organization and discipline of the movement, and to the
personal disinterestedness of the leaders. A great economy of
effort is assured by having a platform and organization
practically identical for the Federal, State and municipal
elections, and for general propaganda work, and consequently
being able to utilize the same bodies—the local political
labor leagues—and the same workers for what seems to them
social righteousness, whether in national, State, or municipal
concerns. The Labor party was born of trades-unionism, and its
whole administration has been based on trades union methods.
The political labor leagues were at first composed of
trades-unionists, and are still closely in touch with trades
unions. These are the bodies who vote for the selection of
candidates for all elections and for delegates to the annual
and triennial State and Federal conferences of the party. The
Labor party in Parliament may be the controlling force, but no
other party in Australia has to carry out the behests of its
constituents as does this.
"We now come to the pledge and the caucus. The pledge, which
was first drafted by the New South Wales Labor Conference in
1895, reads as follows: ‘I hereby pledge myself not to oppose
the candidate selected by the recognized political Labour
organisation, and, if elected, to do my utmost to carry out
the principles—embodied in the Federal Labour Platform, and on
all questions affecting the Platform to vote as a majority of
the Parliamentary Party may decide at a duly constituted
caucus meeting.’
"As the pledge binds all members to carry out the general
principles of a platform decided for him by the united labor
vote of Australia, so each man has his vote in the legislature
decided for him beforehand on all details of that policy by
the caucus vote of his party in the legislature, before or
during the course of debate. The advocates of the system say
that this is the only way in which any consistent policy can
be carried out to a successful end. Opponents assert that in
it we have the germs of machine politics, and that labor may
by and by pay dearly for its present victory. The large amount
of direct representation in Australia, and the increasing
probabilities of the initiative and referendum being more
largely used, may check this tendency."
_Alice Henry,
The Australian Labor Movement
(The Outlook, November 3, 1906)._
LABOR ORGANIZATION: A. D. 1905-1909.
Failures of the Compulsory Arbitration Law.
In this Volume, under the heading—AUSTRALIA: A. D. 1905-1906,—
an instance of failure in the operation of the compulsory
Arbitration Law to arrest a strike of coal miners in New South
Wales is recorded. The failure was repeated in the same field
in the fall of 1909, when 12,000 miners of the Newcastle and
Maitland collieries of New South Wales stopped work. "The
men," it was reported, "demand an open conference to deal with
the principal grievances, with resort, in the event of
failure, to the Federal Arbitration Court or a special
commission. The owners, on the other hand, insist on a
conference with closed doors and the settlement of undecided
questions under the State Industrial Act. They further want
work to be resumed simultaneously with the opening of the
conference. The men, however, refuse to hew coal until their
grievances have been settled, but offer to carry on during the
conference all work necessary to keep the mines in working
order."
The correspondent who reported this went on to say:
"The public seems to be without a remedy against the strikers,
since it is impossible to imprison the whole mass, and the
imprisonment of the leaders would mean a general strike. In
addition the only available labour for colliery purposes is
controlled by the trade unions."
Evidently, however, the law was vindicated in the end, since a
report from Sydney on the 29th of December, made known that 13
officials of the miners’ union had been fined £100 each, with
two months hard labor in default.
LABOR ORGANIZATION: Austria: A. D. 1902.
During a strike of about 6500 men in various employments at
Trieste, in February, 1902, there were conflicts with the
military in which about 40 were killed and wounded. The demand
was for an eight hours day, and it was conceded in the end,
after an arbitration which decided in their favor. In the
following August serious labor disturbances occurred in
Galicia, where the peasants claimed better wages, and troops
had to be sent to the region to restore order.
LABOR ORGANIZATION: Belgium: A. D. 1902.
General Strike of Workmen as Protest against
the Plural Suffrage.
See (in this Volume)
BELGIUM: A. D. 1902.
LABOR ORGANIZATION: A. D. 1903.
Compensation for Injuries to Workmen.
After months of debate an Act prescribing compensation for
accidents injurious to workmen was passed, attempts to attach
to it the principle of compulsory insurance having failed.
LABOR ORGANIZATION: Canada: A. D. 1907-1908.
The Act known as "The Industrial Disputes
Investigation Act."
Its main provisions.
Its object, not Compulsory Arbitration, but the
Compulsory Attempting of Arbitration.
General success of the Act.
Failure to prevent Canadian Pacific Railway Strike.
In the judgment of many who give thought and study to labor
questions, the most promising experiment yet made in
legislation for dealing with disputes between employers and
workmen is the Canadian Act of March, 1907, entitled "An Act
to aid in the Prevention and Settlement of Strikes and
Lockouts in Mines and Industries connected with Public
Utilities." The essence of the Act is in its 56th to 61st
sections, which read as follows:
"56.
It shall be unlawful for any employer to declare or cause a
lockout, or for any employee to go on strike, on account of
any dispute prior to or during a reference of such dispute to
a Board of Conciliation and Investigation under the provisions
of this Act, or prior to or during a reference under the
provisions concerning railway disputes in the Conciliation and
Labour Act: Provided that nothing in this Act shall prohibit
the suspension or discontinuance of any industry or of the
working of any persons therein for any cause not constituting
a lockout or strike: Provided also that, except where the
parties have entered into an agreement under section 62 of
this Act, nothing in this Act shall be held to restrain any
employer from declaring a lockout, or any employee from going
on strike in respect of any dispute which has been duly
referred to a Board and which has been dealt with under
section 24 or 25 of this Act, or in respect of any dispute
which has been the subject of a reference under the provisions
concerning railway disputes in the Conciliation and Labour
Act.
{372}
"57.
Employers and employees shall give at least thirty days’
notice of an intended change affecting conditions of
employment with respect to wages or hours; and in every case
where a dispute has been referred to a Board, until the
dispute has been finally dealt with by the Board, neither of
the parties nor the employees affected shall alter the
conditions of employment with respect to wages or hours, or on
account of the dispute do or be concerned in doing, directly
or indirectly, anything in the nature of a lockout or strike,
or a suspension or discontinuance of employment or work, but
the relationship of employer and employee shall continue
uninterrupted by the dispute, or anything arising out of the
dispute; but if, in the opinion of the Board, either party
uses this or any other provision of this Act for the purpose
of unjustly maintaining a given condition of affairs through
delay, and the Board so reports to the Minister, such party
shall be guilty of an offence, and liable to the same
penalties as are imposed for a violation of the next preceding
section.
"58.
Any employer declaring or causing a lockout contrary to the
provisions of this Act, shall be liable to a fine of not less
than one hundred dollars, nor more than one thousand dollars,
for each day or part of a day that such lockout exists.
"59.
Any employee who goes on strike contrary to the provisions of
this Act shall be liable to a fine of not less than ten
dollars, nor more than fifty dollars, for each day or part of
a day that such employee is on strike.
"60.
Any person who incites, encourages or aids in any manner any
employer to declare or continue a lockout, or any employee to
go or continue on strike contrary to the provisions of this
Act, shall be guilty of an offence and liable to a fine of not
less than fifty dollars nor more than one thousand dollars.
"61.
The procedure for enforcing penalties imposed or authorized to
be imposed by this Act shall be that prescribed by Part XV. of
the Criminal Code relating to summary convictions."
A sufficient understanding of the practical operation of the
Act may be derived from the following prescriptive sections:
"5.
Wherever any dispute exists between an employer and any of his
employees, and the parties thereto are unable to adjust it,
either of the parties to the dispute may make application to
the Minister for the appointment of a Board of Conciliation and
Investigation, to which Board the dispute maybe referred under
the provisions of this Act: Provided, however, that, in the
case of a dispute between a railway company and its employees,
such dispute may be referred, for the purpose of conciliation
and investigation, under the provisions concerning railway
disputes in the Conciliation and Labour Act.
"6.
Whenever, under this Act, an application is made in due form
for the appointment of a Board of Conciliation and
Investigation, and such application does not relate to a
dispute which is the subject of a reference under the
provisions concerning railway disputes in the Conciliation and
Labour Act, the Minister, whose decision for such purpose
shall be final, shall, within fifteen days from the date at
which the application is received, establish such Board under
his hand and seal of office, if satisfied that the provisions
of this Act apply.
"7.
Every Board shall consist of three members who shall be
appointed by the Minister. Of the three members of the Board
one shall be appointed on the recommendation of the employer
and one on the recommendation of the employees (the parties to
the dispute), and the third on the recommendation of the
members so chosen."
"11.
No person shall act as a member of the Board who has any
direct pecuniary interest in the issue of a dispute referred
to such Board."
"23.
In every case where a dispute is duly referred to a Board it
shall be the duty of the Board to endeavour to bring about a
settlement of the dispute, and to this end the Board shall, in
such manner as it thinks fit, expeditiously and carefully
inquire into the dispute and all matters affecting the merits
thereof and the right settlement thereof. In the course of
such inquiry the Board may make all such suggestions and do
all such things as it deems right and proper for inducing the
parties to come to a fair and amicable settlement of the
dispute, and may adjourn the proceedings for any period the
Board thinks reasonable to allow the parties to agree upon
terms of settlement.
"24.
If a settlement of the dispute is arrived at by the parties
during the course of its reference to the Board, a memorandum
of the settlement shall be drawn up by the Board and signed by
the parties, and shall, if the parties so agree, be binding as
if made a recommendation by the Board under section 62 of this
Act, and a copy thereof with a report upon the proceedings
shall be forwarded to the Minister.
"25.
If a settlement of the dispute is not arrived at during the
course of its reference to the Board, the Board shall make a
full report, thereon to the Minister, which report shall set
forth the various proceedings and steps taken by the Board for
the purpose of fully and carefully ascertaining all the facts
and circumstances, and shall also set forth such facts and
circumstances, and its findings therefrom, including the cause
of the dispute and the Board’s recommendation for the
settlement of the dispute according to the merits and
substantial justice of the case.
"26.
The Board’s recommendation shall deal with each item of the
dispute and shall state in plain terms, and avoiding as far as
possible all technicalities, what in the Board’s opinion ought
or ought not to be done by the respective parties concerned.
Wherever it appears to the Board expedient so to do, its
recommendation shall also state the period during which the
proposed settlement should continue in force, and the date
from which it should commence."
"28.
Upon receipt of the Board’s report the Minister shall
forthwith cause the report to be filed in the office of the
Registrar and a copy thereof to be sent free of charge to the
parties to the dispute and to the representative of any
newspaper published in Canada who applies therefor, and the
Minister may distribute copies of the report, and of any
minority report, in such manner as to him seems most desirable
as a means of securing compliance with the Board’s
recommendation."
{373}
The fundamental object of the law, as will be seen, is not to
compel arbitration, but to compel an attempt at arbitration,
before any strike or lockout is permitted, and to give
authentic and full publicity to all the circumstances which
can justify or condemn a strike or lockout, if one occurs. So
far in the experience of Canada with this wise enactment it
has generally been successful in bringing about a peaceful
settlement of labor disputes. It failed in the case of a
disagreement between the Canadian Pacific Railway Company and
its mechanical employés, which arose in April, 1908, when the
Company served notice of a reduction of wages to one class of
boiler-makers, and of an increase in the proportion of
apprentices to be employed in its shops, together with some
changes of rules concerning machine tools, etc. The men
applied for the appointment of a Conciliation Board, in
accordance with the law, but were not satisfied with the
conclusions reported by a majority of the Board, and struck,
as the law then permitted them to do. The strike was weakened
by the unfavorable public opinion which the investigation
produced.
LABOR ORGANIZATION: England: A. D. 1892-1901.
A Statistical Study of Ten Years of Trade Disputes.
The following is the concluding summary of an elaborate
statistical study of Strikes and Lockouts in England during
the ten years from 1892 to 1901, made by an eminent
statistician, Mr. J. H. Schooling:
"To sum up the chief practical points that seem to have come
out of this examination of trade disputes during 1892-1901,
these are:
"(_a_)
An improvement during 1897-1901 as compared with 1892-1896.
"(_b_)
An altogether undue predominance of the Mining and Quarrying
Trades in trade disputes, not only actually, but also
relatively to the industrial population of each group of
trades compared. This is a most unsatisfactory feature, for
the reason that so many other trades depend upon
non-interruption of coal mining for their successful working.
Therefore, efforts to prevent disputes should be specially
directed to the Mining and Quarrying Trades.
"(_c_)
Nearly two-thirds of all trade disputes are caused by disputes
about wages, and nearly one-half of all trade disputes are
caused by a demand by workpeople for ‘an increase of wages.’
Only 6 per cent. of all disputes are caused by resistance
‘against decrease of wages.’ …
"(_d_)
Trade Unionism is not so productive of strikes as it is
commonly supposed to be.
"(_e_)
Conciliation Boards, etc., do not cause the settlement of many
disputes after the dispute has commenced. Their work is in the
direction of preventing strikes and lock-outs. That this work
is effective and that it should be zealously promoted is
evidenced by the fact that in 1901, 75 per cent. of all
changes in wages and in hours of labour were arranged by
sliding scales, wages boards, or by other peaceful methods,
while only 2 per cent. of these changes followed upon strikes
or lock-outs.
"(_f_)
The respective chances of success by workpeople or by
employers when a trade dispute is entered upon are, in round
numbers:
150 chances for the employers; and
100 chances for the workpeople.
