an uncomfortable feeling about the woman entering his trade, even
apart from the most important reason of all, that she is wont to be
a wage-cutter, the average trade-union man retains a somewhat uneasy
apprehension when he finds women entering the union. As they become
active, women introduce a new element. They may not say very much,
but it is gradually discovered that they do not enjoy meeting over
saloons, at the head of two or three flights of grimy backstairs, or
where the street has earned a bad name.
Woman makes demands. Leaders that even the decenter sort of men would
passively accept, because they are put forward, since they are such
smart fellows, or have pull in trade-union politics, she will have
none of, and will quietly work against them. The women leaders have an
uncomfortable knack of reminding the union that women are on the map,
as it were.
It is at a psychological moment that she is making herself felt in
the councils of organized labor. Just as the labor movement is itself
being reorganized, with the modern development of the union and of
union activity; just as woman herself is coming into her own; just as
we are passing through the transition period from one form of society
to another; and just as we catch a glimpse of a distant future in
which the world will become, for the first time, one.
From the very fact that they are women, women trade unionists have
their own distinct contribution to make to the movement. The feminine,
and especially the maternal qualities that man appreciates so in the
home, he is learning (some men have learnt already) to appreciate in
the larger home of the union.
In speaking thus, I freely, if regretfully, admit that the rartk and
file of both sexes are far indeed from playing their full part. We
have still to depend more largely than is quite fitting or democratic
upon the leaders as standard-bearers. It is also true that there
are women who are willing to accept low ideals in unionism as in
everything else. Their influence is bound to pass. If women are to
make their own peculiar contribution to the labor movement, it will
be by working in glad coöperation with the higher idealism of the men
leaders.
And when the day comes (may its coming be hastened!) that women are
even only as extensively organized as men are today, the organization
of men will indeed proceed by leaps and bounds. It will not be by
arithmetical, but by geometrical progression, that the union will
count their increases, for it is the masses of unskilled, unorganized,
ill-paid women and girl workers today, who in so many trades today
increase the difficulties of the men tenfold. That dead weight
removed, they could make better terms for themselves and enroll far
more men into their ranks. What increase of power, what new and
untried forces women may bring with them into the common store, just
what these may be, and the manner of their working out, it is too
early to say.
But the future was never so full of hope as today, not because
conditions are not cruelly hard, and problems not baffling, but,
because, over against these conditions, and helping-to solve these
problems, are ranged the great forces of evolution, ever on the side
of the workers, slowly building up the democracy of the future.
APPENDIX I
This document, which is the contract under which a union waitress
works, is typical.
AGREEMENT
Between the Hotel and Restaurant Employés' International Alliance
Affiliated with the American and the Chicago Federation of Labor.
This contract made and entered into this 10th day of April, 1914, by
and between the H.R.E.I.A. affiliated with the American and Chicago
Federation of Labor of the City of Chicago, County of Cook and State
of Illinois, party of the first part, and:
Chicago,
Illinois, party of the second part.
Party of the first part agrees to furnish good, competent and honest
craftsmen, and does hereby agree to stand responsible for all loss
incurred by any act of their respective members in good standing while
in line of duty.
The Business Agents of the allied crafts shall have the privilege of
visiting and interviewing the employés while on duty, their visits to
be timed to such hours when employés are not overly busy.
The second party agrees to employ only members in good standing in
their respective unions, of cooks, and waitresses, except when the
unions are unable to furnish help to the satisfaction of the ... which
choice shall be at the discretion of the above company. Then the
employer may employ any one he desires, provided the employé makes
application to become a member of the union within three days after
employment.
Chefs, and Head Waitresses must be members of their respective craft
organizations.
WAITRESSES
RESTAURANTS
Steady Waitresses, 6 days, 60 hours $8.00 per week
Lunch and Supper Waitresses, 7 days, 42
hours or less 6.50 per week
Dinner Waitresses, 6 days, 3 hours 4.00 per week
Extra Supper Waitresses, 6 days, 3 hours 4.00 per week
Night Waitresses, 6 days, 60 hours 9.00 per week
Extra Girls, 10 hours a day 1.50 per day
Extra Girls, Sundays and Holidays 2.00 per day
Head Waitresses, 6 days, 60 hours 10.00 per week
Ushers, 6 days, 60 hours or less 9.00 per week
Ushers, dinner, 6 days, 6 hours or less 5.00 per week
Dog watch Waitresses, 6 days, 60 hours 9.00 per week
BANQUETS
Three (3) hours or less, $1.50.
