LABOUR DISPUTES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 17810, 17 December 1919, Page 8

LABOUR DISPUTES

JOINT COUNCIL TRIED. AMERICAN EXPERIMENT. 250,030 WORKERS INVOLVED. The annals of Labour history in the United States contain no record til any other such institution as the Joint Council of the clothing industry created at Rochester on September 4, by representatives of the two human elements involved in the manufacture of clothing, to meet the need for law and order ari.sing from the nationalisation of the industry (says an American paper). This Joint Council stands to-day as a unique experiment, representing the attempt of serious-minded, broad-visioned men on both sides to bring about peace in an industry that always has been rent by industrial strife. Tho beginnings of this Joint Council, which was vested with the authority to fix for the spring manufacturing season in the men's clothing industry from October 1, 1913, to April 1, 1920, the wages for the quarter of a million workers involved, may be trnoed back for some 10 years to the time when Sidney Hillman, now president of the powerful industrial union known as the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, but then a young Russian Jewish emigrant, was working as a clothing cutter in tlm factory of Hart, Schaffor, and Marx, of Chicago.

A PRACTICAL DREAMER. As he worked at his bench, Hillman dreamed a dream of a day when tho manufacture of men's clothing, then one of the most underpaid and seasonal occupations, in which the economic Joss from strikes and lockouts amounted to millions of dollars annually, would be raised to the dignity of other skilled trades. He even, ventured to dream of a day when there would bo no more strikes and lock-outs; when Capital and Labour might find a common ground on which they could meet and work together for their mutual advantage. But Hillman was not alone a dreamer, ho possessed tho faculty of reducing the substance of his dreams to a tangible asset. The United Garment Workers, a labour organisation chartered by the American Federation of Labour, was then the dominant factor in the men's clothing industry, and Hillman, as a local leader in the United, proposed to Hart. Scbaffer. and Marx, his employers, that they should adopt his plan. The fundamentals of the plan included recognition of the workers' right to organise along lines of their own choosing, collective bargaining., and the establishment of a factory council of workers' and manufacturers' representatives, with equal power, which would work out in conference the problems of the t-mdo. Tho proposition was accepted bv Hart. Pcbaffrr. and Marx, and for 10 years there has not been a day's time lost in their factory throitnrh a strike or lock-out. Tn_ a Merger, broader thcf*> ar* the principles of the Joint Council of the entire industrv iuist established. TWO DECISIVE EVENTS.

Hillman's successful experiments in Chicago gave him a tremendous power in the United Garment Workers, and in 1915 he was slated for International President, but, fearing his' growing prestige, the organisation put the steam-roller over him at the Convention. Hillman's answer to this was to form the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, which in four years has grown until it includes in its membership 96 per cent, of the workers in the entire men's clothing industry of the United States and Canada.

The present movement • for law and order in the industry, however, may be said to have received its real impetus from two happenings. The first was the appointment on August 20, 1918, of Dr Meyer Jacobstein, of tho University of Rochester, as permanent representative in that market of Professor William Z. Ripley, and Louis E. Kerstein, who at that time represented the arbitration board of the market, and who had just handed down a decision on a wage increase. Then, oh Docomber 17, 1918, came the announcement by tho Amalgamated that it would extend its drive for. tho 44-hour week into every clothing market in tihe country. The first of these events established a precedent for the scientific handling of labour problems that has since brought into the industry a long array of college professors and industrial management men who are bending their energies toward putting tho industry on a stable footing, and the second forced the clothing manufacturers to rt-aliso the powqr of the Amalgamated and the necessity for co-operating with it. BIRTH OF THE COUNCIL. These significant events wore followed by tho recognition of the Amalgamated by t-w. Rochester market and the establishment of arbitration machinery for the adjustment of industrial dirteronces. This was tho real entering wedge that enabled Hillman in the next seven months to establish similar agreements in the markets of Now York, Chicago, Baltimore, Montreal, Toronto, Cincinnati and several smaller clothing centres in this country. In this short period of timo the attitude of the clothing industry towards organised labour, as represented by the Amalgamated, underwent a complete change. Finding their national organisation inadequate to deal with the Amalgamated, the clothing manufacturers on July 18, 1919, organised the National Industrial Federation of Clothing Manufacturers. During August this body met in Rochester jointly with the National Executive Board of tho Amalgamated ,and the Joint Council which hereafter will govern the industry, was the concrete result of the meeting. Speaking of the Joint Council, its aims and purposes, and what tho application of the same principles to other industries would mean, Dr Meyer Jacobstein, now chairman of the Board of Labour Managers of the Rochester market and member of the National Board of Labour i Managers of the clothing industry, said: ! PIONEERING FOR ALL INDUSTRIES. "Final and complete co-operation is attained through a joint council consisting of manufacturers on one hand, represented by the officers of the National Federation ot Clothing Manufacturers, and by a committee of the Amalgamated on the other ? Conflicts and warfare arising from differences of opinion are rendered almost impossible through the establishment of arbitration machinery to which all disputes must be referred for final adjudication. Through this machinery the clothing industry is seeking to establish law and order in industry. The American ideal of representative government by rule of majority, of fair play, teamwork, and co-operation, is made possible through such machinery. In a competitive industry like ours, Labour problems can bo solved only on a national basis, and that is why a far-reaching piece of machinery, which functions nationally, had to be set up. " Other industries that are national in scope and competitive must, sooner or later, work out the solution of their Labour problems along these lines. • For this reason, the clothing industry _ is blazing the trail, is pioneering for all industries and for* the country. "What is the next step? I venture the prediction that, when the leading industries of tho country are organised on such a. basis as the clothing industry ia organised, the next step_ will be the organisation of a National Joint Council, consisting of representatives of Capital and Labour from the different industries. This council will' sit in judgment upon Ike demands made and the politics formulated by any single industry. This Joint Council, speaking for all of the industries of the country, will set up standards of wages and production in the various industries. No one industry will be able, under this arrangement, to form a settlement at the expense of the consuming pubßc. At this point, also, the publio must necessarily bo represented by disinterested parties who may or may not be publio officials. We must work together in and by a national inclusive way, or go down together in and by a national inclusive way."