Chapter L: Section 4: provides that ‘Any difficulty or disagreement (1)

arising under this award, either as to its interpretation or
application, or in any way growing out of the relations of the
employees and employers, which cannot be settled or adjusted
by conciliation between the superintendents or managers of the
mine or mines and the miner or miners directly interested, or
is of a scope too large to be settled or adjusted, shall be
referred to a board of conciliation, to consist of six
persons, appointed as hereinafter provided. That is to say, if
there shall be a division of the whole region into three
districts, in each of which there shall exist an organization
representing a majority of the mine workers of such district,
one member of said board of conciliation shall be appointed by
each of said organizations, and three other persons shall be
appointed by the operators, the operators of said district
appointing one person.’ The award of this board of
conciliation shall be final, and in case of dispute the matter
shall be referred to an umpire appointed by one of the Circuit
judges of the Third Judicial Circuit of the United States.
There could be no clearer, no more definite, recognition of
the union than is herein provided."

LABOR ORGANIZATION: United States: A. D. 1902-1909.
The National Farmers’ Union and the
American Society of Equity.

A history of the Farmers’ National Union has been written by
its President, Charles Simon Barrett, from whose narrative the
following account is drawn. It is quoted here from the
_National Civic Federation, Review_.

"In the little town of Emory, Texas, in the year 1902, ten men
met together at various times and discussed the methods of
formulating rules and plans by which the laboring masses might
be allowed a voice in the pricing of their farm products. From
this meeting of a few plain men the Texas Union was formed.
Credit as the founder of the Farmers’ Union is given to Newt.
Gresham, of Texas, an indefatigable worker for the good of
farmers, who was long identified with the Farmers’ Alliance as
one of the organizers of that association.

"From local and State unions the organization has grown to be
a national union, holding annual conventions and gathering
into its fold an aggregation of between two and three million
members.

"The most striking feature of this great organization is the
fact that its membership is made up of employers and employés.
No line is drawn separating the farm owner, operator or
laborer, but all are received in the Farmers’ Union on one
broad platform of mutual aims and interests. Recognizing that
the good of all is the good of the individual, the Farmers’
Union, in democratic fashion, labors for the greatest good for
the greatest number.

"The Farmers’ Union works along the most practical lines.
There have been four great national meetings, the first being
held in Texarkana in 1905, and the convention of 1906 at the
same place; in 1907 the national meeting was at Little Rock,
Arkansas, and in 1908 at Fort Worth, Texas, where President
Gompers appeared. Besides the annual meetings of the National
Union several important conventions have been held: one in
January, 1907, in Atlanta, Georgia, was called as a grand
national rally. At Memphis, Tennessee, the same year, a
convention of the Farmers’ Union was held for the purpose of
devising ways and means by which the cotton then held by the
membership of the Union might be sold advantageously. At New
Orleans, 1908, another cotton growers' meeting was held, and
at Topeka, Kansas, and Atlanta, Georgia, very important
meetings were arranged between the cotton spinners and growers
of the South and representatives from many English and
continental cotton mills of Europe.

"The purpose and principles of the Farmers’ Union, as
enunciated in its constitution, afford material for an
interesting study. It declares the following purposes:

‘To establish justice.
To secure equity.
To apply the Golden Rule.
To discourage the credit and mortgage system.
To assist members in buying and selling.
To encourage the agricultural class in scientific farming.
To teach farmers the classification of crops,
domestic economy and the process of marketing.
To systematize methods of production and distribution.
To eliminate gambling in farm products by boards of trade,
cotton exchanges and other speculators.
To bring farmers up to the standard of other industries
and business enterprises.
To secure and maintain profitable and uniform prices for
grain, cotton, live stock and other products of the farm.
To strive for harmony and good will among all
mankind and brotherly love among ourselves.’"

Another extensive organization of farmers bears the name of
the American Society of Equity, which was reported in 1906,
when it went into alliance with the American Federation of
Labor, to have a membership of 268,000. This membership was
scattered principally throughout Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois,
Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Nebraska, with some members in
Kansas, Oklahoma, and Michigan.

LABOR ORGANIZATION: United States: A.D. 1903.
Establishment of the Department of Commerce and Labor
in the Federal Government.

See (in this Volume)
UNITED STATES; A. D. 1903 (FEBRUARY).

LABOR ORGANIZATION: United States: A. D. 1904.
President Roosevelt on Combinations among
Employees of the Government.

"There is no objection to employees of the Government forming
or belonging to unions; but the Government can neither
discriminate for nor discriminate against nonunion men who are
in its employment, or who seek to be employed under it.
Moreover, it is a very grave impropriety for Government
employees to band themselves together for the purpose of
extorting improperly high salaries from the Government.
Especially is this true of those within the classified
service. The letter carriers, both municipal and rural, are as
a whole an excellent body of public servants. They should be
amply paid. But their payment must be obtained by arguing
their claims fairly and honorably before the Congress, and not
by banding together for the defeat of those Congressmen who
refuse to give promises which they can not in conscience give.
The Administration has already taken steps to prevent and
punish abuses of this nature; but it will be wise for the
Congress to supplement this action by legislation."

_President's Message to Congress,
December 16, 1904._

{392}

LABOR ORGANIZATION: United States: A. D. 1904-1905.
Long unsuccessful Strike of Operators in the
Fall River Cotton Mills.