Any waitress working extra after midnight serving a banquet, dinner,
etc., shall receive 50 cents per hour or fraction of an hour, except
the steady night and dog watch waitresses.
Waitresses shall do no porter work.
Overtime shall be charged at the rate of 25 cents per hour or fraction
of an hour.
Waitresses shall not be reprimanded in the presence of guests.
Waitresses walking out during meals shall be fined $1.00.
Waitresses after being hired and failing to report for duty shall be
fined $1.00.
Employés shall be furnished with proper quarters to change their
clothing and there shall be no charge for same.
No profane language shall be used to employés.
There shall be only one split in a ten-hour watch in restaurants.
If employers desire special uniforms they must furnish same free of
charge.
Employer shall pay for the laundry of all working linen and furnish
same for waitresses.
No member shall be permitted to leave the place of employment during
working hours except in case of sickness when a substitute shall be
furnished at the earliest possible moment.
Employés shall report for duty at least 15 minutes before the hour
called for. They shall be furnished with good, wholesome food.
All hours shall be the maximum.
Head Waitresses and Head Waiters are required to give business agent a
list of employés the first week of each month.
Members must wear their working buttons. There shall be no charge for
breakage unless breaking is wilful or gross carelessness.
It is agreed that waitresses shall clean silverware once a day.
THIS CONTRACT shall remain in effect until May 1, 1916, unless there
is a violation of trade union principles.
ARBITRATION
During the term of this contract, should any differences arise between
parties of the first and second part of any causes which cannot
be adjusted between them, it shall be submitted to an Arbitration
Committee of five, two selected by the party of the first part and two
by the party of the second part, and the fifth by the four members of
said committee, and while this matter is pending before said committee
for adjustment, there shall be no lockout or strike, and the decision
of the committee on adjustment shall be final and shall supplement or
modify the agreement. This CONTRACT shall remain in effect until May
1, 1916.
--SIGNED--
PARTY OF THE FIRST PART ... PARTY OF THE SECOND PART
[NOTE. The dog watch waitress has part day and part night work. She is
on duty usually from 11 a.m. till 2 p.m., and again from 5 p.m. till
midnight, in some non-union restaurants till one o'clock in the
morning. The above agreement calls for not more than one split in a
ten-hour watch, otherwise a waitress might be at call practically all
day long and yet be only ten hours at work. A.H.]
APPENDIX II
THE HART, SCHAFFNER AND MARX LABOR AGREEMENTS
[The following brief abstract covers the essential points in the
successive agreements between Hart, Schaffner and Marx, clothing
manufacturers, of Chicago, and their employés, and is taken from the
pamphlet compiled by Earl Dean Howard, chief deputy for the firm, and
Sidney Hillman, chief deputy for the garment workers.]
The conditions upon which the strikers returned to work, as defined in
the agreement dated January 14, 1911, summed up, were:
1. All former employés to be taken back within ten days.
2. No discrimination of any kind because of being members, or not
being members, of the United Garment Workers of America.
3. An Arbitration Committee of three members to be appointed; one from
each side to be chosen within three days; these two then to select the
third.
4. Subject to the provisions of this agreement, said Arbitration
Committee to take up, consider and adjust grievances, if any, and to
fix a method for settlement of grievances (if any) in the future. The
finding of the said Committee, or a majority thereof, to be binding
upon both parties.
The Arbitration Committee, or Board, consisted of Mr. Carl Meyer,
representing the firm, and Clarence Darrow, representing the employés.
The office of chairman was not filled until December, 1912, when Mr.
J.E. Williams was chosen. The Board settled the questions around which
the dispute had arisen, and an agreement for two years between the
firm and the workers was signed. For some time the Board continued to
handle fresh complaints, but it gradually became apparent that the
Board, composed of busy men, could not hear all the minor grievances.
