Unions and the Public
CERTAIN current impressions about organized labor in the United States deserve a more critical examination than they have received. It is important to know, for instance, whether, as Mr. F. Lauriston Bullard charges in recent issues of the Atlantic Monthly, antagonism to unions arises, not from an employers’ conspiracy to destroy them, but from a genuine public revolt ‘against the outrageous tyrannies of an intolerant labor dictatorship.’ Has the public been correctly informed about the unions? Did they take advantage of war conditions to obtain unwarranted concessions? Were they wrong in refusing to accept deflation of wages afterward? Do they engage in serious limitation of output, connive at corruption, flout the public, and refuse to reform or to accept good advice? What about the ‘closed’ and the ‘open’ shops? Is it necessary to pass regulatory legislation, or to establish governmental arbitration bodies? Mr. Bullard’s article furnishes an excellent occasion for broad discussion of these subjects which are of importance to all.
I
Scientists recognize that induction of general conclusions from a few specific instances is perilous. No array of examples, either of credit or of discredit to the unions is very illuminating without a general background of economic data with regard to productivity and wages.
Professor Walter W. Stewart, now of the Federal Reserve System, and Professor Edmund E. Day of Harvard, as well as numerous other economists, have laboriously calculated indices of the physical production in the United States for the twenty or thirty years preceding 1919. These estimates are in substantial agreement with each other. They show that between 1899 and 1919 the annual production of goods increased about 80 per cent. During the same period the population of the United States increased about 40 per cent, or only half as rapidly. In this twenty-year period the yearly output of goods per capita of the population increased about 30 per cent. If we exclude agriculture and mining, we find that the yearly output of manufactures increased 40 per cent per capita.
Since 1919 the annual production in basic industries has increased about 23 per cent, according to the Federal Reserve Board, while the population has increased a little over 5 per cent. Production per capita has therefore grown nearly 17 per cent in the last four years. Production of manufactured goods, according to the Department of Commerce, has been enlarged over 11 per cent since 1919, while the number of wage-earners engaged in manufacture, as indicated by the excellent employment index of the New York State Department of Labor, has fallen nearly 3 per cent. The production of manufactures per wage-earner may therefore be estimated as about 15 per cent higher than four years ago.
If the unions have been attempting to thwart technical progress or to limit output, it does not appear that they have, on the whole, been highly successful. The figures do not indicate the existence of a crisis.
An intensive study of wasteful methods in industry was made in 1921 by a group of distinguished engineers for the Federated American Engineering Societies. They did not attempt to set up ideal standards, but they did roughly assess the responsibility for preventable waste in six important industries as between management, labor, and outside contacts of firms. Unions exist in each of the industries studied. The engineers estimated that the responsibility of management for waste ranged between 50 per cent and 81 per cent, according to the industry. The responsibility of labor ranged between 9 and 28 per cent. In only one industry was the responsibility of labor as large as one third that of management. The engineers, of course, took into consideration strikes and lockouts, union rules and practices. It therefore appears that in so far as the preventable wasteful practices of industry are an evil, union practices do not deserve a major share of public attention.
Did labor profiteer during the war, and has it insisted on an inequitable share of the national income since the war? Most persons who discuss this subject think only of the increase in the dollars paid to labor, and forget the diminished purchasing power of those dollars. They also overlook the increase in national productivity. The best figures available on incomes of manufacturing wage-earners before 1914,—those calculated from the United States Census of Manufactures, — when compared with changes in retail prices of food, which make up about two fifths of the workers’ family budget, indicate that in 1914 the average wage-earner could buy about 10 per cent less than in 1889, twenty-five years earlier. Estimates of real wages after 1914 are possible on a yearly basis, because various states, such as New York and Wisconsin, have kept good statistics of actual earnings, while the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics has published an index of changes in the retail prices, not only of food, but also of all the items in the family budget.