"In addition to this relatively small chance of success by
workpeople when they strike, the cost to them and to their
trade organisations is relatively greater than the cost to
employers."
_J. H. Schooling,
Strikes and Lock-outs, 1892-1901
(Fortnightly Review, May, 1904)._
LABOR ORGANIZATION: A. D. 1900-1906.
The Taff Vale Decision.
Trades Unions made liable for Damages.
Resulting amendment of the English Law.
In the summer of 1900 a strike of employés of the Taff Vale
Railway Company occurred, which lasted only a fortnight or
thereabouts, but had large and important consequences. During
the strike the Company applied for an injunction to restrain
two officers of the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants
from interfering as such with the affairs of the road. The
Society opposed the application, on the ground that it was not
a corporation or an individual and could not be sued. Justice
Farwell, before whom the case came, held that a trade union
was a corporate body, responsible for illegal acts committed
by its officers. This decision was a serious menace to the
unions generally, and they cooperated extensively with the
Amalgamated Society in carrying an appeal to the higher
courts. The case was argued in the Court of Appeals in
November, 1900, and the justices of that court reversed the
decision of Justice Farwell. The plaintiff in the suit, the
Railway Company, then carried it to the tribunal of last
resort, the House of Lords, and there, in July, 1902, the
judgment of the Court of Appeals was set aside and that of
Justice Farwell was sustained, making it the law of Great
Britain, that a trade union is a legal entity, capable of
suing and being sued. On this decision the Taff Vale Railway
Company brought suit against the Amalgamated Society for
damages, and obtained a verdict on the 20th of December which
awarded the Company £28,000.
A strenuous endeavor to overcome the effect of the decision
rendered by the House of Lords, through amendatory
legislation, was begun by the Labor Party, with strong
sympathy among the Liberals, and it had success. An Act (which
became law on the 21st of December, 1906) "to provide for the
regulation of Trades Unions and Trade Disputes," added the
following "as a new paragraph after the first paragraph of
section three of the Conspiracy and Protection of Property
Act, 1875":
"An act done in pursuance of an agreement or combination by
two or more persons shall, if done in contemplation or
furtherance of a trade dispute, not be actionable unless the
act, if done without any such agreement or combination, would
be actionable."
Further provisions of the new Act were as follows:
"2.
It shall be lawful for one or more persons, acting on their
own behalf or on behalf of a trade union or of an individual
employer or firm in contemplation or furtherance of a trade
dispute, to attend at or near a house or place where a person
resides or works or carries on business or happens to be, if
they so attend merely for the purpose of peacefully obtaining
or communicating information, or of peacefully persuading any
person to work or abstain from working. …
{374}
"3.
An act done by a person in contemplation or furtherance of a
trade dispute shall not be actionable on the ground only that
it induces some other person to break a contract of employment
or that it is an interference with the trade, business, or
employment of some other person, or with the right of some
other person to dispose of his capital or his labour as he
wills.
"4.
(1) An action against a trade union, whether of workmen or
masters, or against any members or officials thereof on behalf
of themselves and all other members of the trade union in
respect of any tortious act alleged to have been committed by
or on behalf of the trade union, shall not be entertained by
any court.
(2) Nothing in this section shall affect the liability of the
trustees of a trade union to be sued in the events provided
for by the Trades Union Act, 1871, section nine, except in
respect of any tortious act committed by or on behalf of the
union in contemplation or in furtherance of a trade dispute.
LABOR ORGANIZATION: A. D. 1903.
Political effect of the Taff Vale Decision of the
House of Lords, stimulating the growth of the Labor Party.
The Taff Vale Decision rendered by the House of Lords gave an
immediate great impetus to the growth and the independence of
the Labor Party, pledged by a resolution adopted at a "Labor
Representation Conference" held in February, 1903, to insist
that Labor candidates and Labor Members of Parliament when
elected should "strictly abstain from identifying themselves
with the interests of any section of the Liberal or
Conservative parties," holding themselves free to act solely
for the purpose of "securing the social and economic
requirements of the industrial classes." The same conference
took action for the creation of a fund for the payment of
Labor Members of Parliament and for assisting in the payment
of election expenses. The effects of the movement were soon
felt in Parliamentary elections.
See (in this Volume),
SOCIALISM: ENGLAND.
LABOR ORGANIZATION: A. D. 1906 (March).
Report of Royal Commission on Labor Disputes.
A Royal Commission on Labor Disputes, appointed in England in
1903, submitted its report in March, 1906. The trades unions
had declined to take part in its investigations, though their
interests were represented on the Commission by one of the
ablest and staunchest champions of the rights of labor, Sidney
Webb. Coal mine owners were represented by one member; the
remaining three members were Lord Dunedin, President of the
Court of Session, Sir Godfrey Lushington, formerly of the Home
Office, and an eminent lawyer of Liberal politics, Arthur
Cohen. The most important recommendation of the Commission was
that "an agreement or combination by two or more persons to do
or procure to be done any act in contemplation or furtherance
of a trade dispute shall not be the ground of a civil action,
unless the agreement or combination is indictable as a
conspiracy, notwithstanding the terms of the ‘Conspiracy and
Protection of Property Act of 1875.’" The Act of 1875 had so
modified the old conspiracy law that no combination to do what
would not be punishable by imprisonment if done by a single
person could be made the subject of a criminal proceeding. The
Commission now advised an extension of the same rule to civil
actions. But, by unanimous agreement the Commission approved
the decision rendered by the House of Lords in the Taff Vale
case (see above), which took away from trades unions in Great
Britain the immunity from being sued which they had formerly
enjoyed. As to the right of "picketing," in the prosecution of
a labor strike, the Commission would have it limited only to
prevent coercion by menace or intimidation in the performance.
It recommended punishment for a workman who "acts in such a
manner as to cause a reasonable apprehension in the mind of
any person that violence will be used to him or to his wife or
family, or damage be done to his property."
In the judgment of the Commission the incorporation of trades
unions is much to be desired. These are the main conclusions
to which it was led by its long study of the subject of
industrial disputes.
LABOR ORGANIZATION: A. D. 1907-1909.
Excellent Settlement of a threatened Railway Strike.
Adopted System of Conciliation and Arbitration Boards.
A general railway strike in Great Britain was threatened very
seriously in the autumn of 1907, when the Amalgamated Society
of Railway Servants, ably led by its Secretary, Mr. Richard
Bell, who is a Member of Parliament, presented demands to the
companies which the latter would not yield to. Mr. David
Lloyd-George, the then President of the Board of Trade—which
is a department of the National Government—undertook to
negotiate a peaceable settlement of the dispute, and
accomplished it with remarkable success. The outcome of his
skilful diplomacy was the acceptance, November 6, 1907, by
both companies and men of a comprehensive scheme for
conciliation and arbitration, which provided for the formation
of boards for each railway, consisting of representatives of
the company and of the men, to consider thereafter any
question relating to rates of wages and hours of duty. The
scheme further provided that questions which these boards were
unable to settle were to be referred to a single arbitrator.
The London and North-Western was the first railway company to
complete its arrangements in connection with the scheme, and
demands from most of the grades concerned in the working of
traffic, numbering about 39,000 men, were considered by the
newly-formed conciliation boards. The principal grades
concerned were: Engine drivers, firemen and cleaners;
signalmen; brakesmen and shunters; passenger guards and
platform porters; carriage cleaners, wagon examiners and
greasers; permanent way men; goods staff; cartage staff.
As agreement in the London and North-Western case was found
impossible, reference was made to arbitration, and Sir Edward
Fry was chosen to be arbitrator. He gave hearings on the
questions in controversy in December, 1908, and his award was
announced in the February following. He decided that the
railway company had made good its contention that it could not
pay an "all round advance" in wages of two shillings per week,
which had been the demand for all grades in the service.
{375}
He allowed, in fact, few increases in wages; but awarded, on
the contrary, some reductions in wage which the company
claimed. On other points, concerning the pay for overtime,
etc., his award was to the satisfaction of the railway
employés. On the whole, it seems to have ended the dispute
with considerable satisfaction all round. On this first
decision under the new arrangement for settling disputes, Mr.
Bell expressed himself as "very pleased to find that a great
many of the concessions asked for have been embodied by the
arbitrator in his award. We have got," said he, "rate and a
quarter for overtime for all classes uniformly. We have got
rate and a quarter for Sunday duty for signal men, as well as
other grades who have hitherto not been paid extra rates. We
have got payment for Sunday labour for the passenger staff
—men who were formerly not paid for Sunday duty; we have
established the principle that men doing the work of a higher
grade for more than one day shall be paid at the rate of the
higher grade. That is the principle we have been fighting for
for several years, and it will mean many shillings per week to
thousands of men. A very important item of the award is the
decision that no alteration shall be made in the shape of
increased hours or reduced wages in regard to men whose claims
were submitted to the arbitrator, but whose conditions have
not been altered by the award. We have always, hitherto, had
to complain about companies ‘cutting,’ but the London and
North-Western cannot do it here."
Mr. Bell mentioned that several other similar claims against
other companies were going to arbitration, but while he
thought that Sir Edward Fry’s decisions might have some
influence upon future conferences, he pointed out that other
arbitrators will possibly refuse to accept any lead, but
decide matters entirely upon their own views after dealing
with the particular cases.
A general report to the Board of Trade, on the working of the
Railway Conciliation Boards, under the agreement of November
6, 1907, was published in March, 1909, as a Blue Book, from
which the following is taken:
"The agreement was signed initially on behalf of 11 of the
principal railway companies, but adhesion to its terms was
afterwards signified, subject in the case of the Scottish
companies to modifications of certain clauses upon matters of
detail, by 35 other companies, making a total of 46 railway
companies that have adopted the arrangements proposed by the
Department for avoiding the serious results that would attend
a cessation of labour on railways. The assenting companies
include nearly all those having as many as 200 _employés_
in their service, and in fact the only companies that have not
adopted the scheme are small companies for which the formation
of conciliation boards was not thought to be required, and a
few of the larger companies to whose lines the provisions of
the agreement were for special reasons unsuitable. …
"For the 46 railways dealt with under the scheme, the number
of boards to be formed, apart from the central conciliation
boards, was 169, and the total number of representatives to be
elected on such boards was 877. On 44 of the railways there
was provision for a central board in addition to the sectional
boards, thus making a total of 213 conciliation boards to be
formed altogether under the scheme. … Eight hundred and fifty
representatives of _employés_ were to be elected in these
416 elections, and for these places the total number of
candidates nominated was 1,608.
"The total number of _employés_ eligible to vote upon the
various railways coming within the scheme is estimated at a
little over 270,000. After allowing for cases where the
representatives were returned unopposed, it is found that
where voting papers have actually been issued, over 77 per
cent. of the _employés_ eligible have availed themselves
of the franchise."
LABOR ORGANIZATION: A. D. 1908.
"A Notable Labor Treaty."
The Shipbuilding Agreement between Employers and
Trade Unions to avert Strikes and Lockouts.
In the early part of 1908 the woodworkers in the shipbuilding
yards of the north of England went on strike against a
reduction in wages, which was equivalent to one that the
ironworkers in all the British shipyards and the woodworkers
in the Scotch yards had accepted. The Federation of
Shipbuilding Employers then notified a national lockout unless
the strikers resumed work pending the adjustment of the
dispute by conference. For some time past there had been
negotiations on foot between the federated employers and
certain of the other shipbuilding labor unions, aiming at the
conclusion of a permanent working agreement for the prevention
of strikes. The woodworkers were now brought into this
negotiation, and after a long threshing out of disputes, in a
joint committee of representatives from twenty-six trade
unions and from the employers’ federation a "Memorandum of
Agreement" was produced which all signed on the 16th of
December, 1908, and which the London _Times_, making it
public on the 11th of January, characterised rightly as "A
Notable Labor Treaty." The provisions of this industrial
agreement seem to be of so much historical importance that we
give the important sections entire:
"I.—GENERAL FLUCTUATIONS IN WAGES.
"(1) Changes in wages due to the general conditions of the
shipbuilding industry shall be termed general fluctuations.
Such general fluctuations in wages shall apply to all the
trades comprised in this agreement and in every federated firm
at the same time and to the same extent. Differences in rates
of wages in any trade in different districts can be dealt with
as heretofore under clause II., section 3.
"(2) In the case of all such general fluctuations the
following provisions and procedure shall apply, viz.:
(_a_) No step toward an alteration in wages can be
taken until after the lapse of six calendar months from the
date of the previous general fluctuation.
(_b_) Before an application for an alteration can be
made, there shall be a preliminary conference between the
federation and the unions, in order to discuss the position
generally. Such conference shall be held within 14 days of
the request for the same,
(_c_) No application for an alteration shall be
competent until the foregoing preliminary conference has
been held, and no alteration shall take effect within six
weeks of the date of the applications.
(_d_) The application fora proposed alteration shall
be made as follows: The federation to the unions parties to
this agreement; or the said unions to the federations,
(_e_) Within 14 days after the receipt of an
application the parties shall meet in conference.
(_f_) The conference may be adjourned by mutual
agreement, such adjourned conference to be held within 14
days thereafter.
(_g_) Any general fluctuation in trademen’s rates
shall be of the following fixed amount, viz.:—Piecework
rates, 5%; and Time rates 1 /- per week [sic], or ¼d. per
hour where payment is made by the hour.
