LABOR’S NEW STATUS

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them by their employees, or have along with their employees
 submitted requests for wage-increases to official or
unofficial boards of arbitration. In many cases, the prevailing
 and the generally accepted wage theories have been
put forward and sanctioned by arbitration boards; but
there has been no general movement by industrial management
 or wage-earners, either separately or by mutual agreement,
 to work out these new principles and theories in a
practical way as a permanent basis of procedure.
Organized labor and wage-earners in general, on the
other hand, have, as a rule, contented themselves with the
gains which they have received from declining prices, and
by wage increases which have been secured through the
old, conventional methods of conference, mediation, and
arbitration. Without analyzing other adverse conditions
which have been present, it seems astounding and almost
incredible that organized labor has made no general effort,
through the formulation of a concrete plan, to take advantage
 of virtually the invitation to labor by industrial management
 to participate in the productive gains of industry
on the basis of labor’s gains in productive efficiency, as well
as to seize upon the constantly reiterated statements of industrial
 leaders that there would be no limits to rates of
pay provided labor and management were successful in
economic accomplishment. It would seem to those who
have not followed the movement carefully that the unprecedented
 attitude of industrial management and policy
toward wage theories and standards, after the starting of
the new constructive program of 1923, should have stimulated
 organized labor immediately to devise and work out
methods for securing the practical application of the new
theories which industry had accepted.
As a matter of fact, the American Federation of Labor
did at once pledge its adherence to the new attitude of