A comparison of these figures shows that the purchasing power of average wages rose slightly in 1915 and 1916, but in 1917 and 1918 fell below even the 1914 level. The cost of living rose faster than wages, and consequently in the war years, when labor was popularly supposed to be profiteering, it was actually, in purchasing power, some 15 per cent below the level it had enjoyed thirty years earlier. In 1919 and 1920 real wages rose again to the 1899 level. Since 1919 they have increased, and are now about 28 per cent higher than in 1899. This enlargement of purchasing power with its possibility of a better standard of living is chiefly due to the fact that wages were not ‘deflated’ as much as prices during the recent depression. But, be it noted, this 28-per-cent increase in the goods which wage-earners may buy is only a belated and inadequate accompaniment of the growth in national productivity for which they arc partly responsible. We now produce annually about 50 per cent more goods than in 1899 for every man, woman, and child in the country. But the manufacturing wage-earner can buy only 28 per cent more. Studies of union wage-scales show that in many cases they have advanced less than average earnings.
The general truth, so far as it may be ascertained from the most dependable statistics we have, seems therefore to be the exact reverse of the usual anti-union contention. Far from receiving an enlarged share of a diminished volume of production, wage-earners have been receiving a diminished share of an enlarged volume of production.
II
There is not space here to tell the story of the anti-union campaign which was resumed with renewed intensity shortly after the Armistice and prosecuted with vigor during the depression of 1921, when about one third of the industrial wage-earners were jobless.
The National Founders Association may be taken as an example of the organized forces in the United States bent on the destruction of tradesunionism. It began its hostile activities as long ago as 1904. Its members are pledged not to make agreements with unions. It is a closely knit and well-financed union of employers who furnish each other, in the event of labor trouble, with strike-breakers, with production capacity in other shops, with contributions in money, and with armed guards and special policemen. Members are instructed, the moment a strike occurs, to ‘cut off all negotiations and accept nothing but unconditional surrender.’ The association practises the blacklist and has an extensive spy system. In addition to its purely industrial activities it carries on largescale publicity and lobbying. A characteristic attitude of its organ, the Open Shop Review, is that it teaches ‘how really small is the class that has to live in squalor and filth and unsanitary conditions; that the great majority of the class which so lives is there because it wants to be,’ It attacks the theory of the living wage and has said that any man with $100 is a capitalist. In its pages the A.F. of L. is linked with the I.W.W., and unionism is likened to Bolshevism. The Association has fought remedial labor legislation, assailed President Wilson’s industrial conferences, and attacked the United States Employment Service. During the war it urged the conscription of labor for industrial enterprises — though not the conscription of capital. There are numerous other powerful organizations of employers with similar aims and methods—such as the National Metal Trades Association and the National Erectors Association.
Long before the war labor had to fight this type of unrelenting opposition in industry after industry. For over a hundred years unions have existed and grown in the United States in the face of such apparently overwhelming obstacles. Union organization has been sufficiently delayed by them so that not more than one third of the industrial wage-earners have even yet won the right of collective bargaining.
There never has been a time when a large part of the employers, the judges, the editors, and the ‘public opinion’ which they exemplify, were not hostile to union activity. This struggle has of course had some influence in determining the nature of unions and the character of their leaders.
The difference which came with the war was due not only to the need of general coöperation, but also to the nation’s ostensibly democratic purposes. The chief ‘concession’ which the Government made to the unions was a recognition of their existence and their right to represent the workers before arbitrators, to bargain and make contracts. In return the unions made the substantial concession of abstinence from strikes. The concessions on both sides were the absolute minimal necessities for a policy of coöperation. You cannot make peace with a body whose existence you do not recognize.
The numbers who poured into the unions during this period, when organizations of labor were in official good standing, merely gave evidence of the restraint previously imposed by the fear of hostile employers. Naturally, however, the anti-union employers regarded this enforced truce as a ‘surrender’ to labor ‘dictatorship,’ and were eager to resume the industrial war the moment the international war was over. This they did with a vengeance. Anyone in a position to observe industrial events can testify to the wide organization and energy of the attack. In view of this history it is absurd to suppose that the war against unionism is anything new, or that it is wholly or even chiefly a spontaneous revolt of ‘the public.'
III
With this background, it is enlightening to approach the typical charges of union wickedness to which Mr. Bullard devotes so much space. I do not know in what two cities1 no applicant is admitted to a plumbers’ union unless he is the father, the brother, or the son of a member, but as a general statement this charge is certainly false. To cut a small door through a hollow-tile partition requires — at least in New York — not twelve classes of labor, three weeks of time, and $250 in money, but two or three trades and a day and a half at the utmost. Three coats of plaster on lath are required in New York, not by union fiat, but by State law, for the good reason that two coats will not last long in good condition. And so on. But it is unprofitable to dispute about such detailed technical matters in a general discussion.