From July 25, 1904, until January 18, 1905, about 25,000
workers in the Cotton Mills of Fall River, Massachusetts, were
idle, and seventy-two mills were substantially out of
business, as the consequence of a reduction of wages which the
operatives would not consent to. Great suffering among the men
and women concerned was said to have been endured. It was
through the mediation of Governor Douglas that a settlement
was finally brought about, the work people submitting to the
reduced wages, but having the promise of some increase later
on, if an independent examination of the books of the mill
companies should show a certain stipulated percentage of
profit.

LABOR ORGANIZATION: United States: A. D. 1905 (April-July).
Strike of the Teamsters’ Union at Chicago.

One of the most violently conducted strikes that has ever
occurred in the United States was brought on at Chicago, in
the spring of 1905, by an attempt of the Teamsters’ Union in
that city to give sympathetic support to a strike of the
Garment Workers Union. The latter selected for special attack
the firm of Montgomery Ward & Co., which carries on an
enormous mail-order business, selling goods of all
descriptions through no agencies, but dealing directly with
customers in small towns and rural districts throughout the
country. This company employed few garment workers relatively:
but, probably because the magnitude and diversity of its
shipments made it particularly vulnerable to such an attack,
the teamsters began their undertaking by refusing to move its
wagons or goods. From this the movement spread, as teamsters
refusing to deliver goods to Montgomery Ward & Co. were
discharged, and the concerns discharging them were boycotted
in turn. Presently business in Chicago, to a large extent, was
brought to a stand-still. The membership of the Teamsters’
Union in the city was said to exceed 35,000, and 4000 were
estimated to be on strike at the end of the first week in May.
From this time the heat of passion in the conflict rose fast.
An Employers’ Teaming Association was organized, and the
business interests of Chicago showed readiness to fight the
striking union to a finish. Fierce attacks were made on the
non-union teamsters brought into the work, but they seem to
have been well defended by the police. In a hundred ways the
whole city was divided into factions and deplorably disturbed.
Children refused to attend schools which received coal from
boycotted companies or wagons; and arrests of both children
and parents were necessary to enforce the compulsory education
laws.

While the strike was in its earlier weeks, President Roosevelt
visited Chicago, and was called on by the President of the
Teamsters’ Union, Mr. Shea, who protested against a supposed
design to call Federal troops to the city. In reply to him the
President said: "I have not been called upon to interfere in
any way, but you must not misunderstand my attitude. In every
effort of Mayor Dunne to prevent violence by mobs or
individuals, to see that the laws are obeyed and that order is
preserved, he has the hearty support of the President of the
United States—and in my judgment he should have that of every
good citizen of the United States. … I am a believer in
unions. I am an honorary member of one union. But the union
must obey the law, just as the corporation must obey the law;
just as every man, rich or poor, must obey the law. As yet no
action whatever has been called for by me, and most certainly
if action is called for by me I shall try to do exact justice
under the law to every man, so far as I have power. But the
first essential is the preservation of law and order, the
suppression of violence by mobs or individuals."

At a banquet the same evening the President recurred to the
subject and added, with fine emphasis: "This Government is not
and never shall be the government of a plutocracy. This
Government is not and never shall be the government of a mob."
Those immediately responsible for dealing with a local
situation, the President said, must first exhaust every effort
before a call is made upon any outside body. "But," he added,
"if ever the need arises, back of the city stands the State,
and back of the State stands the Nation."

Chicago kept the conflict within itself, fighting it out
through 105 days. It ended in the unconditional defeat of the
Teamsters’ Union, which called off the strike on the 20th of
July. It was followed by a grand jury investigation of charges
which each side had hurled freely against the other, of
blackmail attempts by one, of bribery and attempted bribery by
the other. The evidence obtained left little doubt that
labor-leaders had extorted money for the prevention of
strikes, and that business men had paid for exemption from
trouble.

LABOR ORGANIZATION: United States: A. D. 1906.
Suspension of Coal Mining, both Anthracite and
Bituminous, throughout the Country.
Final Agreement for Three Coming Years.

On the 31st of March, 1906, the agreements between mine owners
and miners under which the latter had been working, in the
bituminous mines for two years and in the anthracite for
three, expired, and agreements for the future working had not
been arrived at in either case. Miners in the bituminous field
had accepted a wage reduction of five and a half per cent. in
1904, and now wanted it restored. Part of the mine owners, in
Western Pennsylvania, were willing to concede it; others, in
the more western States, stood out against them. In the
anthracite field there was also a question of wages between
miners and operators, and both sides offered arbitration, but
differed as to the point to be submitted. The miners claimed
arbitration of the general question of wages and conditions in
the mines; the operators maintained that those had been
adjudicated by the arbitration of 1903, and that the only
proper question now was whether any change in conditions had
occurred which called for a readjustment. That question they
would submit to at least a majority of the members of the
former Anthracite Coal Strike Commission, or they would agree
that the awards made in 1903 by that Commission "and the
principles upon which they were established by the Commission,
and the methods established for carrying out their awards,
shall be continued for and during the further term of three
years from the first day of April, 1906."

{393}

The 1st of April found these disagreements still existing, and
coal mining, both anthracite and bituminous, was generally
suspended throughout the United States. More than 300,000
miners, on the whole, stopped work. In the anthracite field
the suspension of work lasted until the 10th of May, when it
was resumed under an agreement which continued for another
three years (until March 31, 1909) the award of 1903. During
the forty days of idleness there were few disorders of any
kind in this region. In the soft coal fields the suspension
was more protracted. It was ended in different localities at
different times. Some mine owners, in several States, made
terms with their men at an early day. Some kept their mines
idle until the middle of July. Serious disturbances and
conflicts of rioters with police and militia occurred in a
number of States. At the end the miners had won a restoration
of the wages of 1904, but had made concessions on other points
of dispute which differed in different States.

