 

 monopolistic and the Union was ordered to cease and desist fixing prices and restricting catch. 