It must be admitted that on several occasions graft and bribery have been discovered in the construction industry. In this respect this industry is not typical of other unionized industries. The causes of such conditions are certainly not simple. They are interwoven with corrupt politics, with unfair competition, with the greed of profit-makers, with many recognized evils which in some degree have characterized American cities and American business for many years. There is no group which such dishonesty injures more than the wage-earners, and they ought to be unrelenting in rooting it out and punishing it. They bear as much responsibility for dishonesty among their officials as business men and citizens in general do for other forms of prevalent dishonesty. But no one thinks of attacking our Government or our methods of business organization for the sins of dishonest individuals, and I cannot understand why the unions alone should be assailed on account of these occasional disclosures in the building trades. There is already ample legislation penalizing dishonesty. The building-trades unions themselves are attempting to combat the evil. Their struggle against it is no more easy than the struggle against any kind of public corruption in a democratic community; they cannot end it by fiats. Improvement is measured by education and a gradual raising of the general conscience.
It also must be admitted that some union practices tend to limit production. Yet in his report on the building industry for the Federated Engineering Societies, Mr. Sanford E. Thompson, a prominent engineer, assessed 65 per cent of the responsibility for waste against management, 21 per cent against labor, and 14 per cent against outside contacts. Among his findings on this subject Mr. Thompson states, ‘The building trades, because of the scattered nature of their work and its miscellaneous and seasonal character, particularly need organizations that will assist them in maintaining their rights and obtaining a square deal. . . . Some of the union rules affecting work are justified in furthering quality and workmanship. . . . In considering this question it must be recognized that the unions are by no means alone in their restriction of output. . . . Despite the restrictive action of many of the union regulations, there is growing evidence of willingness to coöperate. . . . Some of the unions are taking the initiative in these matters, opposing restriction of output, and training and educating their members, thus producing good mechanics and furthering the elimination of waste.’
The handicap of outsiders in passing definite judgment on trade practices may be illustrated by the rule of the painters against the use of spraying machines, cited by Mr. Bullard. An employer recently discussing this subject with me said: ‘We have carried on extensive experiments with these machines. They are costly to buy and their maintenance is costly. We have had difficulty in obtaining as good results with them as with brushes. The painters who operate them have to wear gas masks. Two of our men disobeyed my positive instructions on this point, and both contracted lead poisoning. One case was promptly treated and serious illness was thus avoided. Of the other, the doctor whom I sent said it was the worst case of poisoning he had ever seen which did not result in death. I can understand the union’s opposition to the machines, and I am not convinced that they are the best method for the employer.’
Many union rules either do not limit production or have an insignificant effect. Many which do limit output are amply justified on the ground of workmanship or health. Such infrequent rules as may be adopted only because they ‘make work’ cannot be assessed without an understanding of the industrial background. Mr. Thompson’s study shows the large amount of seasonal unemployment in the building industry. Out of an average of 275 effective working-days possible, 96 — or 31 per cent — are normally lost. The percentages of days lost for the various skilled trades range from 20 per cent in the case of the upholsterers to 44 per cent in the case of the iron workers. In addition, there is the heavy cyclical unemployment. The slow growth in numbers of building-trades workmen and apprentices between 1914 and 1920 is largely due to the terrific slump of building in 1917 and afterward, incident to the war. And in 1921, according to the estimate of the National Bureau of Economic Research, building employment fell off 18 per cent even from the 1920 level. These conditions, together with the heavy labor ‘turnover’ from job to job, are not likely to induce workmen to produce at top speed while on a specific building, or to ‘work themselves out of a job’ — whether they are organized or unorganized.
Unions have been active in attempting to remedy the maladjustments of the industry. In numerous important cities the unions are coöperating with the employers through committees on apprenticeship and training. The Building Trades Department of the American Federation of Labor, through its representation in the American Construction Council, which includes all parties in the industry, declared strongly for stabilization during the boom of 1923, and advised the postponement of unnecessary building, in spite of the fact that the competition for labor at that time resulted in the payment of bonuses. The evil of strikes resulting from jurisdictional disputes has been nearly overcome by the action of the unions in submitting such matters to the National Board of Jurisdictional Award, composed of employers, representatives of labor, an architect, and an engineer. This board has decided about two hundred cases, and is obeyed by all unions except the carpenters’.
