CHAPTER VI / 



The Standard Rate 



The chief concern of the Amalgamated Association 

 throughout its history has been the maintenance of " a fair 

 remuneration to members for their labor. "^ Not only has 

 the rate of wages been a matter of prime concern, but the 

 union has also interested itself in such ancillary matters as 

 the securing of regular periodic payments. 



" In order to make any effective regulation concerning 

 the price at which the workman in the trade shall sell their 

 labor to the employers," Professor Bamett says, " it is nec- 

 essary for a union to formulate or adopt a measure for the 

 labor which is to be sold and to fix a price upon it. This 

 price is ordinarily called a ' standard ' or ' minimum ' rate."* 

 Below this rate no workman is permitted to work ; the rate 

 rests uniformly upon all the members of the union whom it 

 is designed to afifect. Remuneration in the iron and steel 

 trade since 1865 has been by the piece. The scale in use is 

 known as a " sliding scale," since it is so adjusted that rates 

 advance and decline in accordance with the price of the 

 finished product. By means of this mechanism, the union 

 has sought to obtain its primary purpose of substituting 

 collectively established rates of wages for those which its 

 members could obtain by competition in individual wage 

 bargains or by isolated strikes. 



1 Wages in the iron and steel industry have been the subject of 

 several reports published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the 

 Sixth Annual Report (iSgt), the Nineteenth Annual Report (1904), 

 and Bulletins nos. 59, 65, 71, JT, 151, 168. Two Senate documents 

 contain reports of investigations made by the Bureau of Labor Sta- 

 tistics and give valuable information as to wages in the iron and 

 steel industry: (i) Report on Strike at Bethlehem Steel Works (S. 

 Doc. no. 521, 6ist Cong., 2d sess.) ; and (2) Report on Conditions 

 of Employment in the Iron and Steel Industry in the United States 

 (S. Doc. no. no, 62d Cong., ist sess., 4 vols.). 



* Bamett, p. 108. 



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