THE ECONOMIC CONDITION OF ORGANIZED LABOR. The statistics of labor for the year ended September 30, 1901, as embodied in this report, are restricted to the organized wageworkers of the state. They do not therefore cover all, or even a majority of the wage-earners; but they do represent a minority that is large in point of numbers (275,000 working people) and representative of nearly all the manufacturing and mechanical industries. Organized labor includes, in the first instance, the more highly skilled workmen, and in the second instance, the wage-earners in cities rather than in villages; hence, for both reasons and aside from the probability that members of labor organizations secure more regular employment and slightly higher rates of wages than non-unionists following the same trades, it may be predicated that the average earnings of members of labor organizations are higher than the average earnings of all workmen. It would therefore be incorrect to quote the conditions of organized labor as actually representative of all wage-earners; but, on the other hand, the fluctuations from year to year in the amount of employment and earnings of trade unionists do really reflect actual changes throughout the entire body of workingmen. These reports have been collected quarterly from the trade unions since the beginning of 1897 and, as appears in the blank form reprinted in Appendix I, cover the subjects of number of members, hours of labor, rates of wages, and number of days worked and amount of money earned by each member during the quarter. The information required for such reports is furnished to the secretary of each trade union or labor organization by the individual members thereof on blanks supplied by the Bureau. It cannot be maintained that the use of the individual blanks is universal. Nevertheless, the secretary of the average small union inevitably possesses fairly accurate knowledge of the amount of employment and earnings of each member of the organization. In the case of the larger unions, such knowledge is more likely to be in the nature of an estimate, unless the union levies some of its dues in proportion to the wages of members and therefore requires from each of its members a weekly report of their earnings; this is the practice, for example, among the printers' unions. I. Number and Membership of Labor Organizations. Before discussing the earnings of organized working people, it is necessary to know something about the composition, strength and growth of such organizations. Such growth can be traced from the year 1894, when the Bureau first gathered comprehensive statistics on the subject; at that time the strength of organized labor had probably suffered something of a decline on account of the industrial depression that began in 1893 and lasted until 1897. It is interesting to study the development of labor organizations in this state since then. In 1894 the number of labor unions that reported to the Bureau was 860; in 1901, it had increased to 1,871, which is a gain of 117 per cent. In the same period the membership has increased from 157,197 to 276,141, or by 76 per cent, thus: While there is manifest a constant increase in the number of organizations, it is only since 1898 that the growth has become conspicuously rapid. Between 1894 and 1898 the number of unions had increased by only 227, while in the three years since 1898 the increase has been 781. The aggregate membership was smaller in 1898 than in 1894, but in the past three years it has increased at the rate of about 35,000 a year; thus in the official year ended September 30, 1899, the increase in membership was 38,000; in 1900, 36,000 and in 1901, 31,000. The rate of growth has therefore declined somewhat in 1901 as compared with the two years just preceding. The following table, summarized from Table D of Appendix III, exhibits the membership by industries in each year since 1894: INDUSTRIES. Building, stone-working, etc.......... Metals, machinery and shipbuilding. TABLE 2 AGGREGATE MEMBERSHIP O☛ LABOR ORGANIZATIONS, 1894-1901, BY INDUSTRIES.❤ Transportation Printing, etc......... Tobacco...................... Food and liquors.... Theaters and music.... Wood-working, furniture........ Restaurants, retail trade......... Public employment............................. Miscellaneous.......... Total.... 6,683 8,176 8,260 3,207 5,303 6,804 157,197 180,231 170,296 168,454 171,067 209,020 245,381 276,141 In nearly all the industries there has been a constant growth of organization since 1894, so that with one or two exceptions the maximum membership is in 1901. The most striking advance has been made in the metal-working trades, which have increased their total membership from 9,900 in 1894 to 35,600 in 1901, and thereby progressed from fifth to third place in the rank of organized industries. On the other hand, the tobacco trades lost ground in 1901, and the transportation trades suf fered a noticeable decline in 1898, as a result of the temporary disbandment of New York City longshoremen's unions, while the clothing trades, notwithstanding a large increase in the past year, have not attained the strength, in the matter of numbers, that they displayed in 1895. The total for 1895 was exceptional and, amid the numerous fluctuations in the strength of unionism in the clothing business, has not been approached in any other year. The difficulties attending the organization of trades whose members are more or less isolated home-work The dates to which these figures relate are July 1 in 1894 and 1895, October 31 in 1836 and September 30 in the subsequent years. ers are so great that it is doubtful if the large gains made in the past year, as shown in the following table, can be permanently maintained: Tables 3 and 4 together show the quarterly changes in the number and membership of New York unions in the year under consideration, the last column in each table revealing the gain in the entire year. While the largest number of new organiza tions is to be credited to the construction industry, the largest number of new members is found in the clothing and textile trades. The several industries and trades, as detailed in Table I of Appendix IV, may now be passed in review. I. Construction Work.-The four subdivisions of this group of trades are stone working, cement making, building and paving trades, and building and street labor. The number of unions in the stone-working trades has declined from 41 in September 1900, to 35 in September, 1901, but the membership has • Decrease. |