This way of conference and adjustment of technical difficulties within the industry itself contrasts sharply with the methods adopted in Chicago. According to Mr. Alexander M. Bing,2 a large real-estate owner in New York, who is an experienced student of labor matters, the Chicago efforts were neither fully creditable to the ‘open shop’ forces, nor effective. Judge Landis was chosen as arbitrator of a dispute, on the subject of wages alone, by all the trades except the carpenters’ and painters’. His wage award departed from established precedent by fixing maximum rather than minimum rates. These maximum rates were lower in relation to the cost of living than the minimum rates existing in 1914. He upset the prevailing uniform scales and introduced, among the trades, differentials difficult in many cases to justify. He apparently exceeded his authority by dealing with the highly technical subject of working rules, even in cases where employers and unions had come to agreement on them. It was on this ground that many unions besides the carpenters’ and painters’ rejected the award. Nevertheless a ‘Citizens’ Committee’ was formed, incorporated itself, raised a huge war-chest, and decreed that all unions refusing to enforce the award were ‘outlawed’ and that their trades would henceforth forever be operated on the open-shop basis. Large numbers of strike-breakers were imported. Yet in spite of strong financial and other pressure put upon the contractors, the terms of the award proved intrinsically unworkable and were universally evaded. The unions could not be destroyed. And last summer the three largest general contractors announced that they would no longer coöperate with the Citizens’ Committee.
IV
Space is lacking to deal fully with the other industries in which Mr. Bullard’s examples lie. The statement — ‘John W. Lewis and his backers intend to establish a monopoly of all coal-mining labor’ — is a hostile way of recording the fact that the United Mine Workers of America desire to add to their membership the miners of the nonunion fields. The bituminous coalmining industry is competitive, and the gains in living and working conditions won by the miners in parts of it will be precarious if not established by the miners in other parts. The violence which often accompanies attempts at organization is largely due, as the report of the United States Coal Commission clearly states, to the determination of the nonunion operators to prevent their employees from organizing, which is carried out by such reprehensible means as privately owned and closed towns, ‘yellow dog’ contracts, oppressive leases of company housing, hired thugs and gunmen, and deputy sheriffs appointed by the public authorities, but paid out of the treasuries of the employers.
Most of the working rules in railroad shops embodied in the National Agreements were practised years before the war and are still in force on the majority of railroads. On the few roads which refused to settle with the shopmen and are at complete liberty to decree whatever rules they like, financial and operating results have been in some cases deplorably bad, and in others distinctly inferior to those of the settled roads. One need only refer to the minutes of the Interstate Commerce Commission’s investigation of the Lehigh Valley, or to the statistics of such nonunion roads as the Delaware and Hudson, the New York, New Haven and Hartford, and the Central of New Jersey, as compared with such union roads as the Baltimore and Ohio or the New York Central, to substantiate this statement.
The Pennsylvania is probably the most successful railroad which has refused to deal with the shop union. Yet since the strike the Baltimore and Ohio, which runs through virtually the same territory, has outdistanced it in every important respect, although the Baltimore and Ohio accords full recognition to the shop unions. The net operating income of the Baltimore and Ohio more than doubled for the first eight months of 1923 over the first eight months of 1922, while that of the Pennsylvania grew only 12 per cent. Locomotives out of service for repairs were reduced by the Baltimore and Ohio from 50.6 per cent in July 1922, to 14.1 per cent in July 1923, and on the Pennsylvania only from 23.2 per cent in July 1922, to 19.9 per cent in July 1923. An entire issue of this magazine could be filled with statistics supporting the conclusion that the union roads have fared better than the nonunion.
V
It is untrue that unions do not accept any responsibility for better industrial methods. Mr. Gompers has made so many statements as to the necessity for technical advancement and production that it is difficult to select a quotation. ‘The trades-union movement of America understands fully the necessity for adequate production of the necessities of life,’ is perhaps his most compact sentence. ‘It is my firm conviction that the labor movement not only welcomes but invites your cooperation,’ he said to the American Society of Mechanical Engineers in 1920. In June 1921, he wrote in the American Federationist, ‘There is a need for scientific readjustment of a large part of our industrial life to-day and the trades-union movement looks hopefully to the engineers and the scientists of industry for a needed and valuable contribution to human welfare.’ Mr. Gompers is against ‘speeding up’ and some schools of engineering method, but he is not blind to problems of production.