{376}
"II.
QUESTIONS OTHER THAN GENERAL FLUCTUATIONS IN WAGES.
"(1) When any question is raised by or on behalf of either an
employer or employers, or of a workman or workmen, the
following procedure shall be observed, viz.:—
(_a_) A workman or deputation of workmen shall be
received by their employers in the yard or at the place
where a question has arisen, by appointment, for the mutual
discussion of any question in the settlement of which both
parties are directly concerned; and failing arrangement, a
further endeavour may, if desired, be then made to
negotiate a settlement by a meeting between the employer,
with or without an official of the local association, on
the one hand, and the official delegate, or other official
of the workmen concerned, with or without the workman or
workmen directly concerned, as deemed necessary.
(_ b _) Failing settlement the question shall be
referred to a joint committee consisting of three employers
and three representatives of the union or of each of the
unions directly concerned, none of whom shall be connected
with the yard or dock where the dispute has arisen,
(_c_) Failing settlement under subsection (_b_),
the question shall be brought before the employers’ local
association and the responsible local representatives of
the union or unions directly concerned in local conference.
(_d_) Failing settlement at local conference, it shall
be competent for either party to refer the question to a
central conference to be held between the executive board
of the federation and representatives of the union or
unions directly concerned, such representatives to have
executive power.
"(2) If the question is in its nature a general one affecting
more than yard or dock, it shall be competent to raise it
direct in local conference, or if it is general and affecting
the federated firms or workmen in more than one district, it
shall be competent to raise it direct in central conference
without in either case going through the prior procedure above
provided for.
"(3) The questions hereby covered shall extend to all
questions relating to wages, including district alterations in
wages and other matters in the shipbuilding and ship repairing
trade, which may give rise to disputes.
"III.—GRAND CONFERENCE.
"In the event of failure to settle any question in central
conference under clause II., section 1, subsection (_d_),
either party desirous to have such question further considered
shall prior to any stoppage of work refer same for final
settlement to a grand conference to be held between the
federation and all the unions parties to this agreement. A
conference may by mutual agreement be adjourned. On any
occasion when a settlement has not been reached, the
conference must be adjourned to a date not earlier than 14
days nor later than one month from the date of such
conference. …
"VI.—GENERAL PROVISIONS.
"At all meetings and conferences the representatives of both
sides shall have full powers to settle, but it shall be in
their discretion whether or not they conclude a settlement.
"In the event of any stoppage of work occurring in any
federated yard or federated district either in contravention
of the foregoing or after the procedure laid down has been
exhausted, entire freedom of action is hereby reserved to the
federation, and any federated association, and to the unions
concerned, notwithstanding the provisions of this agreement.
The suspension of the agreement shall be limited to such
particular stoppage, and the agreement in all other respects
shall continue in force.
"Pending settlement of any question other than questions of
wages, hours, and piece prices (the last-named of which is
provided for above), two or three employers not connected with
the yard where the question has arisen shall give a temporary
decision, but such decision shall be without prejudice to
either party, and shall not be adduced in evidence in the
ultimate settlement of the question.
"The expression ‘employer’ throughout this agreement shall
include an employer’s accredited representative.
"Until the whole procedure of this agreement applying to the
question at issue has been carried through there shall be no
stoppage or interruption of work either of a partial or of a
general character.
"VII.—DURATION OF AGREEMENT.
"This agreement shall continue in force for three years, and
shall thereafter be subject to six months’ notice in writing
on either side, said notice not to be competent until the
three years have elapsed."
Signed by the President of the Shipbuilding Employers
Federation and by seven representatives of the Trades Unions.
LABOR ORGANIZATION: A. D. 1909.
Educational Demands of the Trade Unions.
See (in this Volume)
EDUCATION: ENGLAND.
LABOR ORGANIZATION: A. D. 1909.
Trade Unions forbidden to pay Members of Parliament.
See (in this Volume)
ENGLAND: A. D. 1909 (JULY-DECEMBER).
LABOR ORGANIZATION: France: A. D. 1884-1909.
Organized Labor in the French Republic.
The Syndicats and Syndicalism.
A Trade Union version of Socialism.
The Confédération Générale du Travail,
and the idea of a general strike.
Its revolutionary implication.
The strike of government employés in the French telegraph and
postal service, begun in March, 1909, and which was recognized
instantly as a most alarmingly revolutionary movement, roused
inquiry everywhere concerning the form and character that
labor organization in France has taken on. The London
_Times_ gave elaborate satisfaction to this inquiry by a
series of five articles, published in April, by a writer whose
evident knowledge of the subject was complete. The statements
here following are condensed from that source:
{377}
The organization of labor in France differs in important
respects from that in Great Britain and the United States.
"The French term for trade unions is syndicats, or, more
correctly, _syndicats professionnels_; but the two terms
are not equivalent or synonymous. For, whereas the word 'trade
union’ is applied only to combinations of persons employed,
the syndicats include also combinations of employers and of
both together." The employers’ associations are called
_syndicats patronaux_. "A trade union is a combination of
persons engaged in the same trade without any reference to
locality; they may be and generally are widely distributed in
many places; the bond is the trade, not the locality; hence
the use of the singular number. There is another kind of
combination formed by several trades in the same locality and
called a trades council; the bond is the locality, not the
trade. Both forms of organization exist in France; the trade
union is called _syndicat ouvrier_, and the trades
council _bourse du travail_. … Both play a part in the
movement, and, though in the aggregate they are composed of
the same individuals, their policy and interests are not
always or necessarily identical. Both are further combined
into federations.
"The effective development of trade unionism in France only
dates from 1884, when the law authorizing the formation of
_syndicats professionels_ was passed." Unions had existed
before, but under difficulties, without sanction of law. "The
peculiarity of the struggle for the right of combination in
France was that the necessity remained under numerous changes
and diverse forms of government … and that the democratic
State was not less but rather more oppressive than the others.
… It was the National Assembly, travailing with the
Revolution, which, in the sacred name of liberty and the
rights of man, forbade the citizens to form trade
organizations by the law of 1791; and for nearly 100 years
this ban remained through all the subsequent changes,
sometimes fortified, sometimes relaxed, but never removed."
The law of 1791 was relaxed under Napoleon III., but the
severity of it was renewed by the Government of the Third
Republic, down to 1884. In that year, according to official
returns, there existed but 68 regularly constituted unions in
France. By 1890 the number had increased to 1006, with a
membership of 139,692. In 1908 the reported number of unions
was 5524, and their membership 957,102. "The aggregate is as
yet comparatively small, and, numerically, trade unionism is
still relatively weak in France; but the example of Germany
shows how rapidly this movement may increase in strength.
According to the occupational census of 1901 the number of
persons in France who might be enrolled in trade unions was
approximately 9,000,000; and the numbers would not be
substantially higher now, so that the official returns show
roughly about 10 per cent. organized. … With regard to
organization by industries the largest number of trade
unionists belonged in 1907 to the following groups:
Transport, 260,869;
metal industries, 103,835;
textiles, 78,854;
building trades, 66,678;
miners, 64,194;
agriculture and forestry, 51,407;
food and drink, 48,353.
But trade union strength depends, for economic purposes, more
upon the proportion of workers organized in a given trade than
upon the actual number. From this point of view the strongest
groups are, with the percentage of workers organized, as
follows:
Miners, 35 per cent;
chemical industries, 31.2;
transport, 23.4;
paper and printing, 20.9;
leather, 20.0;
metal workers, 18.7.
These figures have an important bearing on the situation,
because of the division, which will be discussed in a
subsequent article, of the unions into revolutionary and
moderate groups. As for geographical distribution, Paris is
the great centre, and the north of France is much stronger
than the south."
"The term _bourse du travail_ means literally 'labour
exchange,' and that was the original function of these
organizations; it still is one of them, but is overshadowed by
the all-devouring political aims which in France seem to seize
hold of all things, one after another, and swallow them up.
The _bourses_ were started in 1886, two years after trade
unionism received its charter. … But instead of being used for
their original purpose, strictly as labour exchanges, they
soon became a form of labour organization corresponding as
nearly as possible to our trade councils, though supported by
municipal or departmental subventions. … According to M.
Mermeix, to whose brilliant work on ‘Le Syndicalisme contre le
Socialisme’ I am indebted for much information, the syndicats
were promptly seized upon by the Guesdist or Social Democratic
party as soon as they began to develop freely after 1884, and
the other Socialist bodies, who were then in violent
antagonism, responded by cultivating the _bourses du
travail_. The inevitable result was a strong political turn
given to both sets of organizations; but it was not the turn
intended by the Socialists. For presently the _syndicats_
and the _bourses_, which really represent ‘Labour’ turned
against the politicians called Socialists, who do not
represent ‘Labour,’ and made common cause against them."
"The most obvious feature of the movement in recent years has
been a great increase of industrial restlessness. We need not
put it all down to the trade unions, but they have had a good
deal to do with it, and have undoubtedly been devoting their
energies in an increasing measure to strikes." This "began in
1899 and has continued, with fluctuations, ever since. It
reached its high-water mark in 1906, and then somewhat
subsided, but recent events show that the same spirit is still
active. And besides increasing in number, extent, and
duration, the strikes have frequently been marked by acts of
violence and attended in several cases by loss of life. All
this, in spite of a system of conciliation and arbitration and
strong organization on the part of employers. What is the
cause? There has been nothing in the economic situation to
account for industrial disorder continued over a series of
years. …
"_Syndicalisme_ is the distinctive mark of the present
labour movement in France. … Perhaps the essential character
of _Syndicalisme_ is best expressed by saying that it is
a purely trade union version of Socialism, definitely and even
violently opposed to Collectivism and more nearly allied to
anarchism, yet distinct from it. … The object of Syndicalisme
is revolution, sudden and complete, in which the State, with
all the apparatus of government, is to disappear, and the
possession and control of material means—which alone count—is
to pass from the hands of its present owners, whether private
or public, into those of organized labour. This original idea
is Socialistic or Collectivist in so far as it is directed
against capitalism; it is anarchistic in so far as it
contemplates the disappearance of the State; but, above all,
it is trade unionist, for the _syndicat_ is posited as
the unit or cell of the future social organism. …
{378}
To complete this brief outline of the idea of
_Syndicalisme_ it is only necessary to add that the means
whereby the revolution is to be accomplished is the general
strike, and that, pending that consummation, ordinary strikes
are systematically encouraged as good practice, in which, as
by skirmishes or manoeuvres, the labour forces are trained and
prepared for the great encounter."
The idea of a general strike was put forward in 1888 by an
anarchist Parisian carpenter named Tortelier, and the militant
forces of organized labor rallied to it. It brought together
the two sets into which labor organization had split—the
Guesdist party, controlling the _Syndicats_, and their
opponents in possession of the _bourses du travail_. It
"caused the rout and withdrawal of the Social Democrats, and
so led to the birth of _Syndicalisme_. The turning point
was reached in 1894 at a joint congress held at Nantes, when
after a set debate the general strike was adopted by 65 votes
against 37, with nine abstinents. In the following year the
Confédération Genérale du Travail was formed as a new and
united federation of trade unions, purged of politics, or, at
least, of Parliamentary politics; and thenceforward the two
sets of organizations—trade unions and trades councils—drew
the labour car together; but at first and for some years they
by no means pulled together." In 1902 they were harmonized,
"mainly by the efforts of M. Niel," who has been called the
real creator of the _Confédération Générale_, to the head
of which, as general secretary, "which means president," he
was elected in February, 1909. "The word ‘president’ is
eschewed, as savoring of the _bourgeois_ state." M. Niel
is a compositor. "He is of the best type of trade unionist; a
calm, capable, level-headed man, devoted to trade unionism,
but no crazy theorist or violent fanatic."
"The numerical strength of the Confederation or its want of
strength is a point on which its enemies are never tired of
insisting. In October last the official figures presented to
the congress at Marseilles were: First section, 2,586
_syndicats_, with an aggregate membership of 294,398;
second section, 154 _bourses du travail_, representing
2,014 _syndicats_. The figures must not be added
together, because the two sections represent the same or
almost the same forces, differently organized. The returns of
the first section show the effective membership, and we may
call it 300,000. Now the official statistics of the
_Ministère du Travail_ give the total membership of
_syndicate ouvriers_ at the beginning of 1908 as 957,102.
The Confederation, therefore, embraces less than one-third of
the organized labour in France. But that calculation is open
to some criticisms; the Government returns are said to be too
high, those of the Confederation too low. There is probably
some truth in both statements."
LABOR ORGANIZATION: A. D. 1902.
Extensive Strike of Coal Miners.
Strikes at Marseilles.
On the 8th of October, 1902, the National Committee of French
Miners, meeting at Paris, voted to declare a general strike,
and issued a manifesto to their comrades in Europe, America,
and Australia, appealing for aid and stating their cause, in
these words; "We are pushed to the last extremity in fighting
to obtain a slight improvement in our miserable condition—more
equitable remuneration, with the regulation of our work for
the present, and legislation sheltering us against the strict
needs of old age. We are sure you understand your duty. We
leave to you the initiative in such measures as are most
convenient to you in aiding us in this struggle." The strike
had actually begun in part before this order was given and it
was estimated that some 42,000 men had left work in the
northern coal fields. The whole number of French miners was
calculated by the _Temps_ to be 162,000 men, of whom,
however, only 60,000 belonged to the federation. The mine
owners refused to discuss the matter, declaring that the
strike began before any warning had been given them and
without any sufficient motives, and also that the chief points
in dispute were already before parliamentary committees.
