Trade Union Agreements in the United States

Background

The economic strength of trade unions is crystallized in trade agreements. Such expression of a joint partnership of Capital and Labour to stabilize industry on the basis of an accepted law is typical of the American labour movement. The earliest national agreement in the United States was that of the iron puddlers in 1866. A national agreement of the stove moulders established in 1891, providing for peaceful adjustment of disputes which might arise, continues in force. In 1897 a general strike in the central competitive district of the bituminous coal-mining industry led to an agreement between the operators and the United Mine Workers’ Union. In 1902 the president of the union refused to join in a sympathetic strike on behalf of the anthracite strikers because such action would be disloyal to the agreement. For more than 20 years the International Typographical Union had been arbitrating disputes with the publishers of newspapers. At the convention of the National Publishers’ Association in 1900, three publishers were chosen as a committee to deal with labour, to represent, however, not the whole convention, but only those employers who had favoured the measure. Contracts between individual employers and the union had been made prior to this time. This committee effected an agreement with the Typographical Union, to be in force from May 1901 to May 1902, which provided for local boards of three persons, one to represent the publisher, one the union, and the third to be chosen by these two. The board was to decide all disputes in its territory, the status quo to prevail until an award should be made. If either party should be dissatisfied with the decision, appeal might be taken to a national board, composed of the publishers’ labour committee and the president of the Typographical Union. If they failed to agree, an impartial person was called in. A majority decision was then binding on both parties. In 1902 the agreement was renewed for a five-year period, and again in 1907, revised to eliminate the impartial person from the adjustment boards, and to reorganize the final arbitration board to consist of three members of the employers’ committee and three from the executive council of the union. By the end of 1912 the American Newspaper Publishers’ Association had in operation a total of 416 individual arbitration contracts: 217 with the Typographical Union, 108 with stenographers’ unions, 47 with mailers’ unions and 44 with photoengravers’ unions. A fourth national agreement, 1912-7, made local settlements compulsory, since the business of the national board had been impeded by the number of the cases. In 1917 the agreement was renewed until 1922.

In the book and job printing industry the development of central government in 1919 added new features. Coöperating to preserve industrial peace there are four groups of closed-shop employers, united in a national association, and five trade unions, centralized for concerted action in the International Allied Printing Trades Association. In Feb. 1919 representatives of both sides met to discuss coöperation. In April they agreed upon a draft of an International Joint Conference Council, international since Canadian publishing companies were included. The Council was composed of four trade unionists and eight employers; each union representative had two votes. There was no impartial member, two joint chairmen sitting together — a trade-union president and an employer. Meetings were to be held usually every other month, in different places. Resolutions were to be passed unanimously by the Council and accepted by all the organizations represented, after which they were to become law for all member shops in the United States and Canada. Enforcement was left to the executives of the individual organizations. The Council drafted an arbitration code to be used by the members. The Council itself did not settle disputes. Its work has been to give its approval to a general labour policy, expressed as “five cardinal points.” It adopted for its slogan “Stabilization and Standardization.” The agreement provided that wages should be reviewed semi-annually, should be based on the cost of living and the economic conditions of the industry, to provide at least a living wage; also that employers should introduce a uniform system of cost-keeping, and that voluntary agreements should take the place of strikes and lock-outs. Economic conditions in the industry and cost of living having been determined by scientific investigation, the actual fixing of wages was left to bargaining between the two parties. The unions agreed not to work for employers who did not operate their business under the standard cost-keeping clause, and the employers agreed to employ only union labour. In March 1921 employing printers not members of the Joint Conference Council formed the 48-Hour League of America and called for the abolition of the Council.

Perhaps the most remarkable change brought into any industry by trade union efforts is in the clothing industry, where “sweated” workers have been able to build up a system of industrial government respected by their employers. In Nov. 1909 discrimination against union members by employers led to a general strike of the shirt-waist makers of New York. More than 25,000 girls walked out. Other grievances were: the long overtime worked in the rush seasons, followed by long periods of unemployment; low wages, fines, and subcontracting. The employers formed themselves into a Mutual Protective Association. The police prevented picketing. This aroused public interest in favour of the strikers. The employers individually came to settlement with the girls. The workers gained better conditions, and the principle was inaugurated of adjustment of grievances between employer and representatives of the workers. During the same month, Feb. 1910, which marked the conclusion of this strike, 7,000 shirt-waist makers in Philadelphia struck for concessions similar to those secured in New York. The strike was short; the chief result was a plan for settlement of difficulties by adjustment in the shop, or by appeal to a permanent arbitration board of representatives of the union, the employer and the general public, and a promise not to discriminate against union members. The wage scale was to be fixed for each shop by a committee of that shop.