Even more to the point is the statement of William H. Johnston, President of the International Association of Machinists, that the union ‘will continue to go out of its way to find progressive enlightened employers in order to devise practical ways and means of coöperation with the specific object in mind of improving the efficiency and service so that thereby both employer and employee may benefit.’ He has since found such an employer in President Daniel Willard of the Baltimore and Ohio, with the result that a highly significant experiment is being carried on which cannot here be described. The spirit behind the experiment is well expressed in the preamble to the new agreement between the shopcrafts unions and the railroad, which was proposed by the unions. It runs as follows: —
The welfare of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad and its employees is dependent on the service which the railroad renders the public. Improvements in this service and economy in operating and maintenance expenses result chiefly from willing coöperation between the railroad’s management and the voluntary organizations of its employees. When groups responsible for better service and greater efficiency share fairly in the benefits which follow their joint efforts, improvements in the conduct of the railroad are greatly encouraged. The parties to this agreement recognize the foregoing principles and agree to be governed by them in their relations.
Other prominent illustrations might be adduced, such as the School for Printers’ Apprentices in New York, maintained jointly by the employers and Typographical Union No. 6 at a yearly cost of $10,000 to each party, or the well-known record of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers in the shops of Hart Schaffner and Marx and other firms in the Chicago and other markets, or the activities of Arsenal and Navy Yard employees in promoting economies of peace-time production.
VI
The case for the union as a necessary protection of the employee has been put so many times and is so obvious that it is almost universally accepted by economists and social scientists — though not, in practice, by many large American employers and their advocates, and frequently not by the courts.
It is now beginning to be recognized that the potential value of the unions is positive as well as negative. Just as employees must be organized in order effectively to refuse coöperation for their own protection, so also they must be organized in order to practise cooperation in solving the large problems of industry in the general interest.
The natural tendency of the employer is to dictate wages, hours, working practices. It is his business. The natural tendency of workmen is to strive for some control over these matters. It is their job, their life. When they organize to exercise such control, the employer is likely to accuse them of practising dictatorship. The public is told that it is affronted when strikes occur in the process of establishing or extending that control. But the only solution for dictatorship on either side is some form of democracy. The industrial struggle will never be allayed until constitutional government in industry is recognized and practised. It cannot be effectively practised, in a capitalistic order; without the agency of genuine unions and the laws embodied in their agreements with employers.
Both employers and employees are human. Both make mistakes, both are tempted to act arbitrarily, especially when the emphasis is laid on conflict by either side. But it is difficult to see how progress may be made except through them. As their warfare for existence is gradually won, unions are certain to turn more and more to constructive measures.
The last convention of the American Federation of Labor adopted a striking, if somewhat vague, resolution on industrial democracy. In commenting on the subject previously, President Gompers3 had written: —
There is probably not an organization of any size or strength that has not enacted rules affecting the work and practice of its members. . . . We have bankers’ ethics, doctors’ ethics, lawyers’ ethics, accountants’ ethics and trades-union ethics. . . . These various organizations in the world of work and industry are building a law of industry. This law is designed to make things work. Not all of this law is wise, but its main tendency is constructive and progressive. It is made by men who know their field and their subject. Political law, where it touches industry, for the most part fumbles and retards. . . . And the laws that are built as a result of organization are the laws that can be agreed to by those who must live under them. That is important. There may be much crudeness, but in the end it is the way of democracy at work. In industry there can be no law unless there is almost universal recognition of its justice and practicability.
That seems a liberal, a wise, and a sound view of the matter. It is full of tolerance and hope. It recognizes the democratic possibility of making the best of things, not merely for profits and production of goods, but for the service of human character.
