Part 453: The Scenic Artists’ Union – “Reaping the Whirlwind”
When I was looking for images and articles about the 1903 production of Owen Davis’ play “Reaping the Whirlwind,” I stumbled across an interesting article about union artists. It provides a little insight into the artistic life and times of Thomas G. Moses during 1903. Although the scenic artist “from a well-known painting firm” remained unnamed in the article, it reminded me of Moses.
Moses never joined the union. Throughout the years he expected great speed from his studio crew, commenting that a guaranteed hourly wage should never affect any artist’s productivity. It is the argument that the speed of some scenic artists decreases when they are hired “by the hour” instead of “by the job.” It is understandable that there is an incentive to work fast when you are paid “by the job” as it directly increases the profit margin in your own pocket. Working fast for others to increase someone else’s profit margin is not always an incentive for some people. It takes great loyalty and appreciation for a studio owner to have their staff uniformly overcome this potential obstacle. You need artists that have a vested interest in the speed of the process, as well as the end product.
Here is the article “Reaping the Whirlwind” in its entirety as it was published in “The Santa Cruz Sentinel” in 1903 (Santa Cruz, California, 4 August 1903, page 2).
“While talking to a member of a well-known painting firm a few mornings ago at his place of business, no less than four journeymen daubers interrupted our conversation during the fifteen minutes that it lasted. The journeymen were asking for employment, and I was told that five others had applied during the morning, yet it seems that, although it was only half-past nine o’clock. It seems that although this ought to be the busiest time of the year in the painting line it is not, for the simple reason that many employing painters refuse to take up new work on account of the exorbitant scale which the union demands for a day’s wages. (Me: Really? They are not going to accept a project if they have to pay people a good wage?) As a consequence only chance jobs are taken, except by a few of the very largest firms, which prefer to keep busy even when there is but meager or no profit to be had. One of the applicants for work, I was told, is one of the best painters in the city, and his services were in such demand a year ago that the firm to which he had just applied was unable to get him at any figure, and now he is tramping the streets looking for a job. My informant told me that last year painters were commanding a premium and now there are any number of them idle. He remarked that if the union wage schedule was any way reasonable that there would be plenty of work to do, but no one in the business desired to waste their energies by accepting jobs in which there was no profit just for pleasure of paying big wages to employees. Still worse, he alleged that the men no longer worked as diligently as formerly. They loafed a great deal, and the result was that jobs which were figured on to show a fair profit caused a loss to the firm. I was not surprised to hear what the man said because I had foreseen such a state of affairs for a long time.” The article was signed, “S. F. Wasp,” possibly for the San Francisco Wasp magazine.
To be continued…