LABOR ORGANIZATION: United States: A. D. 1907.
President Roosevelt’s Foundation for the
Promotion of Industrial Peace.

President Roosevelt, having been awarded the Nobel Prize of
the year 1906 for his services in the interest of
international peace, devoted the sum received, being somewhat
more than $40,000, to the creation of a fund "the income of
which shall be expended for bringing together in conference at
the city of Washington, especially during the sessions of
congress, representatives of labor and capital for the purpose
of discussing industrial problems, with the view of arriving
at a better understanding between employers and employés, and
thus promoting industrial peace." To carry out this purpose,
an organization was incorporated by Act of Congress, March 2,
1905, under the name of the "Foundation for the Promotion of
Industrial Peace," with trustees named as follows:

Chief Justice Melville W. Fuller, president;
Seth Low of New York, representing the general public,
treasurer;
John Mitchell of the United Mine Workers of America,
representing labor, secretary;
Thomas G. Bush of Birmingham, Ala.,
representing general public;
Marvin A. Hughitt, representing capital, and
Secretaries James Wilson and Oscar Solomon Straus.

Vacancies in the board to be filled by the President of the
United States. The Trustees to pay over the income of the
Foundation, or such part as they may apportion, to an
Industrial Peace Committee, of nine members, selected and
appointed by the Trustees, "three members of this committee to
be representatives of labor, three to be representatives of
capital, each chosen for distinguished services in the
industrial world in promoting righteous industrial peace, and
three members to represent the general public." As originally
appointed, this Committee was made up of the following
persons:

"Archbishop John Ireland,
Marcus M. Marks of New York,
Ralph M. Easley of New York,
Elbert H. Gary, chairman finance committee
United States Steel Corporation;
Lucius Tuttle, president of Boston & Maine railroad;
J. Gunby Jordan of Columbus, Georgia;
Samuel Gompers, president of the
American Federation of Labor;
Daniel Keefe, president of the Longshoremen’s association, and
Warren S. Stone, president International Brotherhood
of Locomotive Engineers."

LABOR ORGANIZATION: United States: A. D. 1907.
Abortive Strike of Telegraphers.

A widely organized and considerably prolonged strike of
American telegraph operators, in the fall of 1907, was made
abortive by the fact that the supply of men and women who have
some training for the ordinary work of telegraphy is too large
for a trade union to control the employment of it. The
telegraphic service was made very imperfect for some weeks,
and the public was subjected to much inconvenience; but the
employing companies were brought to no such straits as could
be coercive. The struggle of the operators was mainly for the
recognition of their union, to secure negotiation with them as
a body, for the adjusting of some conditions of which they
complained. They suffered absolute defeat, and had to make
terms individually at the end.

LABOR ORGANIZATION: United States: A. D. 1907 (April).
Threatened Railway Strike averted by Federal Intermediation.

A strike of trainmen and conductors on railways west of
Chicago which threatened to be very serious was averted, in
April, 1907, by the intermediation of the Chairman of the
Interstate Commerce Commission and the Commissioner of Labor,
acting in obedience to the Erdman Law, so called, of 1898.
Both parties to the dispute made concessions. The employés
withdrew their demand for a nine-hour work day, and the
railway companies made an advance in wages which was estimated
to add over $5,000,000 to the earnings of 50,000 men during
the ensuing year.

LABOR ORGANIZATION: United States: A. D. 1908.
The Work of the National Civic Federation in Promotion
of Trades Agreements.

The following is from the annual address of President Seth Low
to the National Civic Federation, at its annual meeting in New
York on the 14th of December, 1908. The special subject of
discussion at the meeting was "The Trade Agreement," on which
Mr. Low spoke in part as follows:

"It has been our good fortune during the year to associate Mr.
John Mitchell with the active work of the Federation, as the
Chairman of its Trades Agreement Department. Mr. Mitchell
entered upon his duties on August 1, and we have already had
many opportunities to perceive the advantage to our work
likely to result from his permanent connection with it.
Through correspondence with labor unions and with the
employers who have trade agreements with labor unions, he is
building up an exceedingly strong department, the influence of
which ought to be very helpfully felt in furthering the use of
the trade agreement as a means for promoting industrial peace
and progress.

"There are still some, though they are fewer in number than
they used to be, who maintain that the relation of the
employer to the employé is an individual one, and who
therefore will not deal with men as members of an organization
in matters relating to their employment. I read in the paper
the other day that there are 89,000 stockholders in the
Pennsylvania Railroad Company. No one contends that these
people organize into a company in order to fight labor. They
organize because they have to in order to work together, and,
as a result of organizing, they are represented in every use
made of their capital by their officers. Can any one seriously
contend that these 89,000 stockholders, speaking through their
officers, are justified in saying to their 160,000 employés,
‘We insist upon dealing with you, man by man; we will not
recognize your organization.’ Is it not rather clear, that the
160,000 employés, so far as their interests are common, must
unite if they are to have anything at all to say as to the
conditions upon which they will work, and, if they unite, they
must have an organization and they must be represented by
their officers? …

{394}

"Take another illustration: The United States Steel
Corporation employs, in round numbers, 200,000 men. Of this
vast army of workmen about 44,000, nearly all of them
representatives of organized labor, own stock in the
corporation. In their capacity as stockholders, these 44,000
workmen are represented by the officers of the corporation.
Can it be contended that they are any the less free, or have
any less right, to be represented, in their capacity as
workmen, by the chosen representatives of their trade
organization? And when the two attributes of holding stock and
taking employment are thus united in the same persons, will
any one any longer contend that these men, as workmen,
organize for the purpose of antagonizing themselves as
capitalists?

