2Sg] MACHINERY 12/ 



machines.® The nailer's skill was no longer an important 

 factor in production ; and to this is largely due the bitter 

 feeling of the nailers against the nail feeders, who fre- 

 quently got the nailing jobs by wage-cutting. 



The policy of the union was to attempt to limit the num- 

 ber of machines which one man might operate. At first, it 

 was enacted that four machines should constitute " one 

 job," and members of the union were not permitted to hold 

 more than one job.^'' The provision, however, could not be 

 enforced. In the first place, nail mills could not be effec- 

 tively organized. Because of excessive production, mills 

 were idle half-time. The men had no interest in an organi- 

 zation that could be of little benefit to them. Again, there 

 were too many men competing for the decreased number of 

 jobs. Nail feeders were equally as capable of running the 

 machine as the skilled nailers. Consequently, the employ- 

 ers were able to drive a bargain with the union ; if not, they 

 began to run non-union. By 1889 Secretary Martin pointed 

 out that nailers got little, if any, more for operating eight 

 machines than they did previously for four.^^ There were 

 instances of employers demanding that the men work ten 

 machines.^^ 



Varied and numerous were the mechanical improvements 

 which invention and discovery made available in the pud- 

 dling and finishing divisions. Improved furnaces made the 

 work of the puddler somewhat less laborious and also in- 

 creased the output." Continuous rolls, with new feeding 

 devices ; new machinery for blooming mills, having " all the 

 levers that operate the screw, the rollers and the manipula- 

 tors in one place" — thus making it possible for the roller 



9 National Labor Tribune, January 28, 1888, p. 4. col. i. The 

 machine, it wa.<! said, cost $600. It was introduced extensively. 



'"Constitution, 1884, art. 18, sec. 5. 



" ProrccdintTS, 1880. pp. 2600-2601. 



12 National Labor Tribune, February 9, 1880. For a similar in- 

 stance of one man's operatinp an excessive number of bolt machines, 

 see ibid., March 20, 1800. p. 4, col. 2. 



18 For instances, see Vulcan Record, 1872, no. 10, p. ^2; Proceed- 

 ings, 1878, p. 172; National Labor Tribune. March 4. 1882. p. 4, col. 

 3; Western Scales of Prices, IQ16-1917, p. 5. 



