AN EXPERIMENT IN DEMOCRATIC INDUSTRIAL CONTROL

Moskowitz, Dr. Henry

An Experiment in Democratic Industrial Control What the Protocol in the Needle Working Industry Is Doing For One Hundred Thousand Workers By DR. HENRY MOSKOW1TZ ASTATE OF ORDER is emerging out of...

...Never in the history of the Cloak Makers' Union has it been possible to maintain a dues-paying membership of about forty thousand almost three years after a general strike...
...For it requires little capital to establish a small Cloak, Waist, White Goods, or Kimono factory...
...Brandeis, with his rare gift of social invention, suggested a very simple but effective solution...
...He pointed out to the unions that they have never been able in the past to maintain their fighting strength because theirs is not an instrument flexible enough to take cognizance of the peculiar conditions in their industry and to provide a way of dealing with the employers as an association...
...A New Phenomenon THIS Procotol movement is an interesting experiment in industrial democracy...
...Besides he is eager to take advantage of the increased demand for goods resulting from the cessation of work in the plants of his larger competitors...
...Louis D. Brandeis, the famous "attorney for the whole people," who suggested the idea of the Preferential Union Shop as a means of establishing permanent peace, decent working conditions, adequate wages, and democracy in the needle-working industry...
...As a leading participant in this highly significant industrial experiment, Dr...
...How to eliminate this unfair condition of competition in labor was the problem which seriously confronted the worker as well as the employer...
...In this way, the moral responsibility of the consumer for industrial decency will be enforced with the co-operation of the organized workers and employers...
...Brandeis, because it finally results in an uncontrolled and uncontrollable monopoly of labor...
...Today, over a hundred thousand workers in the needle working industries of New York City are enjoying representative industrial government provided by the Protocol...
...For only by means of two associations of more or less equal strength, negotiating with a machinery of adjustment, can approximate justice prevail...
...This was the quid pro quo which the Preferential Shop offered the employers...
...Samuel Gompers, President of the American Federation of Labor, has given it his official stamp of approval...
...It has been no easy task to organize the working population under these circumstances...
...Brandeis, therefore, suggested as a basis for permanent peace, that both sides in the industry be organized and that they deal with each other collectively...
...This could only be accomplished by recognizing the union, which could then concentrate its efforts upon those shops in which the standards of the union with respect to wages, hours, and sanitary conditions are violated: second...
...Brandeis did not omit the motive of self-interest...
...Compelled by necessity to establish their concerns in cheap and unsanitary buildings, they are not burdened with over-head charges resulting from high rents and modern sanitary conveniences...
...The last bulletin of the Joint Board of Sanitary Control contains a detailed study of the progress made by the Board in improving the sanitary conditions in this industry...
...When no adjustment is reached by the conciliation and arbitration clerks, the matter is submitted to a Board of Grievances in which both sides are equally represented...
...It is hoped that some scientific basis for the payment of a wage, just to the workers and employers alike, will be arrived at, and one of the most serious causes of strife in the Industry may thus be minimized...
...Even where there is no discrimination, the lack of harmony between the union and the non-union workers is so pronounced as to make peace within the shop almost impossible...
...No citizen who senses our common responsibility for bringing about self-government in Industry, as we are now striving to secure it in Politics, should fail to read it...
...They continue to suffer during these lean years and wait patiently for grievances to accumulate again to the breaking point when the time arrives for another strike to be called...
...Every incoming steamer leaves its load of prospective job hunters who flood the labor market...
...The establishment of representative industrial government is a new phenomenon...
...These unions are not organized in the quiet room of a board of strategy...
...This Board during the last two and one-half years has effectively improved the sanitary conditions of the Cloak and Suit Industry...
...In his appeal to the employers, Mr...
...It was difficult to convince the unions of the force of this contention...
...For over twenty-five years the workers as well as decent employers of labor have been the victims of industrial anarchy, with its tragic wake of overwork, under-pay, and their resultant evils in misery...
...This Board has seldom met, for the disputes are nearly always settled either by the clerks or the Board of Grievances...
...He must get results and he can not order the workers to return unless the concessions he has wrested have proven substantial to the majority...
...Viewed from the standpoint of democracy in its profoundest sense, such an experiment as the Protocol represents one of the most significant events in industrial history...
...unfair conditions of competition which they, as individuals or an association could not eliminate...