Troops were sent to the mining districts, and some conflicts
occurred. The Government attempted arbitration, and late in
October an agreement was reached which brought the strike to
an end.
At the same time troublesome strikes of dock-laborers,
stokers, and sailors were going on at Marseilles, for some
weeks.
LABOR ORGANIZATION: A. D. 1906.
Serious Strikes and Labor Disturbances.
See (in this Volume)
FRANCE: A. D. 1906.
LABOR ORGANIZATION: A. D. 1909 (March-May).
Serious Strike of Government Employés in the Telegraph
and Postal Service.
Overcome by the firmness of the Government.
Disciplinary proceedings.
Court decision against Trade Unions among
Employés of the State.
The organizations involved in the strike of government
employés in the telegraph and postal service of France, which
began on the 13th of March, 1909, are outside of the Labor
_Syndicats_ embraced in the _Confédération Genérale du
Travail_ described above; but in part they have been
brought into close connection with that combination and have
striven for identification with it. As explained by the Paris
correspondent of the London _Times_, "the associations of
French Civil servants include two quite separate groups—one
in favour of Parliamentary action, the other sympathizing with
the General Confederation of Labour and desiring to be allowed
to combine freely and, when it suits them, to strike. The
former group is represented by a Comité d’Études so-called,
and includes a large number of primary school teachers and
_Lycée_ professors, the association of the Law Courts
clerks, sub-_employés_ at the Post Office,
_employés_ of the Roads and Inland Communications
Department of the Ministry of Public Works, and so forth.
These various associations, forming the first group, are
convinced that their lot can be quite adequately improved if
Parliament will only vote a satisfactory Bill on the
_status_ of functionaries. The second group has no
confidence whatever in such a measure. It does not count on
Parliament for a panacea. Under the title of ‘Central
Committee for the defence of the syndical rights of
wage-earners of the State, the departments, and the communes,’
it has always worked in unison with the revolutionary unions
of the General Confederation of Labour, and it was this group
which wrote two years ago to M. Clemenceau an open letter
stating their demands, among which the most important of all
was the right to strike.
{379}
In consequence of that manifestation, which was regarded as
illegal, a certain number of functionaries were dismissed,
notably, as readers of _The Times_ will recall, a school
teacher by the name of Nègre, an official of the Ministry of
the Interior, M. Janvion, a postman named Simonnet, and an
electrician, M. Pataud."
These dismissed officials, M. Pataud especially, were the
leaders of the strike that was undertaken on the 13th of
March, when twelve hundred men employed in the central offices
of the Paris Telegraph Department stopped work at about 2
o’clock in the afternoon, "in order to express ‘sympathy’ with
three hundred men of the postal service who had invaded the
offices on the 12th, and had made a demonstration against M.
Simyan, the Under-Secretary of State for Posts and
Telegraphs." "The precise grievances of the strikers," said
_The Times_, "are probably known to their superiors; but,
so far as we have seen, they have not been placed before the
outside world in any form which renders it possible even
clearly to understand them."
On the other hand, a special correspondent of the New York
_Evening Post_ wrote from Paris on the 25th of March:
"The strike of these government employees may have been a side
development of the general movement which threatens to
transform the Parliamentary French republic into a
_république syndicale_; but, in itself, it was something
far different. And, for another reason, it is a direct
object-lesson for the United States, where the trade unions
are not yet revolutionary. The entire strike has been a
spontaneous uprising of civil service in possession against
the invasion of a spoils system. The strike would not have
been possible if these civil service appointees—‘government
functionaries’—had not formed themselves into strongly
organized unions, just as private service employees have long
been doing; and in this they have been encouraged by
successive republican governments, unforeseeing perhaps such
strikes as the inevitable consequence. The spoils system in
the present case means the intervention of political influence
in civil service appointments and promotions." The strikers,
said this writer, want essentially two things, "First, that
politicians—and particularly Postmaster-General Simyan, who
was taken over from M. Combes into the present
government—should cease interfering with civil service
appointments and promotions and no longer use their power in
behalf of the favorite of some deputy with ‘influence.’"
The situation produced in Paris by the strike was thus
described by this correspondent of _The Post_: "We of
Paris were for eight days in the same condition as Frenchmen
were before Richelieu invented a State postal service for the
use of private persons. For example, my last letters were
sent—one to Havre by a special messenger who was carrying by
hand cable messages for several correspondents to be forwarded
from that port; one to London by another special messenger,
who posted it with many others in a channel boat; and a third
to Cherbourg by the kindness of the American Chamber of
Commerce of Paris, which organized a service of its own for
its members. … If there had been a sudden outbreak between
Servia and Austria last week, the French government would have
known little about it, and, in case of need, army mobilization
would have been impossible."
A system of public service in which such situations as this
are made possible could not exist long without destruction of
government and of all social order. No argument was needed to
demonstrate that it must not be paltered with; but the
Government of France was forced momentarily to yield so much
show of deference or respect to its rebellious servants, whose
demands were made with arrogance of spirit and insolence of
tone, that the arrogance and insolence appeared to have
triumphed in the encounter with national sovereignty and law.
The tenor of an interview given on the 22d by the Premier, M.
Clemenceau, and the Minister of Public Works, Posts, and
Telegraphs, M. Barthou, to a committee from the striking
employés of the State, was thus stated in a Press despatch at
the time:
"The two conditions which had been submitted to the Ministers
were, first, immunity from disciplinary penalties for all the
strikers; secondly, the resignation of M. Simyan, the
obnoxious Under-Secretary of State. The Ministers had agreed
to the first of these conditions for all strikers who should
have returned to work by Tuesday morning. The second condition
was refused by the Ministers on the ground that M. Simyan is
responsible to the Chamber of Deputies, but not to the postal
employés. M. Barthou had, however, made it plain that, in
accordance with the terms of his speech in the Chamber last
Friday, the Government contemplated appointing in place of M.
Simyan an official with the qualification of technical
knowledge. ‘When, on Friday,’ he said, ‘I discussed before the
Chamber the transformation of the Under-Secretaryship of Posts
and Telegraphs into a technical directorship, I was not
employing an empty phrase. I consider that the reform is of
practical interest and that it ought to be effected at an
early date.’ This was as near a promise to fulfil the
strikers’ demands as constitutional considerations would
permit." This brought about a return to duty of postal clerks
and operators of the telegraph and the telephone; but they
returned as victorious revolutionists, and the news from Paris
in the following weeks was filled with accounts of their
manifestations of contempt and defiance for the Government,
and the extensive insubordination among them that prevailed.
But the Government, on its side, supported strongly by a great
majority of votes in the Chamber of Deputies, and by resolute
expressions of public opinion from every part of France, was
now taking measures to prepare itself for defeating any future
attempt to paralyze the service of the posts and wires. The
engineer troops and other technical branches of the service
were warned to be ready for emergencies, carrier pigeons were
collected, and preliminary arrangements made for an elaborate
service of motor-cars. Chambers of commerce throughout the
country were called on to be prepared to coöperate with the
Government in organizing an auxiliary mail service. By such
measures it was soon rendered safe to begin applying
discipline to the insubordination that had become rife. Seven
flagrant offenders were tried by a Council of Discipline and
dismissed, on the 8th of May, and this precipitated an attempt
to renew the strike, and to make it introductory to the
long-threatened revolutionary strike of all labor in France.
{380}
A few anxious days followed, while the menace kept a serious
show, and then it vanished, like an emptied cloud. The firm
attitude of the Government and the hostility of national
opinion had daunted the revolutionary _syndicats_ which
inclined to join fortunes with the revolutionists of the
public service, and the latter were left to confront official
authority alone. Their second strike came to nothing. A
despatch from Paris on the 16th of May stated that 548 postmen
who were prominent in the rebellion of the strike had been
expelled from the service, and that others were receiving less
severe punishments from the Disciplinary Court.
Ultimately, sixteen officials of the Post Office were
prosecuted by the Government for illegally forming a trade
union. They were brought to trial in July, with the result
announced on the 29th as follows: "The 16 officials who were
prosecuted by the Government have been condemned to a purely
nominal fine of 12s. 6d., and their union has been declared to
be contrary to the law. The Court argued that in the present
state of the law there was no doubt whatever that the
Waldeck-Rousseau Bill of 1884, permitting the organization of
trade unions, solely had application to the interests of
private individuals, and that the Chamber of Deputies had not
meant to extend the provisions of that law to Civil servants.
The considerations of this important legal judgment
furthermore declare it to be utterly preposterous that State
_employés_ should arrogate to themselves the right to
strike, since they are the _employés_ of the nation, and
enjoy moreover such special privileges as servants of the
State that no comparison can be drawn between them and the
working classes, whose right to strike is not contested."
The judgment of the Paris Correctional Court, in the case of
the sixteen officials who were prosecuted for illegally
forming a trade union was followed, on the 7th of August, by a
kindred decision from the Conseil d'État, to which two
dismissed postmen had appealed. Their application to be
restored to the service was denied. The decree of the Conseil
expressly declared that a strike of civil servants is an
"illegal act," and added that a State official "has accepted
all the obligations arising from the necessities of the public
service and has renounced all privileges incompatible with the
essential continuity of the national life," that civil
servants who declare a strike place themselves collectively
outside the pale of the laws and regulations which guarantee
the exercise for them of the rights which they normally
possess as servants of the State.
Having thus vindicated its authority over the servants of the
State, the Government exercised a wise clemency at once. Two
days after the decision of the Conseil d’État, the new
Minister of Public Works authorized the publication of the
following note: "In consequence of the decision of the Conseil
d’État, M. Millerand has decided, while approving the
suspensions pronounced by their respective chiefs, that 30
officials of both sexes, five subaltern officials, and ten
Post Office workmen who have been dismissed should resume work
the day after tomorrow." Further reinstatements were announced
in the course of the following month.
LABOR ORGANIZATION: Germany: A. D. 1905.
Strikes.
Upwards of 100,000 miners in the coal fields of the Ruhr
district began a strike in January which did not end until the
middle of February, and which caused most of the iron works
and machine shops of Rhenish Prussia and Westphalia to be
closed. Low wages (of 4 marks or a little less than a dollar
per day) and inhuman and dishonest treatment were the chief
complaints in the miners. A bill to reform conditions in the
mines was passed soon afterwards. The cost of the strike to
all concerned was estimated to have been more than
$30,000,000. A very serious strike of about 40,000 men in
electrical industries occurred at Berlin in September and
October, resulting in a concession of six per cent. increase
of wages to the men. Statistics published in the next year
showed a startling increase of labor conflicts in 1904 and
1905. From 1899 to 1903 the yearly average of strikes had been
1242. In 1904 the number rose to 1870, and in 1905 to 2057.
Lockouts had averaged 42 in each of the previous five years,
but increased to 120 in 1904. Apparently the labor conditions
were no more peaceable in 1906.
LABOR ORGANIZATION: Germany: A. D. 1905-1906.
The Operation of Industrial Courts.
Desire for Voluntary Boards of Conciliation.
"In the event of actual dispute the official machinery of the
Industrial Courts is always at call, should the disputants be
willing to use it. The law requires the formation of these
Courts in all towns with over 20,000 inhabitants, but they may
be formed elsewhere at the option of the Government of the
State or on the joint requisition of a given number of
employers and workpeople, and they consist of equal numbers of
both. That the 406 Courts now in existence do not mediate
oftener would appear to be less the fault of the workpeople
than of the employers. During 1905 they acted as boards of
conciliation on 350 occasions: on 165 in response to
invitations from both sides, on 175 on the invitation of the
workpeople alone, and on ten only on the sole invitation of
the employers. Only in 128 cases was it possible to bring the
disputing parties together. …
"At the annual meeting of the German Society for Social
Reform, held in Berlin in December, 1906, resolutions were
adopted ‘affirming the meeting’s conviction that industrial
peace would best be promoted by the development of collective
arrangements between employers and work-people in the form of
(1) wages agreements,
(2) voluntary boards of conciliation and arbitration, and
(3) workmen’s committees for individual works’;
and it was urged that, ‘after the example of Great Britain,
conciliation boards suited to the various industries should be
generally formed, these to cooperate with higher tribunals and
to call in on occasion the help of prominent public men as
advisers and arbitrators.’"
_William H. Dawson,
The Evolution of Modern Germany,
page 136
(Unwin, London; Scribners, New York., 1909)._
LABOR ORGANIZATION: Germany: A. D. 1905-1909.
The Spirit of the Struggle between Capitalists and Workmen.
Attitude of the Latter.
"The struggle between labour and capital in Germany is a
little less refined than in some other countries. …
Rhineland—Westphalia is its chosen battle ground. Here all the
conditions of economic warfare exist in a rare degree. It is a
striking fact that a large part of the natural resources,
industry, and wealth-production of that unresting workshop of
Germany is under the control of a dozen men of commanding
business genius—men of strong and masterful character, born
rulers of the sternest mould, without sentiment, not
insusceptible to justice, yet never going beyond it,
inflexible in decision, of inexhaustible will-power, and
impervious to all modern notions of political liberalism.