VII
The issue of the ‘closed’ against the ‘open’ shop is one which has been more confused in the public mind than any other having to do with labor. The confusion is partly due to a careless definition of the terms and to a calculated misuse of them. It is also partly due to a statement of the issue as one of conflicting legal ‘rights.’ When a writer defends the open shop as one in which a nonunion man may work, although collective bargaining with unions is practised, he is defending a situation which exists, with the full consent of the unions, on the union railroads and in other unionized industries. But he is not describing the situation which is desired by the antiunion employer who declares for the open shop because he does not want to make contracts with unions and wishes to keep organized labor from exercising any measure of control in his establishment. Many an open shop, though perhaps not closed to union members, is closed to union influence. To say that employees may organize but may not exercise their power to achieve the main object of organization — the regulation of hours, wages, and working conditions by collective agreement with the employer — is to make a meaningless concession. To say that the legal right of any man to make an individual contract of employment must be protected, while admitting that employees have a right to organize and bargain collectively, is to state two rights which cannot be reconciled if either is to be universally exercised.
The real issue is between the union and the nonunion shop. Some union shops are technically closed and some technically open, but in all an effective majority of the employees belong to the union, and conditions of employment are regulated by agreements with the organization. In the nonunion shop, on the other hand, the employer will not deal with organized labor — though he may go through the form of dealing with a local and comparatively powerless ‘shop committee.’ The big issue, the one on which it is important for the public to take a decided position, is whether it is to the public interest or not that unions shall have an opportunity to function in industry. There would be little doubt of a popular verdict in favor of the union shop, if the issue were always so stated.
It is not easy to form a judgment on the relative merits of the closed and the open union-shops. Both work well in practice in some cases, and both have their abuses. Printing employers, a majority of whom recognize the closed shop, usually have excellent relations with their organized employees, and a highly developed system of arbitration based on collective contracts has existed for years in the industry. On the railroads and in some of the clothing centres, unions have little difficulty in maintaining their status though permitting individuals to remain outside the organization. The closed-shop system is defended on the ground that it is a safeguard of mutual responsibility and good faith. Union organizations sometimes cannot exercise the discipline necessary to guarantee the execution of agreements if they do not include all the employees. The employee who accepts the protection of union conditions, though he pays no dues and remains free to violate the law of the agreement, is said to be morally in the position of an anarchist who accepts the protection of government but will not pay taxes and believes himself justified in violating the public law when he so desires. On the other hand, unions practising the open shop say they prefer to base their strength upon the voluntary loyalty of the majority of the employees rather than upon the compulsion of a closedshop agreement with the employer. They are willing to let those antisocial individuals who will not share in their responsibilities remain aloof, in the belief that such individuals are less a menace outside the organization than in it. The closed union-shop is liable to the abuses of power, the open union-shop to the manipulations of any who wish to undermine the system of autonomous industrial law. Either works well if both sides want it to work.
VIII
We have, then, a situation in which the historic and spontaneous growth of organized labor has been in some measure successful, and in some measure has been thwarted by those who are hostile to it. We have industrial dislocations due to this conflict. We have instances of abuses on both sides, and also instances of extremely hopeful experiments in industrial government where the existence and powers of unions are conceded and utilized for positive purposes without the compulsion of public law. It is proposed that ‘the public’ do something about this situation by legislation.
The basic difficulty, according to Mr. Bullard, is ‘the difficulty of rousing a great multitude to anger, and keeping it angry, until something really worth while is accomplished.’ The task is hardly so simple as that. I confess to complete skepticism about the possibility of accomplishing anything really worth while in the spirit of anger, especially by the fomented anger of a reluctant public. I confess to a doubt about the possibility of dealing helpfully with an intricate industrial situation solely by a predetermined legislative programme. It seems to me that what the public needs first is far less angry exhortation and far more insight into the social problems of industry. A public adequately informed on the larger aspects of unionism would make up its mind as to whether it wished to endorse the principle of constitutional industrial democracy which is implied in the activities of genuine unions. It would decide which industrial problems should be left to the solution of those in industry who know it at first hand, and which to governmental legislatures, boards, commissions, and courts. It would observe carefully those experiments in organized industrial coöperation in which anger, conflict, and private gain have as far as possible been laid aside, and intelligence and goodwill applied to the tasks of service.
A public so informed would, in my opinion, confine legislation on industrial relations rather narrowly to the establishment of the legal conditions necessary for social and economic growth. It would avoid arbitrary measures as far as possible, and would endure a good deal of inconvenience, if necessary, while nourishing the belief that, given the fundamental concession of democracy, advances in science, — both physical and human science, — in technique, in education, and in mutual understanding will in the end furnish the lasting gains which we are likely to achieve in the creation of a humane industrial order.