...The Preferential Union Shop is a psychological device...
...He is working on a very small capital...
...It is difficult for an employer, sometimes, to draw the line between aggressiveness and the legitimate assertion on the part of a union worker of his rights...
...This board consists of representatives of the Employers' Association and of the Unions, who will engage, with the cooperation of experts, in the serious study of conditions of competition in the industry,—the efficiency, cost of living, and other causes underlying the wage question...
...It must palpitate with vitality...
...It has a fluctuating personnel of workers...
...Then the numbers in the union increase, concessions are granted, and the same process of disintegration follows...
...Nevertheless, even during the period of union disintegration, the employers are subjected to harassing guerilla warfare, so that few of them can count upon sustained peace for a long period of time...
...The small man becomes the stick which the union wields over the larger employer, who can not afford to see his small competitor emerging as an actual rival and snatching away his trade...
...This article is one of the most important recent contributions to the labor problem, coming directly from the firing line of industry...
...During such busy seasons, strikes are won and the union membership swells in numbers...
...In addition to the machinery of conciliation and arbitration, the Protocol has created a Joint Board of Sanitary Control consisting of representatives of the Employers Association, the Union, and the Public...
...HENRY MOSKOWITZ is Head Worker at Madison House, New York City, and secretary of the Joint Board of Sanitary Control—and a representative of the public on that board...
...A Shifting Foundation IT IS difficult to build a house of labor on such a shifting bottom...
...They create the unfair conditions of competition which impede the progress of the workers in their quest for higher standards of living and make it difficult for the larger employers of labor to meet the just demands of their employees...
...Thirty per cent...
...There is, therefore, fluctuation not only among the workers, but among the employers...
...The result is the demoralization of the union forces...
...Moreover, the history of the labor movement shows that a "closed shop" drives an industry out of the closed shop area, so that the industry ultimately consists of small closed shop districts and larger non-union shop areas...
...This responsibility is made effective through a decision rendered by the Board of Arbitration which provides that only in case of a shop dispute can a walking delegate enter a factory and investigate the difficulty...
...The union weakens in membership and the burden of holding up its standards falls upon a loyal minority who remain steadfast to Trade Union principles in season and out...
...He showed that they had been suffering in the past from two serious disadvantages: first...
...they would always be subject to guerilla warfare, unless they made an agreement with the union that no strikes should occur in any shop until all efforts toward a peaceful settlement of grievances were exhausted...
...The prevention of frequent stoppages of work is so advantageous to manufacturers in the industry that many have joined the Association...
...An Experiment in Democratic Industrial Control Continued from page 5 employers that there were advantages to them in this arrangement...
...Moskowitz writes with authority...
...Recently, the girls employed in the Waist, Wrapper, Kimono, and White Goods Industry struck to end the abuses in their industry...
...Under the Protocol, the Unions and Associations undertake mutual responsibilities...
...The limits of this article prevent the writer from discussing in detail the work of this Board...
...Brandeis made to the Cloak Makers' Union that the Preferential Shop would strengthen the union as an instrument...
...For it is impossible, humanly impossible, to maintain an "open shop" without ultimately decreasing the union membership of the workers within that shop...
...The "open shop" does not accomplish this...
...Therefore, he beseeches the union leaders to make a settlement and willingly concedes their demands...
...He writes interestingly, also...
...The strike is the register of the accumulating grievances of the workers as well as the weapon by which these grievances are righted...
...Brandeis realized the necessity of creating a machinery of collective bargaining which could work...
...The mushroom shops multiply rapidly...
...We appreciate that it is simply a beginning in representative industrial government...
...He does not deal with a disciplined army in the military sense of that term...
...It was equally difficult to convince the Continued on page 13 DR...
...It is a successful institution...
...This will facilitate the work of the Joint Board of Sanitary Control...
...for many of the mushroom manufacturers who have eagerly signed up during the busy seasons, forget the contract when the dull season arrives, and the substantial employer, whose sense of obligation is not as mercurial as his little rival, not infrequently yields to the temptation of sending his goods to contractors who undermine union standards by paying below the wage scale of the union contract, by working their employees longer than the stipulated union hours and by violating the contracts in other ways...
...Under the Preferential Union Shop, the union is obligated to enforce the responsibilities of the workers who are not permitted arbitrarily to stop work before their grievances have been thoroughly ventilated through the machinery of adjustment provided in the Protocol...
