Working men group themselves in associations, they form co-operative
societies and unions for defence, they fight very justly and nobly for
the betterment of their class; but it is not clear that these
associations have any great influence on their moral attitude towards
their work. They have succeeded in compelling employers to employ only
such workmen, and no others, as the respective unions shall designate in
each particular case; but in the selection of those designated they pay
little heed to their technical fitness. Often the employer finds it
almost impossible to dismiss an inefficient workman on account of his
inefficiency, for his fellow-workers take his part. Their work,
moreover, is often perfunctory, performed merely as a pretext for
receiving a wage, and instances even occur when they deliberately
mishandle it in order to injure their employer.
In attempting to justify this state of things, it may be said that the
employers are a hundred times more blameworthy than the workmen, for
they are not concerned to give a better wage to the man who does better
work, or to foster the general education and technical proficiency of
the workman, or to ensure the intrinsic goodness of the article
produced. The improvement of the product--which, apart from reasons of
industrial and mercantile competition, ought to be in itself and for the
good of the consumers, for charity's sake, the chief end of the
business--is not so regarded either by employers or employed, and this
is because neither the one nor the other have any religious sense of
their social function.
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