126 ASSOCIATION OF IRON, STEEL AND TIN WORKERS [258 



employers' association.* Steel operators generally employed 

 the twelve-hour turn. Wages were reduced in practically 

 every instance, sometimes as much as one-third.^ The na- 

 tional union consented to local scales being signed for spe- 

 cialty plants even at reduced rates, provided it was clearly 

 shown " that the work of the men was decreased " by the 

 new piece of mechanism.® Frequently, this provision was 

 inserted in the local agreement. For example, in the 

 signed contract between the workmen and the Illinois Steel 

 Company, there was a clause pledging the men, in case the 

 plant was improved in any way, "to assist in developing 

 such improvement and abide by whatever modification such 

 improvement may permit in the rates and number of men."^ 

 One of the bitterest struggles for the control of a single 

 machine in the trade was occasioned in the eighties by the 

 introduction of an automatic nail-making machine. This 

 new device for cutting nails displaced many nailers and 

 nail-feeders.^ The capacity of the machine was prodi- 

 giously large. At fifty revolutions per minute, the machine 

 turned out 900 eight-penny casing nails. This meant 48,000 

 nails, or 330 pounds, per hour. The simplicity of the new 

 machines made it possible for one man to run at least six 



* National Labor Tribune, April 14, 1888, p. 2, col. 2. The Iron 

 Age, the official organ of the manufacturers, alleged that tlie union 

 laid claim to every new device projected "either by reason of im- 

 proved processes, machinery or materials " (quoted in the National 

 Labor Tribune, May 2, 1885, p. 4. col. 2) ; the Association through 

 the editor of its paper, thus complained : " There should be an end 

 somewhere to labor standing the brunt of clieapened production" 

 (ibid., April 14, 1888, p. i, col. l). 



5 Proceedings, 1889, p. 2736. 



* Proceedings, 1899, P- 5629. 



^ Proceedings, 1891, p. 3412. For an instance of .such adjustment 

 with the Illinois Steel Co., see Proceedings, 1901, pp. 7027-7029. 



" The first invention was a self-feeding device, known as the Had- 

 dock self-feeding machine (Proceedings, 1880. pp. 347, 407). The 

 new appliance displaced the nail-feeders, as one man could tend more 

 than one machine. Nailers were not permitted to put on a self- 

 feeder nail machine, as it was deemed " injurious to the trade of the 

 nail feeders" (Proceedings, 1882, p. 973). Employers demanded 

 that nailers look after the machine for one-half the price of nailing, 

 the firm to retain the other half and pay the feeder (Proceedings, 

 1880, p. 407; 1883, p. 1093). 