{381}
These men, who have so conspicuously helped to create modern
industrial Prussia, and who are a greater real power in the
land than Ministers and legislators put together, typify in
modern industry the feudalism which is slowly dying upon the
great estates of the East. Their attitude towards the unions
in which their workmen are organised to the number of hundreds
of thousands is frequently expressed in the maxim, ‘We intend
to be masters in our own house,’ and nothing is wanting in the
vigour with which this maxim is applied. On the occasion of
the Mannheim conference of the Association for Social Policy
in September, 1905, Herr Kirdorf, probably the best known
industrialist of Westphalia, and the head of the Coal and
Steel Syndicates, was invited to give an employer’s reply to
an indictment of the syndicates made by Professor Gustav
Schmoller. In the course of his statement occurred the
following observations on the question of labour
organisation:—
"‘It is regrettable that our workpeople are able to change
their positions at any time. An undertaking can only prosper
if it has a stationary band of workers. I do not ask that
legislation should come to our help, but we must reserve to
ourselves the right to take measures to check this frequent
change of employment. The proposal has been made that all
workpeople should be compelled to join organisations and that
employers should be required to negotiate with these
organisations. For myself I would remark that I refuse to
negotiate with any organisation whatever.’ …
"Public opinion naturally finds itself often in conflict with
the Westphalian industrialists’ attitude, which more than
anything else was responsible for the solid gain won by the
men in the great colliery strike of 1905. It was the same Herr
Kirdorf who declared during that strike, 'The movement can
only end by the men recognising that they can get nothing by a
strike and returning to the mines. We will negotiate with
every man singly, but we will not concede workmen’s
committees.’ It was this inflexible attitude, persisted in too
long, which turned first the public and then the Government
against the colliery owners. By refusing to meet the colliers’
‘Committee of Seven’ they created the impression that the men
were wishful for peace but were unable to gain an ear for
their overtures. In the end not only were workmen’s committees
granted by force of law, but the hours of labour were
curtailed, fines were abolished, and other concessions were
made which cost the colliery owners dearly, until the extra
burden could be transferred to the public."
_William H. Dawson,
Evolution of Modern Germany,
pages 122-125
(Unwin, London; Scribners, New York, 1909)._
LABOR ORGANIZATION: Germany: A. D. 1909.
Extent of Trade Unionism.
The twentieth International Congress of Miners was held in
Berlin, and at its opening, on the 31st of May, 1909, Herr
Ritter, president of the Federation of Berlin Trade Unions, in
welcoming the Congress, said that there were now 223,000 trade
unionists in Berlin, as compared with 40,000 when the congress
held its last meeting there 15 years ago. Another German
speaker said that during the last 15 years the number of trade
unionists in the whole Empire had increased from 300,000 to
1,800,000.
LABOR ORGANIZATION: Italy: A. D. 1901.
Changed Attitude of the Government toward Labor Unions.
See (in this Volume)
ITALY: A. D. 1901.
LABOR ORGANIZATION: Italy: A. D. 1909.
A Church Movement of Agricultural Labor Organization.
"An agitation among agricultural labourers in North Umbria
seems to have taken a new and very unusual form, since, from
all accounts, it is directly promoted and supported by the
clergy. The parish priests in the neighbourhood of Perugia are
said not only to have put themselves at the head of the
movement, but to have actually initiated it with a manifesto
denouncing the grievances of the labourers, and calling upon
them to organize themselves in order to extort more favourable
conditions from the landowners who employ them. The Church
seems to have satisfied itself that the mutual relations of
capital and labour were unfair to the labourer, and to have
determined to be beforehand with the Socialist agitator,
creating an organization which will call itself
_democristiana_, or Christian democrat, in anticipation
of what might have been a more revolutionary Socialist league.
The manifesto was issued last May, and contained much the same
demands as have been successfully made by labour in other
parts of Italy. … So far the landowners have proved absolutely
recalcitrant. A league of resistance has been formed on their
side, and an attempt was made at reprisals by boycotting
parish priests, stopping any payment of tithes to the Church,
dismissing any private chaplains who belonged to the secular
clergy, and employing the regular clergy instead of the
parochial in any cases where their services were required.
"The parish clergy were not to be intimidated by financial
loss, and the proprietors then appealed to the Archbishop of
Perugia to put his veto on their agitation. The Archbishop,
Monsignor Mattei-Gentile, could only inform them that he had
already given his sanction to the movement. The proprietors,
by the friendly mediation of a Cardinal, then appealed to the
Pope. After some consideration, Pius X. sent a certain Signor
Giovanni Passamonti, a lawyer who has had a good deal of
experience in Umbrian affairs, to make an inquiry, and attempt
some kind of compromise. Neither side, however, would listen
to suggestions of conciliation. … So the matter now stands.
The position is certainly an interesting one, as it is the
first time that the Church has actually taken the lead in a
labour movement."
_Rome Correspondent, London Times,
July 21, 1909._
{382}
LABOR ORGANIZATION: Netherlands: A. D. 1903.
Laws against Railway Strikes.
Failure of Labor Strike to prevent their Passage.
Early in 1903 it was made known that the Government of the
Netherlands intended to bring forward in the States-General a
bill prohibiting strikes among railway employees, on the
ground that they were engaged in a public service which must
not suffer interruption. At once the railway men gave notice
that they would, if this measure were undertaken, appeal to
all workmen in the country for a general strike. The
Government then prepared itself for a struggle by summoning a
certain quota of the infantry and engineers of the Reserves to
arms, and, on the 25th of February, its proposed legislation
was introduced. It amended the penal code, in order to punish
strikes by persons in the public service as misdemeanors and
to attach penalties of more severity to all attacks on the
freedom of labor. It provided, further, for the organization
of a military railway brigade, to insure service on the lines
in case of a strike; and finally, it created a commission to
investigate the condition of the railway service and of its
employees. Pending the discussion of these measures the
threatened strike was undertaken, and was seen very soon to
have failed. Without any serious conflict with the authorities
it was given up, and, on the 11th of April, the bills became
Law.
LABOR ORGANIZATION: New Zealand: A. D. 1896-1908.
The Compulsory Arbitration Law.
Its working.
At the meeting of the National Civic Federation of the United
States, in December, 1908, Mr. Hugh H. Lusk, of New Zealand,
spoke of the compulsory arbitration law of that country.
See, in Volume VI. of this work.
NEW ZEALAND.
"In form," he said, "the law is not compulsory upon all men,
but only upon those who become amenable to it by registering
their associations under the law. Since associations, both of
workers and of employers, are generally registered, it is and
has been for twelve years now past absolutely compulsory
arbitration. About six years ago the law was extended to the
Commonwealth of Australia, where it is now in force. In New
Zealand compulsory arbitration has hitherto been a great
success, It has had the effect of preventing all strikes and
all lockouts for twelve years in that country until the other
day. The history of its extension to Australia has been the
greatest tribute that could be made to its success in New
Zealand. It has not been in all respects as great a success in
Australia as in New Zealand. New Zealand has a million white
inhabitants, Australia nearly five million; therefore, by the
extension of the law from New Zealand to Australia you have
got, as it were, a stepping stone from which you can easily
see how far it would be likely to be a success in a country as
much greater and as much more populous than Australia as is
this country.
"The law of New Zealand, and now of Australia, compels all
associated workers who are registered under the act to submit
to the law if they have causes of difference with their
employers. In the first place, they have to go to a member of
the Board of Conciliation, one of which exists in any
considerable district, and the Conciliation Board failing in
its object they can remove the cause into the Court of
Arbitration, which passes final judgment.
"For twelve years the law operated without serious breakdown
in New Zealand. It has been carried on for five years without
a serious breakdown in Australia. Now, what is wrong with the
Act and its operations? At first the workers were perfectly
satisfied with the court because, as a general rule, it was
with them. Later on, the court as a rule has been against
them. They have been inclined to the belief that the
constitution of the court is unfavorable, the court being
constituted of two representatives of labor and two
representatives of capital, together with one Judge of the
Supreme Court, sitting as president or chairman. They have
come to the conclusion that it is the fifth man who really
gives the decision. The difficulty in such a case as this is
that if the representative man who gives his decision has not
the confidence of both parties the court fails in its object.
It is believed that the decisions are, in general, those of a
man belonging to the capitalist class—since laborers do not
often find their way to the Supreme Court bench in any
country. This seems to be the bottom of the difficulty both in
New Zealand and in Australia. I do not think you could enact a
law either as a Federal law or as a State law, to-day, such as
the law in New Zealand and enforce it. The people are not
ready for it. The Canadian plan seems to me to be a step,
although perhaps rather a timid step in the right direction."
The exceptional strike to which Mr. Lusk referred, as
occurring "the other day," was in February, 1907. The strike
was of men in the freezing works of the frozen meat trade.
They stopped work as individuals, not as a union, each
claiming his right to take a rest from work; but the law was
applied to them, nevertheless, and they were fined £5 each.
Mr. Gompers, who spoke after Mr. Lusk, declared himself
emphatically against the New Zealand system, saying: "I would
not have employers do as they please; I would not want workmen
to do as they please; but I believe that by the organization
of industry and by the organization of labor we are gathering
forces conscious of their power, which, intelligently and
wisely wielded, bring forth a spirit of conciliation that no
court of arbitration ever yet was able to impose. There is in
the United States more genuine conciliation between organized
employers and organized workmen than exists in any other part
of the world."
LABOR ORGANIZATION: Russia: A. D. 1904-1905.
Revolutionary Strikes.
See (in this Volume)
RUSSIA: A. D. 1904-1905.
LABOR ORGANIZATION: Scotland: A. D. 1904-1909.
Five Years of Peace in Coal Mining.
A threatened conflict averted.
In 1904 the coalmasters of Scotland made an agreement with
their men for regulating wages according to a fixed scale, to
be neither below 37½ per cent., nor over 100 per cent. above
what is called the basis of 1888, which was 4s. per day. In
effect the range was from 5s. 6d. to 8s. per day, and within
these limits the Coal Conciliation Board was empowered to
adjust questions of wages as they arose. Under this agreement
the Conciliation Board operated satisfactorily till the summer
of 1909, and under the constitution of the board there was
power to refer any question on which the representatives of
the masters and men could not agree to a neutral chairman,
whose decision was to be absolute.
{383}
During the first three years of the agreement trade was
prosperous and wages rose nearly to the maximum under which
the Conciliation Board could adjudicate. Then came the period
of general depression, and wages went down, along with prices
of coal, until, finally, the coalmasters applied for a further
reduction to the minimum of the agreement, 5s. 6d. per day.
The men's representatives on the Board refused to entertain
the proposal. The disagreement became acute in a few weeks,
and the Miners’ Federation of Great Britain threatened a
general strike in support of the contention of its Scottish
members. On a ballot taken in July, 518,361 of the coal miners
of the United Kingdom voted for a general stoppage of work, in
support of the demands of the Scottish miners against 62,980
who opposed the undertaking. But the efforts of the
Government, exerted through the Board of Trade, were
successful in averting the threatened catastrophe. Conferences
between delegates from the coal miners and the coal owners,
held at the offices of the Board of Trade and under
chairmanship of the President of the Board, Winston Churchill,
resulted in an agreement signed on the 30th of July, which is
to be in force until August 1st, 1912, and indefinitely
thereafter unless six months notice of a wish to terminate it
is served by one party to it on the other. The agreement
provides for the continuation of the former Conciliation Board
"with the provision that there shall be obligatory a neutral
chairman (whose decision in cases of difference shall be final
and binding) to be selected by such method as shall be
mutually agreed upon by the parties, and, failing agreement,
by the Speaker of the House of Commons."
On the point of wages, the opinion of the miners’ delegates
was reported to be that the agreement was "fair to all
parties, for it secured the owners against having to pay an
increased wage unless all the circumstances of the trade,
considered over a reasonable period, were taken into account
by a perfectly impartial arbitrator. The concession of the
principle of the 50 per cent. increase on the 1888 basis as a
_minimum_ wage would, as far as could be foreseen,
obviate trouble in the future, and the safeguards which had
been introduced into the grant of the concession were, in the
opinion of all the delegates who were willing to express their
views, eminently fair to all the interests concerned."
LABOR ORGANIZATION: South Africa: A. D. 1903-1904.
The question of Asiatic Labor for the mines in the Transvaal.
Admission of Chinese Coolies.
The political side of the Opposition to White Labor.
See (in this Volume)
SOUTH AFRICA: A. D. 1903-1904.
LABOR ORGANIZATION: Spain: A. D. 1902.
Great Strike at Barcelona.
Barcelona, the scene of frequent and much disturbance, both
political and industrial, produced, in the middle of February,
a general strike of 80,000 workmen, between whom and the
troops of General Weyler, the Minister of War, a week of
battle in the streets occurred, with martial law in force.
LABOR ORGANIZATION: Spain: A. D. 1909.
Insurrection and Strike at Barcelona.
See (in this Volume)
SPAIN: A. D. 1907-1909.
LABOR ORGANIZATION: Sweden: A. D. 1909.
The Lockout and the attempted General Strike of all
Labor in the Kingdom.
