with no unions in the field.

4. _________ Wages of non-union labor excluded from
the more productive fields.

5. _________________ Base from which wages are measured.

The height of lines 1, 2, 3, and 4, above the base line 5, measures
wages, and the length of the lines rudely indicates the numbers of
workmen in different classes. The dotted lines above and below line 1
represent what union labor which maintains by force a monopoly of its
field may be able to get from employers who are in a combination. It
may be more than competing employers would give or it may be less.

For men in strong unions who have _carte blanche_ to defend their
fields, the policy of leaving other labor to its fate is
overwhelmingly the more profitable. With a choice between gaining a
hundred per cent in wages for ourselves or ten per cent for working
humanity, self-interest speaks decisively in favor of the former
alternative.

In connection with the actual dealings of workmen with their employers
the following are the principal facts:--

1. When labor makes its bargain with employers without organization on
its own side, the parties in the transaction are not on equal terms
and wages are unduly depressed. The individual laborer offers what he
is forced to sell, and the employer is not forced to buy. Delay may
mean privation for the one party and no great inconvenience or loss
for the other. If there are within reach a body of necessitous men out
of employment and available for filling the positions for which
individual laborers are applying, the applicants are at a fatal
disadvantage.

2. Collective bargaining is a partial remedy for this disability and
brings the pay of labor closer to its normal standard than, under
individual bargaining, it could possibly be, but does not, of itself,
enable one class of laborers to raise themselves to a position which
is very much above that of a majority of the others. It gives to no
class of workers any monopoly of their field or any power to tax the
public or oppress men who are unorganized. It is a normal and
democratic measure.

3. Many actual trade unions do not depend upon mere collective
bargaining, but aim to secure a special gain through a partial
monopoly of their several fields of labor. Their policy is exclusive
in that it tries to limit the number of men who are admitted to the
unions and to prevent non-union men from working at the craft.