onger
bonds will arise between the skilled and unskilled grades of wage
earners than those which unite them at present.[7]

The position of the female industrial workers remains to be noted since
the employment of women in industry seems likely to increase. Women are
employed, on the whole, on the lighter and more routine stages of the
process of production. They have shown capacity, endurance and
steadiness upon monotonous and nerve straining work both upon machine
and hand tasks. It seems likely that they will continue to displace men
in many of the simpler mechanical jobs. Many individual women wage
earners have risen to tasks of responsibility and direction. This number
will be greatly added to by improvement in the education of women for
industry and by their continued self-assertion. Nevertheless, it is
likely that the great bulk of women wage earners will continue to be
employed as at present upon relatively simple, light and unskilled work.

Such, in briefest outline, is the economic position of the wage earners
in American industry to-day. There is a diversity of outlook and of
animating spirit among the various groups or classes. There is no very
settled opinion among them as to the place of the wage earner in the
industrial system. There is besides a diversity of racial and sex
faculty and adaptability.

3.--Change and diversity also mark the relationships between the wage
earners and the other industrial groups. Up to the very recent past, the
connection of the wage earners with the enterprise in which they served
was limited practically to the fulfillment of the individual wage
contracts which were made. The obligation of the wage earners to the
enterprise which employed them has been considered at an end with the
performance of the work they were employed to do. Similarly, the
obligation of the enterprise to the wage earners has been considered
fulfilled by the payment of wages earned. The wage earners have been
called upon to give their whole-hearted efforts to their work by reason
of the belief that such effort was to their own interest, and by reason
of their own hopes and desires for advancement. The American wage
earners have usually tackled their jobs with energy, good will, and
sincerity.

It is impossible to attempt to sketch here the development of the
practice of collective bargaining, and the various concepts of
industrial relationship to which the rise of trade unionism has given
impulse