Reconstruction—A Survey and a Forecast

Mr. Portenar has worked at his trade of printing for thirty-seven years; he has carried a union card thirty-two years; he has for four years been in the Employment Service of the State of New York and of the United States. He has met employers as a trade union official and as a public official and has dealt with employes in the same capacities.-THE EDITOR. THERE is general agreement that there must be a of the machinery of national industry, but we are not nearly so unanimous as to what is meant by readjustment. For some, the word more accurately expresses what is desired. For others, demolition and reconstruction from the ground up, would be a summary. Between these extremes, stands a great majority which interprets readjustment as restoration with more or less modification, the degree of modification varying considerably, but the structure of pre-war conditions being in its essentials retained. The problem is not purely industrial. Adequately presented it would include economic, political and moral phases. But at this moment the emphasis is placed on the mechanisms by which industrial relations may be improved rather than on the fundamental principles on which they rest. When we consider the concrete conditions under which industry will get back to normal peace production, the subject naturally divides itself into two heads: Actions by agreement between employers and organized labor, and actions by employers in non-organized industries. In the organized industries the struggle will principally concern wage schedules. But there are some industries in which the eight-hour day was unwillingly conceded under the stress of war requirements, and in these industries the length of the workday is likely to be a more bitterly contested question than even wage schedules. And there are other industries which are struggling already for a forty-four hour week. It has already been made clear that the unions will strenuously resist any reduction in wages. In some instances they are out on 111

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