A final meeting of the Conference Committee of the Building Trades was
held June 1st. Reports were made showing that every organization
represented had unqualifiedly endorsed the platform of principles which
had been enunciated.
The cut-stone contractors, through Mr. T. C. Diener, made the following
report, premising it by saying that the members of the association were
in accord with the principles which had been enunciated by the
conference committee:
TO THE CONFERENCE OF THE BUILDING TRADES: The Cut-Stone
Contractors' association has carefully considered the code of
principles adopted by your committee, and, although approving of
the principles laid down, we could not adopt them as a whole, and
therefore deem it not advisable to ask the assent of our employes
as a condition of further employment after June 1st for the reasons
hereafter mentioned:
Fully endorsing the right of an employe to work for whom he
chooses, we do not concede that individually he can regulate the
number of hours he desires to work, but in that respect must comply
with the established rule of number of hours per day.
In our trade eight hours per day for stone-cutters has been the
system for the last twenty years. It has been a success in every
respect, for to-day, with improved machinery, cut-stone is fully 50
to 100 per cent cheaper than during the ten hour time.
Conceding the right to each man for what wages he will work--we
maintain that it is to the interest of the building trade generally
that a rate of wages be adopted at the opening of the season, thus
making it a standard basis for contractors to estimate by.
In the matter of apprenticeship we also maintain that it is to the
interest of the boy and the employer of the same. For by employing
too many boys in our trade a foreman would not have the opportunity
to train the boy, and he would turn out a poor mechanic.
It is a rule and regulation similar to educational institutions. To
make these rules has been the motive which has prompted employes
and employers to organize. In the cut-stone trade we have an
association of stone-cutters and an association of cut-stone
contractors. These two bodies recognize each other, and at the
beginning of the season, as has been done heretofore for years,
they have agreed on a rate of wages, number of hours per day, and
number of apprentices to a yard (which is about one to six men),
and, therefore, we are in duty bound to abide by the same.
We have, furthermore, a written agreement between our two
organizations, of which article 1 is as follows:
"All disputes or misunderstandings of any kind that may arise shall
be submitted to committees, who shall report to their respective
associations before final action shall be taken."
And article 6 is as follows:
"These rules not to be changed or altered except by the consent of
each association, and in that case a thirty days' notice to be
given by the party desiring to terminate said agreement."
In our discussions and conclusions we have also been guided to a
certain extent by the press, to avoid, if possible, a general
lockout, and by that part of the platform of the National
Association of Builders, "that good may be derived from proper
organizations," and it is our aim that our associations shall not
only be a benefit to themselves, but to the general public.
Respectfully submitted.
T. C. DIENER, Secretary.
The conference then adjourned sine die.