for work and sustenance. On the other hand, agriculture furnishes but 6.28 per cent, transportation 2.91 per cent, personal service but 1.72 per cent, and the day laborers but 8.43 per cent.
Fall River, with a total laboring population of 26,220, found steady employment for but 11,437, or 43.62 per cent, while 14,783, or 56.38 per cent of her population, were seeking work 3.49 months in the year. The result of it all is that one third of the persons engaged in remunerative employment in Massachusetts were unemployed for more than one third of the time.
It is significant that 129,272, or 53.51 per cent, of the total number of unemployed were found in twenty-three cities of the State, while 325 towns furnished 46.49 per cent.
It is often claimed that labor disturbances, strikes, and lock-outs are responsible for most of the idleness in manufacturing industries. The report under review goes into this question, and as a result ascertains that in the manufacturing industries "an average suspension of one-fifth of a month (0.20) was caused by repairs, improvements, etc. An average suspension of one-fiftieth of a month (0.02) was caused by strikes and lock-outs," while the balance was due to "slack trade." Just how much of the loss of time was due to combinations and trusts "restricting production, so as to control prices," does not appear; but when it is shown that in an average idleness of 4.11 months per year, strikes are responsible for but an average of one fiftieth of one month, or but little over one-half day, it is time for "statesmen" to abandon their stock argument of "strikes and strikers," and look about for some of the real causes of present conditions.
It is possible to only partially supplement this investigation in Massachusetts by similar investigations in other States.
In 1886 the Illinois Bureau of Labor Statistics, in an investigation of trade and labor organizations, covered the question of the number of weeks' work secured during the year. The following analysis of that report refers only to the membership of labor organizations in the State which reported upon that question, or 85,392 workingmen. For these the average was 37.1 weeks work and 14.9 weeks idleness during the year. Only one-fifth found steady work for the year; about one-third could get work but one-half the time; while, to quote from the report, "the industrial people, as a class, secure work for only 71.7 per cent of full time, and spend 28.3 per cent of their time in idleness, for want of work to do." (Illinois Report for 1886, page 319.) The coal-miners of the State secure work for but 23 weeks in the year. The occupations securing the greatest percentage of employment are those most removed from the protecting influences of that Congressional bill of fare called tariff. Thus the barbers, horseshoers, printers and pressmen, street-railway employés and railroad men, report nearly full time; iron-moulders and rolling-mill men, 35 weeks per year; while other metal-workers report 30 weeks of work and 20 weeks of want of work.
In commenting upon the tables given, Colonel John S. Lord, the able secretary of the Bureau, says: "Whatever value may be attached to the ultimate percentage of time lost, as deduced from all classes, the specific facts remain as to a great number of men and occupations. No interpretation of these facts can obscure the important fact that out of 85,329 workingmen, organized to promote their material interests, and presumably able to secure a greater share of them than the unorganized, only about one-fifth of them can obtain continuous work for a full year of working time. As the last table shows, those who get less than 40 weeks work are 65 per cent of the whole; and those who get only from 13 to 30 weeks' wages in the year are 35 per cent of the whole, or 30,451 in number." (Page 320.)
Another and not less important feature of the Illinois report is that it shows the number of members of labor organizations out of work at the time of the investigation – June and July, 1886.
The question of the number of weeks' work secured during the year might be sometimes loosely answered by the secretaries of labor unions; but as to the number at that time unemployed the answers would be almost as accurate as a census enumeration. The 634 labor organizations of Illinois had an enrolled membership in June, 1886, of 114,365. It was found that 17 per cent of these belonged to both the Knights of Labor and to a trade union, and had hence been duplicated. Deducting these, it was found that 103,843 persons were members of these bodies. Of these, 88,223, or 85 per cent, were employed, while 15,620, or 15 per cent, were idle. Applying this percentage to the entire number of persons engaged in the industries in which organizations were found, basing that number on the census of 1880, there must have been in the three grand divisions of industry – manufacturing, mining, and transportation – at least 50,000 men unemployed in Illinois in June, 1886. If that percentage could be applied to all occupations, this number would be swelled to 150,000. The Illinois Bureau found 15 per cent of all those engaged in manufacturing and mining industries idle in 1886.
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