The labor conflicts of 1909 were marked most impressively by
two attempts, in two countries, to combine all unionized
labor, of all trades and employments, in the oft-threatened
"general strike," whereby an absolute paralysis of society
might be brought about. The first of these attempts was
planned in France, for the enforcement of the demands of the
postal and telegraphic employees of the Government, who
claimed the right to engage in conflict with the State by an
organized "strike." This came happily to naught; and, the
second, undertaken in Sweden, had the same result.
A dispute in the paper, woolen, and cotton industries of
Sweden led, first, to a lockout of about 13,000 workmen in
those factories, the employers acting in a compact
association, which seems to have embraced all important fields
of production. On the 26th of July the lockout was extended to
certain other allied trades, affecting about 40,000 employees
in all; and it was then announced that on the 2d of August, if
the men did not come to terms, the closing of works would be
carried into the iron trades, and further still. This
challenged the Allied Trade Unions to summon a "general
strike" of all their membership, and the call went out for an
universal dropping of work on August 4th. Exception, however,
was made in the call, of employees in the water-works,
lighting and sanitation departments of the public service, and
of those on whom hospitals, funerals and living animals were
dependent for care. Railway, postal, telegraph and telephone
employees were not included in the Labor Federation, and did
not strike. Between lockout and strike, however, the
suspension of industry was so extensive as to reduce
Stockholm, especially, to a very grave situation; but the
emergency was faced with remarkable energy and courage by both
Government and people.
Neither employers nor employees would listen to any mediation
between them by King or Ministers, and the measures of
Government were directed solely to the repression of disorder
and the checking of all that savored of revolutionary aims.
How the public of Stockholm saved itself from paralysis is
told by a correspondent who wrote from that city on the 28th
of August, when the strike was in its fourth week. "How is
it," he asked, "that the trams are running, cabs are plying
for hire in the streets, the steam ferries are working as
usual, streets and houses are lighted, and there seems no lack
of provisions or transport? The explanation is that these and
many other of the most important social services are being
performed by a brigade of volunteers, who have come forward in
the public interest and who devote their time and energies
gratuitously to supplying the most pressing needs of society
at large. …
"On July 31 plans were first formed for meeting the situation
by the organization of a band of voluntary helpers, and on
August 2 a meeting was held at which definite action was
determined upon. A ‘Public Security Brigade’ (Frivilliga
skyddskaren) was to be enrolled, and the following services,
amongst others, were to be undertaken: The protection of
banks, insurance officers, and similar institutions liable to
attack or plunder by the strikers; the working of trams and
steamboats, and of gas, water, and electric lighting
machinery; the driving of motor and other cabs; the conveyance
of the sick to the hospitals, and the rendering to the
hospital staff of any necessary help; the unloading and
transport of the necessities of life, such as food, coal,
wood, &c. The object of the organization was not to help
individual sufferers or to safeguard individual interests, but
in every way possible to maintain such services as should be
considered necessary for the security and welfare of the
community.
{384}
"The appeal for volunteers met with a generous and
enthusiastic response, and within a week of the first meeting
on August 2 the whole organization was in full working order.
All classes supplied their _quota_. Counts and barons,
military and naval officers, professional and business men,
engineers, clerks, students from the Universities and
technical schools, alike volunteered their services. The
importance of such a movement can hardly be overestimated. The
fact that the executive body has no connexion with the
Government or municipality and yet is working in constant
touch and in perfect harmony with both speaks Volumes for the
spirit in which the work has been undertaken and the
efficiency with which it is being carried out. It is an
object-lesson in the capacity of the upper and middle classes
to meet such an emergency. And lastly, if, as is thought
probable by some, the institution should become a permanent
one, Sweden will have one of the best guarantees for
industrial peace in the future."
When this was written, the struggle, so far as it involved an
attempted general strike, was near its end. On the 3d of
September the Labor Federation announced its willingness that
those organizations which were not connected with the original
dispute, but which had joined the strike to help make it
general, should return to work, if the Government would renew
its proffer of mediation in the primary dispute. This the
Government did willingly; but at the end of September it was
announced that the negotiations undertaken had broken down and
that 60,000 men were still without work.
The most serious feature of the conflict was the apparent
readiness with which many labor organizations broke agreements
and contracts, in order to take part in it, even when not
called on to do so by the general Federation. According to the
claim of the Employers’ Federation, moreover, it was
faithlessness to such contracts which had most to do with
bringing of the Lockout on. On the other hand, the workmen
maintain that it is the aim of the employers to break down
their unions, and that self-preservation justifies them in
breaking contracts when that course is necessary to defeat
such attempts. Where the very truth lies is questionable, here
as in most such conflicts.
LABOR ORGANIZATION: United States:
The Organization of Labor.
"Most of the national trade unions are affiliated to one great
federal organization, known as the American Federation of
Labor. The railway brotherhoods, so called, keep their
separate organizations, without affiliating to any other body.
There are some independent unions; while the Knights of Labor
are a body entirely distinct from all other organizations, and
have a different organic law. It is difficult to ascertain the
membership of unions. In Great Britain the law requiring
registration enables the Government to state with fair
accuracy the strength of unions in that country. According to
the latest reports available, the English trade unions had a
membership of 1,802,518, while in the United States,—with
double England’s population,—the estimated membership of labor
organizations on July 1 last was 1,400,000. It is estimated at
the present time that there are nearly 18,000,000 persons
(men, women, and children) in the United States working as
wage-earners. The percentage embraced in the labor unions is
not large, therefore, being not more than 8 per cent. of the
whole body. It must be remembered, however, that in many
trades the members are organized up to a large proportion,
—sometimes 90 per cent.—of the total number engaged. The
American Federation of Labor probably represents 850,000
members, and the Knights of Labor perhaps 200,000. The Order
of Railway Conductors of America,—whose head, Mr. E. E. Clark,
has been appointed on the Coal Commission,—has nearly 25,000
members; the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, over
34,000; the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen, nearly 38,000;
the Brotherhood of Railway Trainmen, about 44,000; and there
are at least four other influential railroad organizations."
_Carroll D. Wright,
Labor Organization in the United States
(Contemporary Review, October. 1902)._
LABOR ORGANIZATION: United States:
The Trade Union as a factor in the Assimilation of the
Foreign-born Population, and in its Political Education.
"Whatever our judgment as to the legality or expediency of the
industrial policy of our American unions, no student of
contemporary conditions can deny that they are a mighty factor
in effecting the assimilation of our foreign-born population.
Schooling is primarily of importance, of course, but many of
our immigrants come here as adults. Education can affect only
the second generation. The churches, particularly the Catholic
hierarchy, may do much. Protestants seem to have little
influence in the industrial centres. On the other hand, the
newspapers, at least such as the masses see and read, and the
ballot under present conditions in American cities, have no
uplifting or educative power at all. The great source of
intellectual inspiration to a large percentage of our inchoate
Americans, in the industrial classes, remains in the
trade-union. It is a vast power for good or evil, according as
its affairs are administered. It cannot fail to teach the
English language. That in itself is much. Its benefit system,
as among the cigarmakers and printers, may inculcate thrift.
Its journals, the best of them, give a general knowledge of
trade conditions, impossible to the isolated workman. Its
democratic constitutions and its assemblies and conventions
partake of the primitive character of the Anglo-Saxon
folkmoot, so much lauded by Freeman, the historian, as a
factor in English political education and constitutional
development. Not the next gubernatorial or presidential
candidate; not the expansion of the currency, nor the reform
of the general staff of the army; not free-trade or
protection, or anti-imperialism, is the real living thing of
interest to the trade-union workman. His thoughts, interests,
and hopes are centred in the politics of his organization. It
is the forum and arena of his social and industrial world."
_W. Z. Ripley,
Race Factors in Labor Unions
(Atlantic Monthly, March, 1904)_.
{385}
LABOR ORGANIZATION: United States: A. D. 1899-1907.
The Western Federation of Miners.
Its adoption of a Socialist Platform.
Its fierce Conflict with Mine Owners.
Alleged Criminal Instigations by its Leaders.
Orchard’s Confessions.
Trial and Acquittal of Secretary Haywood.
The Western Federation of Miners was organized in Butte,
Montana, in 1893. The domain of the organization was and is
mainly the metal mining fields west of the Mississippi River;
while that of the organization called the United Mine Workers
was and is the coal fields east of the Mississippi. The
strongly marked difference in character between these two
comprehensive unions of mining labor is indicated in an
article by William Hard, contributed to _The Outlook_ of
May 19, 1906. "The United, Mine Workers," wrote Mr. Hard,
"accepts the present industrial system and regards the
employer as its partner. The Western Federation of Miners
denounces the present industrial system and regards the very
existence of the employer as an evil. The United Mine Workers
is interested mainly in the division of the proceeds of the
present industrial system between itself and its partner, the
employer. It wants to increase its own share of the proceeds
and it wants to reduce its partner’s share. The Western
Federation of Miners, on the other hand, is interested mainly
in the elimination of the employer. It wants more wages, of
course, but if it should succeed in establishing a scale of
even a hundred dollars a day it would still be bound by its
principles to spurn the relaxing comforts of prosperity and to
nerve itself to a continuation of the struggle.
"Edward Boyce, as President of the Federation, addressed its
annual Convention in 1902 as follows: ‘There are only two
classes of people in the world. One is composed of the men and
women who produce all. The other is composed of men and women
who produce nothing, but live in luxury upon the wealth
produced by others.’" The Convention, at the same session,
adopted the following declaration: "We, the tenth annual
Convention of the Western Federation of Miners, do declare for
a policy of independent political action, and do advise and
recommend the adoption of the platform of the Socialist Party
of America."
Says Mr. Hard, in comment on this Socialist pronouncement by
the Western Federation: "There is usually one of two reasons
for the presence of a large number of Socialists in any trade
union. One is the influence of Europeans; the other is a
particularly spectacular triumph of the machine over the man,
and a particularly cruel displacement of human beings by
superhuman tools. … The Western Federation of Miners,
however, has not been devoured by the machine, and it does not
contain more than a small percentage of Europeans. Whatever of
lawlessness there has been in the history of the Western
Federation has been American lawlessness. Whatever of
radicalism there has been in that history has been radicalism
cherished and propagated by Americans. That favorite National
scapegoat, ‘the foreigner,’ cannot be loaded with the sins of
the Western Federation. … The Western mines are full of
longlimbed, franked-eyed men who have adventured themselves
far and wide upon the face of the earth. There are Eastern
miners who were blacklisted after leading unsuccessful
strikes. There are cowboys who tired of the trail. There are
farmers who preferred prospecting to plowing. There are city
men who burst the bars of their cages to breathe the open air
of the West. These adventurous characters, going out into a
new country and plunging into the virgin, everlasting hills,
where it would seem that at last all men would stand on the
same footing, have suddenly discovered that amid these
primitive surroundings the modern industrial system is not
only found, but is found at its worst. No one would try to
find a parallel anywhere else on earth for the reckless
unscrupulous and maddening insolence of the corporations of
the Rocky Mountain States. And practical anarchism among
corporations is always a strong promoter of theoretical
Socialism among trade unions. …
"The internal policy of the Western Federation of Miners is
consistent with its published principles. The most important
part of this policy is an aversion to the signing of contracts
with employers. A contract is regarded as a manacle. It binds
one union when another union might need its help. … In
consequence of not demanding a contract, the Federation
naturally does not demand a closed shop. As it does not ask
the employer to bind himself by a contract to anything, it
does not ask him to bind himself to the exclusive employment
of union men. In three other respects besides its failure to
demand a closed shop the Western Federation of Miners follows
a policy which has often been admired by enemies of trade
unions. The Western Federation has no apprentice system. It
does not restrict output. And it discountenances
jurisdictional quarrels between rival trade organizations. …
"So much for the philosophy of the Western Federation of
Miners. Now for the lawlessness with which it has been
charged. There can be no doubt that members of the Western
Federation of Miners have frequently coerced non-union men. …
A programme of intimidation has at times, in certain mining
camps, become the equivalent of a closed shop contract. The
employer was not asked to exclude non-union men. The union
excluded them spontaneously, without bothering the employer
about it. … In addition to the coercion of individual
non-unionists, there have been a few occasions on which armed
bodies of union men have stormed mining property and captured
it."
On the other side of the case this writer recounts the acts of
violence and the barbarous "deportations" which the miners of
the Western Federation have suffered at the hands of the
Mine-Owners’ Association and the Citizens’ Alliance in
coöperation with them; and he emphasises this fact:—"that the
members of the Citizens’ Alliance and the members of the
Western Federation of Miners are brothers under their skins.
They come in the main from exactly the same breed. Two men go
out prospecting. They come from the same town in Ohio. Their
claims are half a mile apart. One man strikes gold. The other
doesn’t. One man becomes a millionaire and a member of the
Mine-Owners’ Association. The other becomes a workingman and a
member of the Western Federation. … They were all of them
American adventurers before they became employers and
employees. Practically identical in breed, the mine-owners and
the miners are practically identical in temperament. They
transact their affairs on both sides with an untrammeled
recklessness which is appalling, but which, if the distinction
be admitted, savors of anarchy rather than of illegality.
{386}
The situation is like that in the rough early mediaeval States
before the central authority had established its power by
means of police. … That these frontiersmen, as workingmen and
as members of the Western Federation, have used their guns in
trade union controversies is indubitable. That the Western
Federation, however, is an organized criminal clique, and that
it accentuates and stimulates the gun-playing proclivities of
its members, is, so far, unsupported by evidence."