"Now it is out of conditions that have produced a situation
like this that the so-called ‘trade agreement’ has sprung. In
its simplest statement, a trade agreement is an agreement
between organized stockholders and organized workmen, both
acting through their chosen representatives, to determine, for
the period of the agreement, the general terms of employment
of the various classes of workingmen concerned. That each side
tries to make the best bargain it can, goes without saying.
That conditions favor sometimes one side and sometimes the
other is equally true. That each side tends, when it has in
its turn the upper hand, to push the other too hard is not
improbable. But just as certainly as a pendulum, after
swinging from one side to the other, tends to rest in a
position of equilibrium, so such trade agreements tend to
relieve the trade to which they apply of the extreme swing
from conditions favoring capital to conditions favoring labor,
and _vice versa_, which so often spells disaster to
capital and labor alike. In other words, trade agreements that
are revisable from time to time certainly make for industrial
peace, and they ought as certainly to make for industrial
progress. In the meanwhile they are constantly educating
everybody concerned into a realization of the fundamental
importance of keeping faith."

LABOR ORGANIZATION: United States: A. D. 1908-1909.
The Question of Injunctions in Labor Disputes.

See (in this Volume)
LAW AND ITS COURTS: UNITED STATES.

LABOR ORGANIZATION: United States: A. D. 1908-1909.
Union Boycotting a Violation of the Sherman Anti-Trust Law.
The American Federation of Labor and the Bucks Stove Company.
Alleged Contempt of Court by President Gompers and others.

Early in 1908 the Supreme Court of the United States gave
final decision to a case in which the Hatters’ Union and the
American Federation of Labor were proceeded against, for
boycotting the goods of a hat manufacturing firm which refused
to unionize its factory. As the plaintiffs in the suit sold
their hats in many States, the boycott was alleged to be a
combination in restraint of interstate commerce, and a
violation, therefore, of the anti-trust law. The United States
Circuit Court had dismissed the complaint, and the Court of
Appeals had affirmed its decree; but the Supreme Court, by a
unanimous decision, overruled both. It held that the law in
question is violated by a combination to prevent the sale of
non-union articles in different States.

[Under this decision, in a suit by the hat manufacturing
company against the Hatters’ Union for damages, a jury at
Hartford, Connecticut, on the 3d of February, 1910, awarded
$74,000 to the former. The Union has appealed from the
verdict.]

The attitude of law toward trade union boycotting was
exhibited a year later in another more notable case, which
arose from action taken by the American Federation of Labor
against the Bucks Stove Company. In March 1907, the Federation
had proclaimed a boycott against that company, advertising it
in the official organ of the Federation as one which "we don’t
patronize," and taking measures to prevent tradesmen from
buying the company’s stoves. A suit to enjoin this boycott was
brought, and the injunction was granted, in December, 1907, by
Judge Gould, of the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia.
The issuance of the injunction was made dependent, however, on
the filing of a bond by the plaintiff, to make good all
damages if the injunction should not finally be sustained, and
an interval of six days occurred before the filing of the bond
made the injunction effective. In that interval, many copies
of a publication which the injunction would forbid were sent
out by mail from the headquarters of the Federation, and more
or less of these copies reached their destination after the
injunction became of force. This proceeding, together with
various devices by which the officers of the Federation had
sought to evade the injunction, through covert allusions to
the boycott, became the ground of a charge that the principal
officers of the Federation, Samuel Gompers, John Mitchell, and
Frank Morrison, had violated the injunction and been guilty of
contempt of court. On this charge, in July, 1908, these
officials were ordered to show cause, on the 8th of September
following, why they should not be punished for contempt. The
case came then before another judge, Daniel T. Wright, whose
judgment, rendered near the end of the year, held them guilty
of contempt and sentenced them to imprisonment, severally, for
one year, for nine months and for six months.

Appeal from the injunction, meantime, had been taken to the
Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia, and there, on
the 11th of March, 1909, it received a modification which
seems, practically, to have extinguished the contempt. The
Court held that the decree should be modified to the extent
that it shall only restrain the defendants from conspiring or
combining to boycott the business of the Bucks Stove & Range
Company or threatening or declaring any boycott or assisting
therein, and from printing the name of the complainant, its
business or product in the "we don’t patronize" or "unfair"
list of defendants in furtherance of any boycott. The court
held that the defendants cannot be restrained from all
publications referring to the Bucks company, but only such as
are made in furtherance of an illegal boycott.

On the appeal from the decree of the Court which adjudged
Gompers, Morrison, and Mitchell to be guilty of contempt of
court, the District Court of Appeals, on the 2d of November,
1909, affirmed that decree, and the sentence of Judge Wright
was thus in force. A stay was given to it for a time, during
which a writ of certiorari was obtained from the Supreme Court
of the United States, which will review the whole case, but
not until October, 1910.

{395}

LABOR ORGANIZATION: United States: A. D. 1909.
Expiration and Renewal of the Three Year Agreement
in the Anthracite Coal Districts.
Report of the Conciliation Board for the past Three Years.

