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 organized
 labor movement in general, by which labor and management
 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 productive
 efficiency of industry.
The principal cause of this seeming omission has been
the aggressive movement among large and influential industries
 since the year 1920-1921 to oppose and check the
organized labor movement. Many large employers have also
stimulated counter movements for “employee representation”
 or so-called “company unions.” This fight against
labor unions, together with other adverse factors with
which they have been confronted, has exhausted the resources
 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 precedents,
 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 Wolman,
 entitled “Economic Conditions and Union Policy.”