"But it would be impossible, under existing conditions, to obtain a sufficient number of men to operate the plants on a three-shift basis up to a capacity which would supply the present necessities of the purchasing public. There are not now, under a two-shift practice at the furnaces, enough men to meet the demand for iron and steel."
Here we have the fradulent game of the Steel Trust in a nutshell. When there is depression, there is a shortage of money, and the poor Steel magnates can’t afford to pay for the 8-Hour Day. When there is prosperity, big profits, then there is a shortage of labor, and the 8-Hour Day is again impossible.
Analyzing So-called Labor Shortage
The existence of a great number of unemployed, constituting an industrial reserve army, is an inherent feature of the capitalist system of production and exchange.
Even in the best times, in the heydays of prosperity, there are hundreds of thousands of men able and anxious to work but unable to do so, because the owners of the mills and mines and factories will not give them a chance to. Today, with the Great Depression of 1921 over, the army of the unemployed is far smaller than the six millions out of work eighteen months ago.
For instance, the last Annual Report of the Secretary of Labor, Davis, showed that in 240 cities of a combined population of 35,430,910 there were 2,301,588 unemployed wage earners. Mr. Davis admitted that his estimate of the number of unemployed was very incomplete and that the number out of work in the whole country, was much greater. Since then, at least 250,000 were added to the total number of employable workers through immigration.
Thus even the most sanguine capitalist optimist cannot reasonably contend that all of the millions of workers, still unemployed on June 30, 1922, have been absorbed in the recent industrial revival.
The huge standing industrial reserve army has not been reduced as much as the employing class would have us believe. An analysis of the figures presented by the Illinois Department of Labor in its Employment Bulletin of April, 1923, shows that on the average, for the period January–April, 1923, inclusive, there were 104.47 persons registered as applicants for every hundred jobs open in common labor. Furthermore, the New York State Industrial Commissioner in his Report, ending May, 1923, showed that factory employment is only 15 per cent higher than it was a year ago.
Besides, whatever "labor-shortage" there may have existed for a few months, is now steadily disappearing. The same New York Report, speaking of the extent of employment, points out that "decreases were reported in nearly two-thirds of the manufacturing industries of
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