Again, in the spring of 1909, at the end of a three year term
of agreement (see above, A. D. 1906), the anthracite coal
miners and their employers were in controversy over a renewal
of the agreement. The latter proffered a renewal, without
change, for another three years. The miners, in convention, at
Scranton, on March 23d and 24th, refused the offer unless the
agreement should be signed by them as members of the United
Mine Workers of America, recognizing their organization. In
this they were upheld by the new President of the United Mine
Workers, Thomas L. Lewis, successor to Mr. John Mitchell,
whose state of health had compelled him to resign. The old
agreement expired on the 31st of March, and nothing was
formulated at the time in its place, except a verbal
understanding that, pending further conferences, the miners
would continue work on the former terms. Later, however, it
was stated that the Board of Conciliation, created by the
strike commission of 1902, had been continued for a further
period of three years.

At the end of August, 1909, the Conciliation Board published a
report of the last three years of its work, in the settling of
differences between mine-workers and operators. Only
twenty-three grievances were presented to the mediators
between April 1, 1906, and April 1, 1909, as compared with 150
grievances in the preceding three years. The Volume issued
three years ago contained 336 pages. This year only 69 pages
are required to tell of the grievances and settlement. A
number of the grievances covered in the new report were
settled out of court. Of the others, some were decided in
favor of the employees, some for the employers. In three years
only three grievances had to be referred to an umpire. As the
purposes of the board have become more clearly understood, a
greater number of differences have been settled without
reaching the stage of formal complaints. The members use their
influence with the contestants to effect a compromise,
avoiding the delay occasioned by a formal investigation.

LABOR ORGANIZATION: United States: A. D. 1909 (May-June).
The Georgia Railroad Strike.

See (in this Volume)
Race Problems: United States: A. D). 1909.

LABOR ORGANIZATION: United States: A. D. 1909-1910.
Strike of Girls in the Shirtwaist Trade at New York.
Its Social Significance.

One of the most important of recent labor strikes, in its
social aspect, was undertaken in November, 1909, by the
shirtwaist-makers of New York City, mostly girls. At the
outset, the strikers numbered between 25,000 and 30,000; but
half of them, by the middle of December, had made terms with
their employers and resumed work. Ten or fifteen thousand were
still in heroic contention with obstinate masters of the
trade, and having public opinion and sympathy very strongly on
their side. "The strike began," says the New York _Evening
Post_, "in a multiplicity of causes. Wages, sanitary
conditions in the shops, humane treatment by foremen and
forewomen, and recognition of the Waistmakers’ Union all
played a part. The contest has now [December 15] settled down
to the single question of the union shop. The employers
profess themselves ready to arbitrate every other point in
dispute. The strikers maintain that recognition of their union
is their only guarantee against the recurrence of conditions
such as precipitated the conflict. … It would be easy to
exaggerate the significance of the eager way in which the
Suffragist leaders have thrown themselves into the conflict.
It is even easy to exaggerate the significance of the way in
which women of wealth and social prominence have come out in
support of the strike. More significant to us is the zeal with
which women of no very great social prominence, but still not
of the working class, have from the beginning given their
services in organizing and managing the strike, and
particularly in doing picket duty on the streets and defending
the rights of the girl employés before the police magistrates
and in the courts. Here evidently is a sex-sentiment which
cuts across the boundaries of class and bids fair to give a
new aspect to labor conflicts of the future in which women are
involved. The present strike has a social significance quite
beyond the questions immediately at issue. It is our first
great woman’s strike, and as such it signalizes in a dramatic
fashion woman’s invasion into the field of industry."

----------LABOR ORGANIZATION: End--------

----------LABOR PROTECTION: Start--------

EMPLOYERS’ LIABILITY
INDUSTRIAL INSURANCE
HOURS OF LABOR,
etc.

LABOR PROTECTION:
Safety Guards.
Employers’ Liability.
Insurance, etc.
The Needed Law.

"In order to protect workingmen against injury by disease or
negligent arrangements of machinery and ways, we need a state
code of regulations which will prescribe protective devices,
provide faithful inspectors and punish those guilty of
violating the law. The roundabout method of making employers
liable for damages in case of negligence has little effect,
because employers can buy legal protection and wage-earners
have no money for law suits. Employers’ liability laws may be
made more severe and drastic; by statutes the obnoxious
‘fellow servant’ factor may be eliminated; various other
provisions may be enacted by Congress and by state
legislatures to extend somewhat the definition of negligence;
but no law of this kind ever was made or ever can be made
which will protect workmen from the loss of wages not clearly
due to negligence of employers. An employer cannot be made
‘liable’ for defects for which he or his agent is not
responsible. It is sheer waste of time to labor for
improvement of a law whose fundamental principle covers only
cases of employers’ fault, because a vast number of injuries
are due to causes which the utmost care cannot prevent.

{396}

"In order to secure income in periods of incapacity for labor
several legal ways are open. The British method has much to
commend it and finds favor with many Americans, the method
based on the principle of ‘compensation.’ In Great Britain the
old liability law is left to stand, like a rotting trunk, by
the side of the new and living tree of the ‘compensation’ law.
By the terms of this new law, enacted in 1897 and extended
1907 to certain trade diseases, the employer is required to
pay indemnity to any employé who is injured in health or limb
by accident or any cause due to the trade, and in case of
death his dependent family is paid a certain sum for support.
The employer resting under this obligation is permitted to
meet it any way he can find. Usually he will bargain with an
insurance company to carry his legal risk for a premium. It is
said the insurance companies are putting up the rates, but
Britishers will discover a way to cover the risk in the
cheapest form. Already our federal government has embodied
this ‘compensation’ principle in a law which gives a meagre
sum to its own employés of certain classes when injured in its
service; and the example of the central government will
probably soon be imitated in several states. Bills are now
being drawn for this purpose.