_William Hard,
The Western Federation of Miners
(The Outlook, May 19, 1906)._
The question on which Mr. Hard threw doubt, as to whether the
leaders of the Western Federation of Miners, or any of its
responsible members, had been implicated in the dreadful
crimes of murder and destruction of property which attended
the conflict between the Federation and the mine-owners of the
Far West, came to trial in connection with the horrible murder
of ex-Governor Frank Steunenberg, of Idaho. The victim had
been Governor of that State in 1899, when, during a strike in
the Cœur d’Alene district, a mill at Wardner was blown up by a
mob. Governor Steunenberg obtained the aid of Federal troops
and vigorously crushed the disorder. Six years afterwards, on
the 30th of December, 1905, at the gate of his residence in
Caldwell, he was blown to pieces by a bomb, so placed that it
was exploded by the opening of the gate. A man named Harry
Orchard was arrested on suspicion and held until, finally, he
not only confessed the crime in question, but owned, or
claimed to have participated in, or had knowledge of, an
appalling number of other murders, deadly explosions, and
other barbarities, all of which he alleged to have been
committed at the instigation and under the direction of
officials in the Western Federation. Its President, Charles H.
Moyer, its Secretary, W. D. Haywood, and George A. Pettibone
of its executive were especially implicated by Orchard’s
confession in the murder of Governor Steunenberg. These
accused men were in Colorado at the time, and there, on a
requisition from the Governor of Idaho, they were arrested on
the 15th of February, 1906, and taken hurriedly to Boise,
having no opportunity to resist what was claimed to be the
illegal extradition. Subsequently, however, when the question
was carried from the Supreme Court of Idaho up to the Supreme
Court of the United States, the legality of the proceeding was
affirmed by all of the tribunals which reviewed it.
Intense feeling in labor circles was enlisted in behalf of the
accused chiefs of the Western Federation of Miners. Very
generally their innocence of the imputed crimes was believed,
and they were looked on as victims of an implacable
conspiracy, in which capitalists and politicians were leagued,
to hunt them to their death. More than a year intervened
between their arrest and the trial of Haywood, who was the
first to be arraigned. This greatly exciting trial was opened,
at Boise City, the capital of Idaho, in May, 1907, and was
concluded on the 28th of July, resulting in the acquittal of
the accused. Orchard’s testimony does not seem to have been
seriously shaken, otherwise than by the incredible horrors of
his story; but corroborative evidence was lacking, and nobody
could trust a witness whose moral irresponsibility was so
plain a fact. The announcement of the verdict of acquittal was
gladly received. It was followed at once by the release of
President Moyer on bail.
LABOR ORGANIZATION: United States: A. D. 1900-1909.
Labor Unions and Oriental Immigration.
See (in this Volume)
RACE PROBLEMS: UNITED STATES.
LABOR ORGANIZATION: United States: A. D. 1900-1909.
Study and treatment of Industrial Problems by the
National Civic Federation.
See (in this Volume)
SOCIAL BETTERMENT: UNITED STATES.
LABOR ORGANIZATION: United States: A. D. 1901.
Teamsters’ Strike in San Francisco.
See (in this Volume)
MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT: SAN FRANCISCO.
LABOR ORGANIZATION: United States: A. D. 1901.
The unfortunate Strike of the Amalgamated Association
of Iron, Steel, and Tin Plate Workers.
Its conflict with the United States Steel Corporation.
Breaches of Contract involved.
Failure.
A strike which involved breaches of contract between employés
and employers, and which resulted most unfortunately to those
engaged in it, was ordered in July, 1901, by the heads of the
National Amalgamated Association of Iron, Steel, and Tin Plate
Workers of the United States. As in the case of the Anthracite
Coal Strike of 1902, which is told of below, the circumstances
of this strike received a very thorough study and a very clear
exposition to the public, in an article from the pen of Dr.
Talcott Williams, published in the _American Review of
Reviews_ for September, 1901, and what is stated here is
drawn from that article:
The industries concerned in what occurred had been carried on
for a considerable period under conditions too complicated to
be described in this limited place. It must suffice to say
that there were union mills and non-union mills, and also a
third class, of "open" mills, in which union and non-union men
worked together. A truce had sprung up during a period of
prosperity in which, says Dr. Williams, "there had come to be
a quasi, only a quasi, general understanding that certain
mills were to be considered as union, certain as non-union,
and certain as ‘open.’" While "the trade was still divided
among hundreds of mill-owners," the Amalgamated Association of
workers in them "equalized conditions for all of them. It
lifted wage disputes out of the narrow mill atmosphere. It
forced all concerned to look at the trade as a whole. It gave
continuity and uniformity to contracts for wages. It
established standards of wages"—for union and non-union, both.
But when, in June, 1901, "the Amalgamated came to its annual
collective bargaining," it had to deal, not with numerous
independent mill-owners, but with the great consolidation of
them that had just occurred, in the formation of the mammoth
United States Steel Corporation.
"Two courses," says Dr. Williams, "were open to the president
and officers and Advisory Council of the Amalgamated. They
might, after the usual conference, for which its constitution
provides, through a special committee, have signed its ‘scale’
for the union mills in which its membership worked and wait
for the social and political pressure of public opinion, as in
1900, to force this new representative of capital—the
‘Trust’—in its various forms to accept a collective bargain
for part of its mills, trusting to events, the steady
gravitation of skilled labor to its ranks, and the greater
economic efficiency of the union—for unless it is that it
cannot survive—to win a slow battle. Much depended for
organized labor all over the country in formally committing
the United States Steel Corporation, the greatest employer of
labor on the planet, to the recognition of a union scale as
the best regulator of wages, union and non-union.
{387}
It looked as if this waiting plan were adopted when the scale
was signed for one year to come, carrying a new
non-interruption clause, with the American Tin Plate Company.
… On the last day on which the scale could be signed—June 29—
and it generally is not signed before, the demand was made
that the scale should be signed for all [of certain] non-union
mills. The advance in wages asked was conceded. Mr. Persifor
F. Smith, for the company, offered to sign for twenty-one
mills accepted in the past as union. President Shaffer refused
to sign for any, unless all were accepted as union. Mr. Smith
refused to sign for mills non-union in the past, and claimed
that two, Salzburg and Old Meadow, hitherto union, had
abandoned the organization, a position later conceded. The
issue raised was whether the change from individual to
collective bargaining could be required under penalty of a
strike, not only in the mills in question, but in all the
mills of the company. The men involved had a right to require
a collective bargain for as many as they chose to include. The
company had its right, equally, to decide where it would have
individual and where collective bargaining. …
"The Amalgamated was … strong, until it struck. Its demand for
wages and hours were all accepted. It had been allowed to
organize lodges in various non-union mills, after the
corporation had bought them, where before it was excluded.
When it attempted, on its own demand and instance, to change
the status of these mills and act for their labor, it proved
right in its claim that the men wished to be union in four out
of five of the steel hoop mills and wrong in five out of the
seven mills claimed in the Sheet Steel Company. Each
contestant claimed more than it could control. A compromise
was in order. A compromise was offered. Twelve mills in all
were in dispute. The corporation offered four. The Amalgamated
demanded all or none. … A strike was ordered July 15, and
the American Tin Plate Company men broke their year’s contract
of a fortnight before."
The strike was "circumscribed at first by members of the
Amalgamated in the Federal Steel Company plants at Chicago,
Joliet, and Milwaukee refusing to break their contracts and
strike. Here, the membership of the Amalgamated was less than
a tenth of the whole number involved. It is not over this
proportion in the general body of men on the pay-roll of the
United States Steel Corporation. The proportion in union mills
varies. In none does it include all. In some, those without
its membership are a small fraction, in others, more than
half. By the men of the National Steel Company and the
National Tube Company, annual contracts were broken,
sacrificing the annual collective bargain."
"Nothing can be accomplished for labor, even that tenth share
of it organized in the Amalgamated, until this share has
learned that contracts must be kept and the line drawn between
wages and business control. The successful efforts of the
Amalgamated to induce its members to break their contracts,
first in the tin works and later at various works in the
Federal Steel Company, has deepened the conviction among
business men and the public that men in the union cannot be
trusted to keep promises; and until this trust is possible,
nothing is possible."
The strike failed in its objects completely, and came to an
end on the 14th of September, having lasted sixty-one days.
Under the agreement which then terminated it, the union mills
which the Amalgamated Association had been able to keep closed
were recognized as being within its sphere, but no provision
could be made for the displaced union men of mills which had
been wholly or partly reopened during the progress of the
strike, and large bodies of the strikers were left to seek
employment where they could.
LABOR ORGANIZATION: United States: A. D. 1902.
Remarkable Conference on the Peaceful Settlement of Labor
Disputes, under the auspices of the National Civic Federation.
Appointment of a Committee of Conciliation.
In January, 1902, a remarkable conference, to discuss the
relations between labor and capital and to seek means for the
peaceable settlement of industrial disputes, was held in New
York, under the auspices of the National Civic Federation.
Notable men of all professions, of high circles in business,
of high leadership in trade unions, and of high official
positions, came together, with the Honorable Oscar S. Straus
presiding, and held frank and free talk on a subject which
concerned them all in the greatest possible degree. The main
practical result of the Conference was the appointment of a
powerful standing Committee, to act for the Civic
Confederation as an agency of conciliation and intermediation
between the parties in industrial disputes. The Committee,
which has exercised its good offices many times since, not
always with success, but always with an influence that must be
of growing effect, was appointed as follows:
On Behalf of the Public.
Grover Cleveland;
Cornelius N. Bliss;
Charles Francis Adams;
Archbishop John Ireland;
Bishop Henry C. Potter;
Charles W. Eliot, president of Harvard University;
Franklin MacVeagh, Chicago;
James H. Eckels;
John J. McCook;
John G. Milburn, Buffalo;
Charles J. Bonaparte, Baltimore;
Oscar S. Straus;
Ralph M. Easley.
Representatives of Organized Labor.—
Samuel Gompers, president of the American Federation of Labor;
John Mitchell, president of the United Mine Workers;
F. P. Sargent, grand master of the Brotherhood of
Locomotive Firemen;
T. J. Shaffer, president of the Amalgamated Association
of Iron, Steel, and Tin Workers;
James Duncan, secretary of the Granite Cutters’ Association;
Daniel J. Keefe, president of the International Association
of ’Longshoremen;
Martin Fox, president of the National Iron Molders’ Union;
James E. Lynch, president of the International
Typographical Union;
Edward E. Clarke, grand conductor, Brotherhood of
Railway Conductors;
Henry White, secretary of the Garment Workers of America;
Walter Mac Arthur, editor of the
_Coast Seamen's Journal_, San Francisco;
James O’Connell, president of the International
Association of Machinists.
Representative Employers.
Senator Marcus A. Hanna, Cleveland;
Charles M. Schwab, president of the
United States Steel Corporation;
S. R. Callaway, American Locomotive Works;
Charles Moore, president of the National Tool Company;
J. D. Rockefeller, Jr.;
H. H. Vreeland, Metropolitan Street Railway Company;
Lewis Nixon, Crescent Shipyard, Elizabethport, New Jersey;
James A. Chambers, president of the American Glass Company,
Pittsburg, Pennsylvania;
William H. Pfahler, president of the National Association
of Stove Manufacturers, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania;
E. P. Ripley, president of the Atchison,
Topeka & Santa Fe Railway;
Marcus M. Marks, president of the National Association
of Clothing Manufacturers;
J. Kruttschnitt, president of the Southern
Pacific Railway Company.
{388}
LABOR ORGANIZATION: United States: A. D. 1902-1903.
The Great Strike of Anthracite Coal Miners.
Distress and Alarm in the Country.
Intermediation of President Roosevelt.
Arrogant Attitude of Mine-owning Interests.
Final submission to Arbitration Commission appointed by
the President.
Award of the Commission.
A prolonged general strike of miners in the anthracite coal
fields of Pennsylvania, beginning in May, 1902, was one of the
most serious in its public effects and the most alarming that
has ever occurred in the United States. It may be said to have
had its origin in a previous strike that came about in the
fall of 1900, resulting from which the miners had obtained an
advance in wages of ten per cent. That increase was guaranteed
until the 1st of April, 1901. In the interval Mr. John Mitchell,
the able and much respected President of the United Mine
Workers of America, strove to secure from the railway magnates
who are the masters of the anthracite coal property and trade
some recognized right on the part of the miners as a body to
discuss and arrange the terms and conditions of their work.
The rebuffs that he met with were near to causing another
strike in the spring; but some powerful influences were
brought to bear, it was said, by New York financiers, which
patched up a truce for the ensuing year. The ten per cent
increase of wages was continued for that further period, and
the miners, in some way, rightly or wrongly, acquired an idea
that the next year was to bring about an arrangement of free
and fair representative conferences between their union and
the union of mine-owners and operatives, like that which had
been established in the bituminous coal regions. In this
expectation they were wholly disappointed when the year came
to its end, as it did on the 1st of April, 1902.
The National Civic Federation, in which every great social
interest, of capital, labor, politics, education, religion,
philanthropy, is splendidly represented, intervened in the
disputes which followed, and brought about some meetings on
the subject; but the capitalist side of the controversy was
entrenched in its determination to give no recognition to any
union of miners, and to refuse an arbitration of the dispute,
while the miners were provoked to the making of larger demands
than they might have insisted upon, probably, if they had been
differently met. By a small majority of the delegates to a
convention held in May the miners voted to strike—against the
judgment of President Mitchell it is said—and work in the
mines was stopped about the middle of the month.