In July 1910 the cloak and suit makers struck in New York City, 45,000 strong. Their grievances were low wages, the system of subcontracting by which a few of the employees received wages from the employer directly, and engaged their own helpers, whom they “sweated” for a pittance. The strikers also demanded a 49-hour week with double pay for overtime, the installation of power sewing machines, and the closed shop. This last point was the most strongly contested by the employers. Finally a conference was held, with Louis D. Brandeis as chairman. He urged that the strikers modify their demand for the closed shop to one for the “preferential union shop.” After some further dispute an agreement on this basis was signed in Sept., which also pronounced in favour of the abolition of home work and subcontracting. But the most notable feature of the agreement was the provision known as the “protocol,” which established three joint boards to administer labour conditions in the future. The Board of Grievances, of two representatives from each side, was to take up differences of opinion between employers and employees, and to settle any disputes which might arise. Disputes which could not be settled in this way were to be carried to the Arbitration Board, made up of one representative from each side and an impartial member. The Board of Sanitary Control consisted of two representatives of the employers, two of the union and one for the public, this impartial member to be appointed by counsel for the two sides. This Board determined a standard of sanitation for the shops. “Health strikes” to enforce the findings of the Board were permitted in shops remaining in any condition condemned. These three boards were financed jointly by the employers and the union.

In Oct. of the same year (1910) the men’s clothing workers struck in Chicago, to demand shorter hours and higher wages and some method of adjusting grievances. After 19 weeks the strikers, beaten, went back to work but the important firm of clothing manufacturers, Hart, Schaffner & Marx, made an agreement with their employees which established a permanent arbitration board of one representative from each side. There was no impartial member until one year later, when a Trade Board of 11 members was instituted to settle the minor matters which were impeding the work of the Arbitration Board. The impartial chairman of the new board also presided at the old. A third part of the machinery was composed of the individual shop committees which met with the labour managers (employers’ representatives) to try to smooth out grievances before bringing them to the Trade Board. In 1913, when the agreement was renewed, provision for the preferential union shop was added.

In Jan. 1913 several trades of the ladies’ garment workers struck and secured an extension of the protocol plan to cover a larger number of the trades. A strike in Boston led to its introduction there. The Joint Board of Sanitary Control was extended to cover other ladies’ garment workers and also the fur workers of New York. Medical supervision features were added, with individual examinations and preventive work. Early in Jan. the men’s garment workers of New York also struck. The president of the United Garment Workers’ Union submitted the dispute to arbitration. Many of the members were dissatisfied, and a plan was made to put a new union leader in office at the next national election. When the convention met in 1914, many of the more aggressive delegates found themselves debarred by the committee on credentials. The insurgents retired to another building, held a rival convention and elected officers. The union membership throughout the country was divided in its allegiance to the two groups of national officers, the overall and union label shops clinging to the old leadership, but the mass of the men’s and boys’ clothing workers acknowledging the new, although for this they were branded as “secessionists” by the American Federation of Labor. During a strike at this time in Baltimore the cutters remained subordinate to the old leaders, the tailors were led by the new, who managed to continue the strike to victory, although without strike funds. The new leaders then organized their forces throughout the country under the new name Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America. This organization, while retaining the craft divisions, adopted industrial unionism as its working principle. The preamble stressed the aggressive character of the new union and the part it hoped to play in the “class struggle”; also the importance of education of the members.

In 1915 the new organization carried on and won two general strikes: a short one in New York, and one of four months’ duration in Chicago, which cost the union over $40,000, and was finally lost through exhaustion. But the spirit of the workers was not broken. The year 1916 was marked by disputes in the clothing trades throughout the country. In New York the Manufacturers’ Association abrogated the protocol in the cloak and suit trade. After a two months’ lock-out and a general strike of 60,000 workers an agreement was made according to which grievances were to be adjusted by direct negotiation between union and employer. The Joint Board of Sanitary Control continued through the period of the strike. Protocols were established in the garment trades in Boston and Philadelphia. The Board of Standards of the dress and waist trade opened a test shop to time and standardize the operations.

In 1917 the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America led other unions in establishing the 48-hour week by strikes in the different clothing centres. In 1918 they led with the 44-hour week. At the same time the industry in New York adopted an agreement for industrial government similar to that which had been introduced by Hart, Schaffner & Marx in 1910. In Feb. an impartial chairman took up his post. Studies were undertaken by both the union and the employers’ association to ascertain the changes in the cost of living relative to wage increases, and an award was made of wage increases varying from 10% to 12.5%. Introduction of the 44-hour week followed in the other clothing centres. The financing of the New York strike by the union, except for contributions of $11,000, was viewed as a notable achievement for workers who until recently had been “sweated” and ill paid. Other firms in Chicago followed the example of Hart, Schaffner & Marx, and similar arbitration agreements were introduced also in the clothing centres of Baltimore, Boston, Rochester, Montreal and Toronto. An attempt of the A.C.W.A. to organize Cincinnati was as bitterly opposed by the old union as by the employers. In Rochester and Chicago, where the work is done in factories, the agreements still held in May 1921. But in New York and Boston, where most of the work is let out to contractors, the impartial machinery broke down in the autumn of 1920; it could not weather the period of industrial depression. The union in New York then went on strike to force the reinstatement of arbitration machinery. By the end of March 1921 the locals of the A.C.W.A. had raised $930,244.54 toward the strike fund. The arbitration plan was renewed July 1921.

In the spring of 1919 during a strike in Lawrence, Mass., the Amalgamated Textile Workers of America were organized. A resolution of the executive board in April 1920 to affiliate with the Amalgamated Clothing Workers was favourably received by the latter in their convention in May. The constitutions of the two organizations are similar. The membership of the A.T.W. in Jan. 1921 was 40,000; that of the A.C.W.A. 200,000. In 1920 the Amalgamated Clothing Workers and the Ladies’ Garment Workers were drawing together and affiliation was discussed.