tors will, at bottom, govern the
effort put forth by the wage earners. These are the matters to which all
who realize the need for steady and willing effort in production will
have to attend.

The problem of maintaining a high level of production will be primarily
one of developing the practice of open-handed and thoroughly understood
negotiation between the directors of industry and the workmen. Barring
the development of the practice of successful negotiation either
industrial chaos or a return to individual bargaining must result.

9.--There is one other possible result of the enforcement of wage
standardization which requires brief notice, because it was displayed
prominently during the war. The demand during the war for certain
essentials of warfare was abnormally great, and the result was a steady
bidding up of wages for the supply of labor which could assist in the
production of these essentials. This led to a constant shifting about of
the wage earners from plant to plant. This movement not only hindered
the effective organization of production, but also caused a
considerable loss of working time, and fostered a continuous
pre-occupation with the question of wages and related questions. In view
of these facts, the various governmental agencies of wage settlement
undertook to introduce into all wage contracts the principle of
standardization throughout large areas. Witness, for example, the
conclusion of the Shipbuilding Adjustment Board on the matter. "One of
the most serious influences retarding the progress of the shipbuilding
industry according to the unanimous testimony of the yard owners, and of
the district officers of the Fleet Corporation who have come before us,
is the shifting of men from yard to yard.... The only effective way to
stop it is to remove its inciting cause, the variable wage rates paid by
different yards in the same competitive region. With this purpose in
view, we have sought in all our hearings to determine with accuracy the
limits of each competitive region, so that we might extend over it a
uniform wage scale for shipyard employees...."[84]

The enforcement of wage standardization may serve to prevent wasteful
shifting of the labor supply even in normal times. Theoretically, it
should serve to limit the shifting of the labor supply to movement
between different industries and occupations, and to cases which
represent movement of unemployed wage earners to points where work
exists