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Letter of Transmittal.

STATE OF NEW Jersey,

DEPARTMENT OF LABOR.

OFFICE OF THE BUREAU OF INDUSTRIAL STATISTICS,

TRENTON, OCTOBER 31, 1915.

To His Excellency James F. Fielder, Governor:

SIR: In accordance with the provisions of Chapter 105, Laws of 1878, and the several supplements thereto, I have the honor of submitting to the Senate and General Assembly, through you, the thirty-eighth annual report of the Bureau of Industrial Statistics of New Jersey.

LEWIS T. BRYANT,

Commissioner.

INTRODUCTION.

The principal features of this report, the thirty-eighth issued by the Bureau since it was organized in 1878, are on practically the same lines as those followed by its predecessors of recent years. The purpose has always been to so regulate and direct the work of the Bureau as to make its investigations and reports cover, to as great an extent as possible, the extensive range of sociological and industrial research designated as its field, by the legislative act under which it was organized thirty-eight years ago.

The report is divided into three parts; the first devoted entirely to the "Statistics of Manufactures," which is in substance and elaborateness of statistical details a perfect census of the factory industries of the State; the second, to a tabular and analytical review of employment, working time and earnings— daily, weekly and yearly on the steam railroads of New Jersey; a review of retail prices of food supplies, and the statistics of the fruit and vegetable canning industry of the State; and third, the year's record of occurrences of interest to labor and industry, all of which are grouped together in Part III under the general title "Industrial Chronology of New Jersey." The chronology is presented under seven topical heads as follows: Accidents to workmen while on duty; suspension of work-temporary or permanent, in manufacturing establishments; changes in working hours and wages; expansion of manufacturing industry; industrial property damaged or destroyed by fire; organization of trade and labor unions; and such strikes as have occurred during the twelve months covered by the chronological record.

The Statistics of Manufactures, which occupies all of Part I— 128 pages of the report, shows for the first time since the disastrous money panic of 1907-08, a break in the progressive increase in the volume of manufacturing industry that we had heretofore enjoyed year after year. Calculated over a period of fifty years, the annual advance in the value of factory and workshop products has averaged 6.6 per cent. The statistics here presented, which

refer to the year 1914, show, instead of the customary annual increase, an actual falling off in the value of products as compared with 1913 amounting to 3.4 per cent. The depression that produced this result was, however, limited to the first seven months of the year. A great revival of manufacturing activity, which set in about the middle of the seventh month and continued with cumulative intensity to the present time, has gone far toward offsetting the shrinkage of the first six or seven months of 1914, and existing conditions warrant the belief that 1915, the data for which are now being compiled, will prove to be a record year of more than average prosperity for the industries of New Jersey.

Next in industrial and sociological importance to the Statistics of Manufactures, comes the record for the year of strikes and other disturbances of like character, of which the number that occurred during the twelve months covered by "chronology" was unusually large. Practically all were for increase of wages, reduction of working time and a considerable number that aimed at securing both these concessions. Two of this class-one that occurred at the plants of the Standard Oil Company at Bayonne and Cavan Point, Hudson County, and the other at two plants of the American Agricultural Chemical Company situated in Roosevelt, Middlesex County, presented features of unusual interest. The men engaged in these strikes were very largely of the nonEnglish speaking classes of immigrants, and the progress of both was marked by outbreaks of rioting which necessitated a resort to stern measures of suppression by the authorities. Two strikers were killed and eight or ten were wounded at Roosevelt, and five were killed and a much larger number were more or less seriously wounded at Bayonne. Both these strikes with all details of interest relating to them are described at considerable length in this report. The other strikes were of the ordinary kind, carried for the most part to such conclusions as were reached without violence and with a minimum amount of friction, but the record shows that such gains as were made by the men concerned fell far short of cancelling the wage losses incurred through varying periods of idleness incidental to the struggles.

Each of the several subdivisions of this report is prefaced by a comprehensive introduction and analysis which brings out clearly the character of the subjects considered and significance of the results shown.

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