On both sides of the conflict there were real difficulties in
the way of approach to a common ground of negotiation. These
were fairly set forth by Dr. Talcott Williams, of the
Philadelphia Press, in The _Review of Reviews_ for July,
1902. On the side of the anthracite railroad managers and mine
operators he pointed to the fact that they were "under a
grinding competition with bituminous coal. To accept a union
of United Mine Workers of America, in which the bituminous
workers were two to one, was, they believed, to render it
certain that on most issues the management of the union would
keep bituminous mines busy rather than anthracite." Further to
the fact that "anthracite mining varies greatly from mine to
mine, and a uniform ‘scale,’ as in bituminous mines, is
difficult." But, said he, "it cannot be impracticable, for
veins as narrow, tortuous and varying are mined under a
‘scale' in England." As for difficulties of concession on the
part of the mine-workers, this just analyzer of the conflict
described their division into three classes having different
and unequal footings in the industry. These were the miners
who break out or detach the coal in the mines; the laborers
whom the miners employ to load and remove what the latter
detach; and, finally, the men employed as mine bosses and to
operate engines and pumps. The miners are paid for the
quantity taken out; the laborers (who aspire to become miners)
receive wages for a ten hours day; the bosses and engineers
are employed by the year and have continuous work, because the
pumps cannot be stopped, whether mining goes on or not. These
three interests must be consolidated in a union of the
mine-workers if it is to have any effective strength; and this
raises knotty problems among them. The attitude of the
railroad managers and operators had prevented such a
consolidation, with bad results, in Dr. Williams’s opinion. As
he summed up the situation, it was this: "Had the miners’
union in the past eighteen months exerted the rigid discipline
of big well-managed unions, prevented small strikes, and
worked for a cheap output, it might have divided capital. But
it had not been ‘recognized.’ Therefore, its control was often
loose. Local unions irritated local operators. In the Reading
mines, the proportion of coal mined per miner fell one-eighth.
It is part of a bad system of over-manned mines under which
miners try to distribute work. Output was reduced and wages
increased. The result was that the miners were without the
responsible control of a big union, and the railroad managers
and operators irritated by small strikes and ready for a
fight."
In his conclusions this well-informed critic of the situation
justified the public feeling of the time which held the
capitalists of the controversy more accountable than the
laborers for the loss and suffering inflicted on the country.
He closed his article with these words:
"Under competition, the anthracite plant is one-half larger in
mines and one-half greater in labor than the utmost demand of
the public. Two-thirds of the mines and two-thirds of the men,
run more regularly and systematically, could in spite of the
lack of demand in summer, produce the coal cheaper and more
profitably, and at a higher individual aggregate average, even
if at a lower per diem or per ton than the present system.
{389}
What the anthracite coal industry really needs is a
reorganization like that after the London dock strike of 1889,
reducing the number of men but increasing work for each. As it
is, men who prefer working all the year to working two-thirds
of the year, and often half a day at that, have, by a natural
elimination, been weeded out steadily, and have left a large
share of men, bred to a habit of irregular work and short
hours. This one fact is at the bottom of much fitful
irregularity in the mines.
"The railroad managers, holding public franchises weighted by
public responsibilities, have clearly no right, as they have
all united in doing, to refuse all compromise, conciliation,
or adjustment, and simply stop work, letting the public pay
the cost in higher coal. They are bound either to reach an
adjustment themselves, to let some one else reach one for
them, or to reorganize the whole industry on a basis which
will reduce the material and moral waste of the present
system, where poor mines are worked and men are one-third of
the year idle even in a prosperous year."
The powers which controlled the mines did not, however, see
their duty to the public in this light, and the strike went
on. Before the summer ended the pinch of scarcity in the
supply of fuel to the country was being felt widely, in most
industries and in domestic life. The pinch increased, and the
price of coal went higher as cold weather came on. Control of
the rougher elements among the miners and mine laborers was
lost by their leaders, and rioting broke out, with dark
outrages of crime, calling for a strenuous employment of
militia and police. There were threatenings, too, of a
sympathetic strike of bituminous miners, which might easily
produce a fuel famine of frightful effect; but President
Mitchell and other intelligent leaders succeeded in persuading
the miners of the bituminous district that their best help to
the anthracite unions was by adhering to their yearly contract
and continuing the work which enabled them to contribute funds
to the support of the existing strike. In August they were
reported to be sending to the idle anthracite men no less than
$130,000 a week. With this and other help these seemed likely
to maintain their stand for months. By the first of October
the supply of anthracite coal was so meagre that "factory
managers were put to their wits’ end to get fuel enough at $15
or $20 a ton to keep their machinery running; whereas, in
normal times, their supplies had cost perhaps $3 a ton. The
great majority of the retail coal dealers were entirely sold
out, and for the poor who were obliged to buy in small
quantities the price had reached a cent a pound, or even more,
with prospect of a total cessation of the anthracite supply.
Soft coal was being largely substituted for hard coal; but it
also, in the East, had advanced 300 or 400 per cent. in price,
and it was not well adapted for chimneys, furnaces, stoves and
grates that had been constructed for anthracite. Furthermore,
the cessation of anthracite mining during that half of the
year in which the bulk of the winter’s supply is produced had
created a situation of scarcity that could not have been
wholly overtaken by the utmost effort to substitute the
bituminous article."
The situation was now so grave that the whole country was
demanding an intervention of government by some means to end
the obstinate dispute. The Federal Executive could find no
legal authority to act; but President Roosevelt determined to
bring the prestige and weight of his high office and of his
vigorous personality into an exercise of persuasive influence
in the case. He invited the representatives of both parties in
the conflict to meet him, and the meeting took place October
3d. In opening a discussion of the subject he disclaimed any
right or duty to intervene between them on legal grounds, but
said that "the urgency and the terrible nature of the
catastrophe impending over a large portion of our people " had
impelled him to think it incumbent on him to use such
influence as he could to "bring to an end a situation which
has become literally intolerable." "With all the earnestness
that is in me," he pleaded, "I ask that there be an immediate
resumption of operations in the coal mines in some such way as
will, without a day’s unnecessary delay, meet the crying needs
of the people. I do not invite a discussion of your respective
claims and positions. I appeal to your patriotism, to the
spirit that sinks personal considerations and makes individual
sacrifices for the general good." Mr. Mitchell then spoke
briefly, saying that he and his associates did not feel that
they were responsible for "this terrible state of affairs";
and he made the following proposition; "We are willing to meet
the gentlemen representing the coal operators to try to adjust
our differences among ourselves. If we cannot adjust them that
way, Mr. President, we are willing that you shall name a
tribunal who shall determine the issues that have resulted in
the strike; and if the gentlemen representing the operators
will accept the award or decision of such a tribunal, the
miners will willingly accept it, even if it is against their
claims."
To say that the President’s appeal and Mr. Mitchell’s proposal
of arbitration had an arrogant response from the chiefs of the
coal monopoly is to speak mildly of the spirit and language of
their replies. "I now ask you," said one of them, "to perform
the duties vested in you as President of these United States
and to at once squelch the anarchistic condition of affairs in
the coal region by the strong arm of the military at your
command." "The duty of the hour," cried another dictatorially,
"is not to waste time negotiating with the fomenters of this
anarchy and insolent defiance of law, but to do as was done in
the War of the Rebellion—restore the majesty of the law."
With one consent they rejected the proposal of arbitration
with scornful defiance, and the meeting broke up without
result.
But, behind the men in immediate command of the railway and
the mining companies there was a bigger-brained financial
power that could comprehend, as they could not, the
recklessness of so arrogant a challenge, which went straight
past the miners and the President of the United States to a
suffering public. As the captain of that force, Mr. J.
Pierpont Morgan took the business in hand, and, after a
conference with Secretary Root and some talk with railway
presidents, brought the latter to a different state of mind.
On the 13th of October he went to Washington with the proposal
of a Commission, to be appointed by the President, to which
the companies were willing that "all questions between the
respective companies and their own employés" should be
referred.
{390}
"The Commission to be constituted as follows:
(1) An officer of the Engineer Corps of either the military or
naval service of the United States;
(2) an expert mining engineer, experienced in the mining of
coal and other minerals, and not in any way connected with
coal-mining properties, either anthracite or bituminous;
(3) one of the judges of the United States courts of the
Eastern District of Pennsylvania;
(4) a man of prominence, eminent as a sociologist;
(5) a man who by active participation in mining and selling
coal is familiar with the physical and commercial features of
the business."
There were added the stipulations that upon the constitution
of such Commission the miners should return to work and "cease
all interference with and persecution of any non-union men who
are working or shall hereafter work," and that the
Commission’s findings should govern the conditions of
employment between the respective companies and their own
employees for a term of at least three years. On this basis,
with some modifications, an agreement with Mr. Mitchell,
acting for the miners, was arrived at, and the appointment of
the Commission, named as follows, was announced on the 16th:
Brigadier General John M. Wilson, U. S. A., retired
(late Chief of Engineers), Washington, D. C.,
"as an officer of the Engineer Corps."
Edward Wheeler Parker, Washington, D. C.,
chief statistician of the coal division of the Geological
Survey, and editor of the Engineering and Mining Journal;
"as an expert mining engineer."
Honorable George Gray, Wilmington, Delaware,
"as a Judge of a United States Court."
Edgar E. Clark, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Grand Chief of the Order
of Railway Conductors, as a sociologist, the President
assuming that for the purpose of such a Commission the term
sociologist means a man who has thought and studied deeply on
social questions and has practically applied his knowledge."
Thomas H. Watkins, Scranton, Pennsylvania,
"as a man practically acquainted with the mining and
selling of coal."
Bishop John L. Spalding, Peoria, Illinois
(The President added the Bishop’s name to the Commission.)
Carroll D. Wright, Commissioner of Labor;
appointed Recorder of the Commission.
Mr. Mitchell’s acceptance of the plan of settlement, as
finally worked out by the President, was ratified by a miners’
convention at Wilkes-barre, and the strike was declared at an
end October 21st. The Arbitration Commission was organized at
the White House on the 24th, under the presidency of Judge
Gray. Carroll D. Wright, appointed originally as recorder of
the Commission, was added as a seventh member to the board,
all parties consenting. Public hearings by the Commission were
opened at Scranton on the 14th of November, President Mitchell
being the first witness, under cross-examination by railway
attorneys for five days. The investigation was laborious and
long, and it was not until the 21st of March, 1903, that the
award of the Commission was made. The following summary of its
important decisions is derived from an exposition of it by
Walter E. Weyl, Ph. D., in The _Review of Reviews_ for
April, 1903:
"There were four demands of the miners,--namely, for an
increase of pay, a decrease in hours, the weighing of coal
where practicable, and the recognition of the union. The first
two demands of the miners have been compromised, the miners
receiving over half of the increase demanded; the third demand
was refused, but the conditions reformed; while for the fourth
demand, the men secured practically what they desired,
although formal recognition was denied them.
"At the beginning of the hearings, the commission decided that
any increase in the rate of pay, or any decrease in the hours,
should be retroactive, and be effective from the first day of
November. There would have been difficulty in carrying out
this plan, however, especially in the case of a reduction in
hours, and in substitution therefor the commission provided
for a 10 per cent. increase in all wages of all employees
during the five months of investigation, from November 1,
1902, to April 1, 1903. … With regard to future wages and
future hours of labor, the commission has adopted the plan of
awarding increases for the various classes of employees and
making this increased wage the minimum of a sliding scale. In
other words, during the three years from April 1, 1903, to
April 1, 1906, wages may not fall below the increased scale
now awarded, no matter what the price of coal may be, but must
rise above that rate in case the price of coal advances. The
contract miners asked for an increase of 20 per cent., and
have received a minimum of 10 per cent." The engineers
hoisting water and the firemen were awarded the reduction in
hours that they asked for, from twelve to eight, without
reduced pay. Other engineers and pump men who asked the same
received a five per cent. increase of pay with a reduction of
working days per week from seven to six. The work day of men
paid by the day was cut down from ten hours to nine. "These
wages, however, are not necessarily the wages which will
prevail, but merely the irreducible minimum of wages during
the next three years. It was suggested by Mr. Baer that a
sliding scale should be adopted, and that the wages of all
mine workers should not fall below what they were in April,
1902, but should be increased by one per cent. for every five
cents increase in the price of the large sizes of coal in New
York City." This seems to have made part of the award.
"The commission says that it does not consider the question of
recognition within the scope of the jurisdiction conferred
upon it, although it states that ‘the suggestion of a working
agreement between employees and employers embodying the
doctrine of collective bargaining is one which the commission
believes contains many hopeful elements for the adjustment of
relations in the mining region.’ This concession, however, is
qualified by the statement that ‘the present constitution of
the United Mine Workers of America does not present the most
inviting inducements to the operators to enter into
contractual relations with it.’ Notwithstanding its disclaimer
of jurisdiction, however, the Anthracite Coal Strike
Commission has in practical effect compelled the operators to
grant to the union full, plenary, and distinct recognition.
The recognition of the United Mine Workers is clearly
indicated by the language of the award.
{391}