It is agreed upon the part of the Railroad Company that if I shall
remain in the service for one year, the ............ Railroad Company
agrees to return to me the amount of carfare from point of shipment
to ........................... By continuous service for one year is
meant that I shall not absent myself from duty any time during the
period without the consent of my superior officer.
It is understood by me that the ............ Railroad will not grant
me free transportation to the point where I was employed.
I am not less than twenty-one or more than forty-five years of age,
and have no venereal disease. If my statement in this respect is found
to be incorrect this contract becomes void.”
....................
Laborer’s Name.
It is apparent that since the war has put a stop to the importation
of foreign immigrants, the Negroes are so far the only cheap and
unorganized labor supply obtainable. Indeed Mexicans were brought to
work here in the same way, although the experience with them was not as
satisfactory as with the blacks.
While it may be true that the motive for bringing these ignorant
workers is primarily to fill up the unskilled labor gap, and not to
break up the labor movement, it is self-evident that the employers
would scarcely admit the latter motive even though it was paramount.
It may be, that ultimately the employers may use these workers against
the union organizations or against the securing of the eight-hour-day,
which the local unions are aiming to attain. Indeed, the employment
agent of one of our great industrial plants, which underwent a big
strike a few years ago, pointed out that one of the great values of
the Negro migration lies in the fact that it gives him a chance to
“mix up his labor forces and to establish a balance of power”, as the
Negro, he claimed, “is more individualistic, does not like to group and
does not follow a leader, as readily as some foreigners do.” However,
in only one instance in our survey of the Pittsburgh Trade Unions,
was a complaint lodged against colored people taking the places of
striking white workers. This was in a waiters’ strike and was won just
the same, because the patrons of the restaurants protested against
the substitution of Negro waiters. In all the others, there were no
such occurrences. Indeed, the number of Negroes taking the places of
striking whites and of skilled white workers is so small that it is
hardly appreciable. They are, as we have seen, largely taking the
places which were left vacant by the unskilled foreign laborers since
the beginning of the war, and the new places created by the present
industrial boom. No effective effort has been made to organize these
unskilled laborers by the recognized American labor movement. These
people, therefore, whose places are now being taken by the Negroes,
worked under no American standard of labor, and the fear of these
unskilled laborers breaking down labor standards which have never
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