THE ECONOMIC PROGRAM 
293 
fall and are to be increased and the conditions of em 
ployment bettered, the workers must constantly endeavor 
to increase the bargaining strength of the group as 
against the employers of the group and as against other 
groups. In general, the principles, policies and methods 
used to make the bargaining strength of the weakest 
equal to the bargaining strength of the group also have 
the effect of strengthening the bargaining power of the 
group as against the employer. In general, therefore, 
the program for the first purpose is also employed in 
the attempt to force the employers to advance wages and 
to improve conditions of employment, that is, to force a 
larger share of the output to be devoted to bettering 
wages and conditions. 
1 hese methods, however, so employed, are not so 
much in the interest of uniformity as in opposition to 
industrial changes which allow the substitution of less 
skilled for more skilled workers, of specialized 
workers for trained craftsmen, of machinery for hand 
labor, and, so, the elimination of workers in the group. 
It can readily be seen that, if these changes were al 
lowed, wages and conditions of employment could hardly 
be advanced, and unemployment within the group, with 
greater competition and lower wages, might result even 
were the group dividend increased and the closed shop 
maintained, provided the union assumptions be main 
tained that wages and conditions are determined by bar 
gaining under conditions which make the interests of 
the employer and the worker opposed. For these 
changes would constantly create what is virtually an 
increasing supply of labor in the group and would enable 
the employer more readily to substitute less skilled and 
low-priced labor for more skilled and high-priced labor.