In the competition among
laboring men for work there will always be a certain considerable
proportion who, in order to get some kind of work for a while, will
accept almost any conditions of labor or scale of reward offered to
them. Men of this kind, either because of irresponsibility,
unintelligence, or a total lack of social standards and training, are
continually converting the competition of the labor market into a force
which degrades the standard of living and prevents masses of their
fellow-workmen from obtaining any real industrial independence. They it
is who bring about the result that the most disagreeable and dangerous
classes of labor remain the poorest paid; and as long as they are
permitted to have their full effects upon the labor situation, progress
to a higher standard of living is miserably slow and always suffers a
severe setback during a period of hard times. From any comprehensive
point of view union and not non-union labor represents the independence
of the laborer, because under existing conditions such independence must
be bought by association.
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