...It can never be crystalized...
...Once it loses touch with the will of the mass its usefulness is at an end...
...Moreover, in a final struggle between labor and capital on the "closed shop" issue, labor is still too weak to win since the American public regard a "closed shop" as alien to American principles...
...We are still engaged in a struggle to establish real rule of the people...
...With such advantages, it is not difficult for the small employers to underbid the larger employers of labor in the competitive market...
...These small employers of labor climb upwards often through hard work, and self denial, and sometimes by exploiting the workers who are clamoring at their doors for a chance to make a living...
...A Basis for Industrial Peace THIRTY MONTHS of the Protocol in the Cloak and Suit Industry have confirmed the argument which Mr...
...One hundred and twenty-six years after the establishment of the American Constitution the whole nation is re-examining the basis of our democracy and the progressive movement in politics has frankly stated that our political institutions need further democratization...
...It was clear, therefore, to Mr...
...He appreciated from a study of the labor movement in the needle working industries that the unions were unstable instruments...
...The leadership of such a movement must be resourceful and absolutely democratic...
...It must also be borne in mind that many of these workers do not remain in the working class...
...The needle working industry of New York City is an immigrant institution, and like all immigrant institutions, it is'constantly in a state of flux...
...He is always accompanied by a representative of the Employers' Association...
...Every graduating class in the public schools adds to this army of the jobless, and even before graduation, hundreds and thousands of young girls obtain their working papers to swell this industrial host...
...He proved to the union that the Preferential Union Shop gave to the workers the motive of self-interest, for joining them, since under the Preferential Union Shop, members are preferred and the employers are under obligation to select union members as long as they can do the work required...
...Says Dr...
...The gains do not stay put, for the unions are unable to maintain their fighting strength long after the strike...
...Another advance over the Cloak Protocol is the provision in the Dress and Waist agreement establishing in the future a "White Label...
...HENRY MOSKOW1TZ ASTATE OF ORDER is emerging out of chaos in the needle working industries of New York City...
...The "closed shop" frequently creates a "closed" union...
...The manufacturers and workers involved now declare the arrangement "is no longer an experiment...
...This machinery of adjustment has been so successful that from December 12, 1910, to February 28, 1913, over four thousand five hundred and eighty-five grievances have been settled in this industry without recourse to a strike...
...After all, the union is not an end in itself...
...We can not be politically democratic and industrially oligarchic,—we must be either one or the other...
...Under this arrangement, the union membership is increased not by coercion, but by persuasion...
...The Protocol in the needle working industry represents a sane attempt to further representative democracy where it has made the least progress,—the field of industry...
...Besides, many employers are subjected to the temptation of preferring non-union workers, because they find them less aggressive than members of the union...
...Over forty-one thousand, six hundred and eighty-two workers or over seventy per cent...
...So long as we have an industrial oligarchy, we are a houses divided against itself...
...The strike in the garment working industries is a mass phenomenon and the strike leader is frequently the eloquent orator who makes articulate the burdens and the groans of his exploited fellow workers...
...His plant can not remain idle very long...
...It is a sieve-like process...
...We do not claim for it the virtues of a panacea...
...If they could maintain their fighting strength after a strike, then it would not be difficult for the workers to keep what they had gained during the strike...
...They spring from the discontent arising when grievances have accumulated to the breaking point and the strike occurs...
...The "White Label" will enable the consumer to cooperate with the Employers' Association and the Union in the work of industrial decency...
...A campaign of advertising by the Joint Board of Sanitary Control representing the Union, the Association, and the Public ought to create a demand for "white label" garments and thus make industrial decency a commercial asset, because it will encourage the employers to continue and develop the conditions created by the Protocol...
...The men are emerging from the proletariat into the small business class, and the women naturally leave their employment to become home-makers and home builders as wives and mothers...
...if it ceases to turn, his career as a business man is cut short...
...The "closed shop" does not accomplish this, according to Mr...
...A Step Forward THE NEW Protocol marks an advance over the original one by establishing a Wage Board...
...The label on these garments will attest to every consumer that the waist or dress purchased was made not only under sanitary conditions, but that the standards of the union with respect to hours and wages were observed...
...But this house of organized labor, built upon a shifting bottom, is continually rocking...