"The ‘social insurance’ principle is entirely different from
that of either ‘liability’ or ‘compensation.’ The word
‘compensation’ carries a little of the flavor of the ancient
damage suit, while ‘insurance’ is simply an amicable business
arrangement to provide in advance for the inevitable average
risk of the trade, which may be extended beyond the perils of
the shop and mill to all places and conditions of the
workman's life.

"Historically the unquestioned tendency is from the liability
principle to the direct insurance principle, with a wayside
inn, perhaps, in some law like that of Great Britain, the law
of France being almost squarely on the social insurance ground
so far as it goes.

"The Illinois Industrial Insurance Commission proposed a law
based on the insurance principle, though its friends were
compelled to stop at a compromise with existing laws and
constitutions. The bill offered by that commission was based
on permission and persuasion; it offered to the employers who
would provide an adequate system of insurance against trade
accidents, freedom from the sword of the existing liability
law; and it offered to the workmen, if they were willing to
accept these terms, an assured income in case of injury and to
their dependents relief in case of death due to occupation. A
law passed by the Legislature of Massachusetts, in May, 1908,
has actually embodied this idea and set it to work in the
field of experiment. It remains to be seen whether the motives
mentioned will induce employers and employés to agree on the
plan. Without agreement the law will be a dead letter, for it
is merely permissive, and agreements will not be made unless
the economic motive is adequate. Up to this writing (December
7) not a single employer has organized a scheme under this
law.

"The Wisconsin Board of Labor has made what seems a wise
proposition to the effect that employers be compelled to
insure their employés up to the ordinary amount already known
to be spent for litigation, casualty insurance premiums and
other expenses; and they also properly suggest state
organization for the collection and administration of the
premiums.

"The recent International Congress on Workingmen’s Insurance,
after many years of debate, reached conclusions of vast
import, happily without dissent. One conclusion was that all
attempts to insure the workmen who most need it, whose pay is
small and uncertain, and who are not organized, must prove
failures. Delegates from France and England who have always
stood for ‘liberty’ have come to admit this truth. Not even
subsidies to voluntary insurance associations have been
effective. Only when insurance is made compulsory on all does
it reach the multitude of the wage-earners. But compulsion to
insure may include liberty of method, if the plan adopted is
approved by legal authority and by actuaries. Either private
companies, mutual associations, or state departments of
insurance may be trusted to conduct the plans once they are
obligatory on all.

"Another interesting conclusion at the Rome congress was that
compulsory insurance can cover only a minimum guarantee of
income to the sick, wounded or invalid workman; while above
this minimum, with advancing wages, workmen and their
employers can well unite in providing more generously for loss
of income by voluntary payments of higher premiums. Trade
unions, fraternal societies and other organizations, as well
as casualty companies, have before them an indefinite field
for expanding their activities in this direction."

_Charities and the Commons,
March 13, 1909._

LABOR PROTECTION: Accident and Sickness Insurance:
Proposed Amendments to the German Compulsory Insurance Laws.

A Bill to amend the compulsory insurance laws of Germany which
was laid by the Imperial Government before the Federal Council
in April, 1909, to be acted on in the course of the ensuing
year, is described in part elsewhere.

See, in Volume IV. of this work,
SOCIAL MOVEMENTS: A. D. 1883-1889.

See in Volume VI.
GERMANY: A. D. 1897-1900.

See in this Volume,
POVERTY, PROBLEMS OF: PENSIONS.

Of the contemplated amendments that relate to accident and
sickness insurance it was announced, that "the proposed
amendments of the law of accident insurance are mainly formal,
but the scheme of insurance against illness is to be largely
extended, and will include practically all classes of workers
for whom insurance against invalidity and old age is or is to
be compulsory. On the one hand, the system will in future
include agricultural labourers, workers engaged for less than
one week, and assistants and apprentices, whose insurance is
not at present compulsory. On the other hand, it will include
such categories of workers as stage and orchestra
_employés_, and teachers who are not in the service of
the State, if their salaries do not exceed £100 a year. The
crews of seagoing ships, as well as of vessels plying on
inland waterways, are now brought into the general sick
insurance system."

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LABOR PROTECTION:
Accidents to Workmen in the United States.
The Death Roll.
Appalling Statistics.

"Mr. Frederick L. Hoffman, of the Bureau of Labor, Department
of Commerce and Labor, has compiled some striking statistics
concerning the subject of accidents to workingmen. The
importance of this subject is apparent when it is considered
that between 30,000 and 35,000 workmen lose their lives in
accidents in the course of their employment in this country
during a year. Statistics have been secured from official
sources and from insurance experience which show that the
accident liability to which American workmen are subject is
indeed high. Census reports covering the years 1900 to 1906
show that out of over 1,000,000 deaths of males more than nine
per cent. were due to accident. The liability of workmen to
accidental injury or death is brought under five general
classifications, including factories and workshops, electrical
industries, mines and quarries, transportation by rail and
transportation by water. Of those employed in factories and
workshops, probably the most exposed class is the workers in
iron and steel. Of 8,456 accidents during the years 1901 to
1905, 4.1 per cent, of the accidents to men employed in
rolling mills resulted fatally. According to industrial
insurance experience, the fatal-accident rate of electricians
and of electric linemen is excessive. Of 645 deaths of
electricians, 14.7 per cent., and of 240 deaths of linemen,
46.7 per cent., were due to accidents. In the anthracite mines
of Pennsylvania state inspectors have found that during ten
years there have averaged annually 3.18 fatal accidents for
every 1,000 men employed, and the rate is even higher than
this for certain specific occupations in the mines. That this
rate is excessive is shown by comparison with the death rate
from accident of 1.29 per 1,000 in the British coal mines.
Reports of the Interstate Commerce Commission show that during
ten years 16,363 railway trainmen lost their lives in
accidents. This is equivalent to 7.46 deaths per 1,000
employés."