The result of a conference was the organization of a permanent body,
the Trade Board, to deal with all such matters, as these arose, or
before they arose, reserving to both parties the right of appeal to
the Arbitration Board. The plan can be judged from the following
clauses in the constitution of the Trade Board:
TRADE BOARD
The Trade Board shall consist of eleven members who shall, if
possible, be practical men in the trade; all of whom, excepting the
chairman, shall be employés of said corporation; five members thereof
shall be appointed by the corporation, and five members by the
employés. The members appointed by the corporation shall be certified
in writing by the corporation to the chairman of the board, and the
members appointed by the employés shall be likewise certified in
writing by the joint board of garment workers of Hart Schaffner &
Marx to said chairman. Any of said members of said board, except the
chairman, may be removed and replaced by the power appointing him,
such new appointee to be certified to the chairman in the same manner
as above provided for.
DEPUTIES
The representatives of each of the parties of the Trade Board shall
have the power to appoint deputies for each branch of the trade, that
is to say, for cutters, coat makers, trouser makers and vest makers.
APPEAL TO ARBITRATION BOARD
In case either party should desire to appeal from any decision of the
Trade Board, or from any change of these rules by the Trade Board,
to the Board of Arbitration, they shall have the right to do so upon
filing a notice in writing with the Trade Board of such intention
within thirty days from the date of the decision, and the said Trade
Board shall then certify said matter to the Board of Arbitration,
where the same shall be given an early hearing by a full Board of
three members.
The Trade Board was accordingly organized, with Mr. James Mullenbach,
Acting Superintendent of the United Charities of Chicago, as chairman.
When the time approached for the renewal of the agreement, the closed
or open shop was the point around which all discussions turned.
Eventually, neither was established, but instead the system of
preference to unionists was adopted. It was thus expressed:
1. That the firm agrees to this principle of preference, namely,
that they will agree to prefer union men in the hiring of new
employés, subject to reasonable restrictions, and also to prefer
union men in dismissal on account of slack work, subject to a
reasonable preference to older employés, to be arranged by the
Board of Arbitration, it being understood that all who have worked
for the firm six months shall be considered old employés.
2. All other matters shall be deliberated on and discussed by the
parties in interest, and if they are unable to reach an agreement,
the matter in dispute shall be submitted to the Arbitration Board
for its final decision.
Until an agreement can be reached by negotiation by the parties in
interest, or in case of their failure to agree, and a decision is
announced by the Arbitration Board, the old agreement shall be
considered as being in full force and effect.
This came in force May 1, 1913.
The chairman of the Arbitration Board, making a statement, three
months later, in August, 1913, after defining the principle to be
"such preference as will make an efficient organization for the
workers, also an efficient, productive administration for the
company," went on:
In handing down the foregoing decisions relating to preference
which grew out of a three months' consideration of the subject,
and after hearing it discussed at great length and from every
angle, the Board is acutely conscious that it is still largely
an experiment, and that the test of actual practice may reveal
imperfections, foreseen and unforeseen, which cannot be otherwise
demonstrated than by test.
It therefore regards them as tentative and subject to revision
whenever the test of experiment shall make it seem advisable.
The Board also feels that unless both parties coöperate in good
faith and in the right spirit to make the experiment a success,
no mechanism of preferential organization, however cunningly
contrived, will survive the jar and clash of hostile feeling or
warring interests. It hands down and publishes these decisions
therefore in the hope that with the needed coöperation they
may help to give the workers a strong, loyal, constructive
organization, and the Company a period of peaceful, harmonious and
efficient administration and production which will compensate for
any disadvantage which the preferential experiment may impose.
The published pamphlet, under date January 28, 1914, concludes:
There have been no cases appealed from the Trade Board to the
Board of Arbitration since January, 1913. During the last six
months of 1913 there were not more than a dozen Trade Board Cases.
So many principles have been laid down, and precedents established
by both of these bodies, that the chief deputies are in all cases
able to reach an agreement without appeal to a higher authority.
A gradual change has taken place in the method of dealing with
questions which present new principles, or which represent
questions never before decided. The Board of Arbitration has
appointed Mr. Williams as a committee to investigate and report,
with the understanding that if an agreement can be reached by both
parties without arbitrators, or, if the parties are willing to
accept the decision of the Chairman, then no further meeting of
the Board of Arbitration will be required. This method has proved
to be exceedingly satisfactory to both sides and has resulted in a
form of government which has gradually taken the place of formal
arbitration. In most cases, the Chairman is able by thorough
sifting of the evidence on each side, to suggest a method of
conciliation which is acceptable to both parties.
A further experience of the System up till July, 1915, only confirms
the above statement.
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