284 INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION AND WAGES 
management and pointed out that it was a recognition of 
the principles for which organized labor had constantly 
striven. The Federation also developed the “Social Wage” 
conception, or a general wage-theory for the benefit of the 
entire labor movement, and at the same time worked out 
statistical methods by which individual unions, as well as 
the labor movement in general, could ascertain whether 
they were securing a proper degree of participation in the 
output of industry. No practical general method, however, 
has thus far been formulated and accepted by the organ- 
ized labor movement in general, by which labor and man- 
agement or capital might cooperate in applying the newly 
accepted theories of wage-determination and the principle 
of the further participation of labor in the increased pro- 
ductive efficiency of industry. 
The principal cause of this seeming omission has been 
the aggressive movement among large and influential in- 
dustries since the year 1920-1921 to oppose and check the 
organized labor movement. Many large employers have also 
stimulated counter movements for “employee representa- 
tion” or so-called “company unions.” This fight against 
labor unions, together with other adverse factors with 
which they have been confronted, has exhausted the re- 
sources which might have been developed in a constructive 
way toward cooperation and productive efficiency. The 
energies of organized labor, by force of circumstances, 
have thus been largely spent in maintaining and extending 
its position. Only recently has it been able to concentrate 
upon a new, concrete wage plan. Several noteworthy prece- 
dents, however, have been established during the past year, 
which afford the basis of a comprehensive, constructive 
program. 
iV mondise analysis of the organized labor movement since the war, see 
“American Labor Dynamics,” ante cited, Part One, Chapter II, by Leo Wol- 
man, entitled “Economic Conditions and Union Policy.”