_Electrical Review,
January 2, 1909._

LABOR PROTECTION:
Child Labor.

See (in this Volume)
CHILDREN, UNDER THE LAW: AS WORKERS.

LABOR PROTECTION: Employers’ Liability in Great Britain.
The Workmen’s Compensation Act of 1906.

The Workmen’s Compensation Act which passed the British
Parliament in December, 1906, has the core of its purpose in
the first of two appended schedules, which fixes the "Scale
and Conditions of Compensation," in the following terms:

"(1) The amount of compensation under this Act shall be—

"(_a_) where death results from the injury—

"(_i_) if the workman leaves any dependants wholly
dependent upon his earnings, a sum equal to his earnings in
the employment of the same employer during the three years
next preceding the injury, or the sum of one hundred and
fifty pounds, whichever of those sums is the larger, but
not exceeding in any case three hundred pounds, provided
that the amount of any weekly payments made under this Act,
and any lump sum paid in redemption thereof, shall be
deducted from such sum, and, if the period of the workman’s
employment by the said employer has been less than the said
three years, then the amount of his earnings during the
said three years shall be deemed to be one hundred and
fifty-six times his average weekly earnings during the
period of his actual employment under the said employer;

"(_ii_) if the workman does not leave any such
dependants, but leaves any dependants in part dependent
upon his earnings, such sum, not exceeding in any case the
amount payable under the foregoing provisions, as may be
agreed upon, or, in default of agreement, may be
determined, on arbitration under this Act, to be reasonable
and proportionate in the injury to the said dependants; and

"(_iii_) if he leaves no dependants, the reasonable
expenses of his medical attendance and burial, not
exceeding ten pounds;

"(_b_) where total or partial incapacity for work results
from the injury, a weekly payment during the incapacity not
exceeding fifty per cent. of his average weekly earnings
during the previous twelve months, if he has been so long
employed, but if not then for any less period during which he
has been in the employment of the same employer, such weekly
payment not to exceed one pound:

"Provided that—

"(_a_) if the incapacity lasts less than two weeks no
compensation shall be payable in respect of the first week;
and

"(_b_) as respects the weekly payments during total
incapacity of a workman who is under twenty-one years of age
at the date of the injury, and whose average weekly earnings
are less than twenty shillings, one hundred per cent, shall be
substituted for fifty per cent. of his average weekly
earnings, but the weekly payment shall in no case exceed ten
shillings.

"(2) For the purposes of the provisions of this schedule
relating to ‘earnings’ and ‘average weekly earnings’ of a
workman, the following rules shall be observed:—

"(_a_) average weekly earnings shall be computed in such
manner as is best calculated to give the rate per week at
which the workman was being remunerated. Provided that where
by reason of the shortness of the time during which the
workman has been in the employment of his employer, or the
casual nature of the employment, or the terms of the
employment, it is impracticable at the date of the accident to
compute the rate of remuneration, regard may be had to the
average weekly amount which, during the twelve months previous
to the accident, was being earned by a person in the same
grade, employed at the same work by the same employer, or, if
there is no person so employed, by a person in the same grade
employed in the same class of employment and in the same
district;

"(_b_) where the workman had entered into concurrent
contracts of service with two or more employers under which he
worked at one time for one such employer and at another time
for another such employer, his average weekly earnings shall
be computed as if his earnings under all such contracts were
earnings in the employment of the employer for whom he was
working at the time of the accident;

"(_c_) employment by the same employer shall be taken to
mean employment by the same employer in the grade in which the
workman was employed at the time of the accident,
uninterrupted by absence from work due to illness or any other
unavoidable cause;

"(_d_) Where the employer has been accustomed to pay to
the workman a sum to cover any special expenses entailed on
him by the nature of his employment, the sum so paid shall not
be reckoned as part of the earnings.

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"(3) In fixing the amount of the weekly payment, regard shall
be had to any payment, allowance, or benefit which the workman
may receive from the employer during the period of his
incapacity, and in the case of partial incapacity the weekly
payment shall in no case exceed the difference between the
amount of the average weekly earnings of the workman before
the accident and the average weekly amount which he is earning
or is able to earn in some suitable employment or business
after the accident, but shall bear such relation to the amount
of that difference as under the circumstances of the case may
appear proper.

"(4) Where a workman has given notice of an accident, he
shall, if so required by the employer, submit himself for
examination by a duly qualified medical practitioner provided
and paid by the employer, and, if he refuses to submit himself
to such examination, or in any way obstructs the same, his
right to compensation, and to take or prosecute any proceeding
under this Act in relation to compensation, shall be suspended
until such examination has taken place."

