LABOR’S NEW STATUS 
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them by their employees, or have along with their em- 
ployees submitted requests for wage-increases to official or 
unofficial boards of arbitration. In many cases, the pre- 
vailing and the generally accepted wage theories have been 
put forward and sanctioned by arbitration boards; but 
there has been no general movement by industrial manage- 
ment or wage-earners, either separately or by mutual agree- 
ment, 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 advan- 
tage of virtually the invitation to labor by industrial man- 
agement 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 in- 
dustrial 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 unpre- 
cedented attitude of industrial management and policy 
toward wage theories and standards, after the starting of 
the new constructive program of 1923, should have stimu- 
lated 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