...He called it the Preferential Union Shop, which means a shop where union members shall be preferred as long as they can do the work required...
...It was individual bargaining which demoralized the workers and compelled employers to engage in cut-throat competition...
...Bran-deis and to those others who studied the situation deeply, that no permanent progress toward raising the standard of living of the workers was possible without eliminating the unfair conditions of competition which victimized substantial employers and workers alike...
...That strong unions have been established among the immigrants of the lower East Side is one of the most encouraging indications that these workers are eager not only to accept American standards of living, but to fight for them with the only weapon which the workers have thus far devised,—outside of State control,—the Trade Union...
...So remarkable have been the gains under the Preferential Union Shop, that Mr...
...Moskowitz, "So long as we have an industrial oligarchy we are a house divided against itself...
...It is sometimes as mercurial as the shifting bottom upon which it is built...
...The employer must actually prefer union men as long as they can do the work required and the employees must refrain from shop strikes until all efforts provided by the machinery for peacefully adjusting these grievances have been exhausted...
...Brandeis' Idea IN THE FACE of these difficulties, a new method of strengthening labor had to be devised...
...A labor organization born out of such chaos must register more movement than order...
...The Point of Contact THROUGH discrimination against union workers in the factory, through the increase of scab contractors whose shops can not easily be controlled, and through the pressure exerted by the small manufacturers on the workers to work overtime and to accept less than the union scale, there ensues a retrogression of the standards wrested through the struggle...
...It is an instrument and if some means can be devised by which this instrument is made effective, without becoming a monopoly of labor, the purposes of the union can be carried out continuously and not spasmodically...
...Here was a point of contact between the workers and the decent employers—unfair conditions of competition demoralized the union and undermined the foundations of a well-run business...
...We can not be politically democratic and industrially oligarchic—we must be either one or the other...
...that the Protocol will doubtless be modified and changed in the light of experience, but we are convinced that the principles of the Protocol must sooner or later be accepted in our industrial life if the institution of democracy is to live and grow...
...Discrimination for union activity is bound to creep in in such a shop...
...In case the Grievance Board is deadlocked, the Board of Arbitration—consisting of Louis D. Brandeis, Hamilton Holt, and Walter E. Weyl—is called in...
...They were in need of conditions which would strengthen their organization not only in times of war, but chiefly in times of peace...
...The Preferential Shop tends to strengthen both the union and the Employers' Association, thus giving the basis for industrial peace in this industry...
...The White Protocol Label will help to realize effectively in the Dress and Waist Making Industry, the aspiration of the Consumers' League...
...It was Mr...
...It helps to keep the union elastic by preventing it from closing its doors to those who desire to join, for since an employer must prefer a union man so long as he can do the work required, it is often to his interest that he encourage the worker he needs to join the union and to bear the obligations of union membership...
...The protocol in the needle-working industry represents a sane attempt to further representative democracy where it has made the least progress—the field of Industry...
...They, too, have succeeded in getting the Protocol, which gives them a minimum wage, a machinery of adjustment, conciliation, and arbitration, a wage board, and a Board of Sanitary Control...
...The shops have never been so clean, so well ventilated, so safe from the dangers of fire, as at the present moment...
...this distinction represents the difference between barbarism and civilization...
...This could be accomplished only by organization On both sides...
...Both sides are given a hearing in this way, and the vast majority of the disputes are adjusted on the premises...
...The establishment of machinery for the adjustment of grievances by committees representing employers and employees and by arbitration proceedings would tend to eliminate in large measure the stoppages of work which interfered with their business and their peace of mind...
...Good Faith" THE UNDERLYING BASIS of the Preferential Union Shop is good-faith...
...We venture to assert that political democracy will never be realized until we have industrial democracy also...
...of the shops which have not received a sanitary certificate are chiefly located on the Lower East Side where great improvement in the sanitary conditions of these shops has been effected,—though not to the extent of entitling the majority of these shops to a sanitary certificate...
...It is interesting to observe that the union takes advantage of the existence of the small mushroom employer during a strike...
...of the workers are now housed in shops which have received a sanitary certificate issued by the Board when all its standards are complied with...
...His article on this page describes an experiment in industrial self-government that is engaging the closest attention of labor leaders and students of economics everywhere in the country...

Vol. 5 • April 1913 • No. 16


 
Developed by
Kanda Sofware
  Kanda Software, Inc.