Further clauses of this schedule, and of the second schedule,
which relates to the arbitration of disputed matters, are
prescriptive in detail of procedure for carrying out the
orders stated above. The liability of the employer and its
limitations are set forth in the body of the Act, as follows:

"I.
(1) If in any employment personal injury by accident arising
out of and in the course of the employment is caused to a
workman, his employer shall, subject as hereinafter mentioned,
be liable to pay compensation in accordance with the First
Schedule to this Act.

(2) Provided that—

"(_a_) The employer shall not be liable under this Act in
respect of any injury which does not disable the workman for a
period of at least one week from earning full wages at the
work at which he was employed:

"(_b_) When the injury was caused by the personal
negligence or wilful act of the employer or of some person for
whose act or default the employer is responsible, nothing in
this Act shall affect any civil liability of the employer, but
in that case the workman may, at his option, either claim
compensation under this Act or take proceedings independently
of this Act; but the employer shall not be liable to pay
compensation for injury to a workman by accident arising out
of and in the course of the employment both independently of
and also under this Act, and shall not be liable to any
proceedings independently of this Act, except in case of such
personal negligence or wilful act as aforesaid:

"(_c_) If it is proved that the injury to a workman is
attributable to the serious and wilful misconduct of that
workman, any compensation claimed in respect of that injury
shall, unless the injury results in death or serious and
permanent disablement, be disallowed.

"(3) If any question arises in any proceedings under this Act
as to the liability to pay compensation under this Act
(including any question as to whether the person injured is a
workman to whom this Act applies), or as to the amount or
duration of compensation under this Act, the question, if not
settled by agreement, shall, subject to the provisions of the
First Schedule to this Act, be settled by arbitration, in
accordance with the Second Schedule to this Act."

LABOR PROTECTION: In New Zealand:
Compensation for "Miners’ Disease."

In the later part of 1908 a singular labor strike was caused
in New Zealand by legislation making "miners’ disease" a
ground of compensation from employers. The men refused to be
examined for the disease, and the masters refused to engage
them without examination; while the Government, which
apparently expected masters to take the risk of engaging men
already diseased, itself refused to admit the miners to the
benefits of State insurance without examination.

A despatch from Wellington, January 9, 1909, announced: "The
Waihi miners have unanimously refused to submit to medical
examination, and 1,700 men will cease work on Monday unless
the owners concede the point. The outlook is serious and the
township is depressed. The Auckland coal miners remain idle,
and consequently part of the coast fleet is laid up and a
number of hands have been discharged." But a later despatch of
the same date added: "The Government have now resolved to
accept the risk of insuring the miners without examination,
pending an amendment of the Act next session.

LABOR PROTECTION: In the United States:
On Interstate Railways.

In his message to Congress, December, 1908, the President
referred to this enactment, which he had approved in the
previous April:

"Among the excellent laws which the Congress passed at the
last session was an employers’ liability law. It was a marked
step in advance to get the recognition of employers’ liability
on the statute books; but the law did not go far enough. In
spite of all precautions exercised by employers there are
unavoidable accidents and even deaths involved in nearly every
line of business connected with the mechanic arts. This
inevitable sacrifice of life may be reduced to a minimum, but
it can not be completely eliminated. It is a great social
injustice to compel the employee, or rather the family of the
killed or disabled victim, to bear the entire burden of such
an inevitable sacrifice. In other words, society shirks its
duty by laying the whole cost on the victim, whereas the
injury comes from what may be called the legitimate risks of
the trade. Compensation for accidents or deaths due in any
line of industry to the actual conditions under which that
industry is carried on should be paid by that portion of the
community for the benefit of which the industry is carried
on—that is, by those who profit by the industry. If the entire
trade risk is placed upon the employer he will promptly and
properly add it to the legitimate cost of production and
assess it proportionately upon the consumers of his commodity.
It is therefore clear to my mind that the law should place
this entire ‘risk of a trade’ upon the employer. Neither the
Federal law, nor, as far as I am informed, the State laws
dealing with the question of employers’ liability are
sufficiently thorogoing. The Federal law should of course
include employees in navy-yards, arsenals, and the like."

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The following is the text of the Act:

"Section 1.
That every common carrier by railroad while engaging in
commerce between any of the several States or Territories, or
between any of the States and Territories, or between the
District of Columbia and any of the States or Territories, or
between the District of Columbia or any of the States or
Territories and any foreign nation or nations, shall be liable
in damages to any person suffering injury while he is employed
by such carrier in such commerce, or, in case of the death of
such employee, to his or her personal representative, for the
benefit of the surviving widow or husband and children of such
employee; and, if none, then of such employee’s parents; and,
if none, then of the next of kin dependent upon such employee,
for such injury or death resulting in whole or in part from
the negligence of any of the officers, agents or employees of
such carrier, or by reason of any defect or insufficiency, due
to its negligence, in its cars, engines, appliances,
machinery, track, roadbed, works, boats, wharves, or other
equipment.

"Section 2.
That every common carrier by railroad in the Territories, the
District of Columbia, the Panama Canal Zone, or other
possessions of the United States shall be liable in damages to
any person suffering injury while he is employed by such
carrier in any of said jurisdictions, or, in case of the death
of such employee, to his or her personal representative, for
the benefit of the surviving widow or husband and children of
such employee; and, if none, then of such employee’s parents;
and, if none, then of the next of kin dependent upon such
employee, for such injury or death resulting in whole or in
part from the negligence of any of the officers, agents, or
employees of such carrier, or by reason of any defect or
insufficiency, due to its negligence, in its cars, engines,
appliances, machinery, track, roadbed, works, boats, wharves,
or other equipment.