A History of Trade Unionism in the United StatesPerlman, Selig
History
A History of Trade Unionism in the United States
Perlman, Selig
Labor unions -- United States -- History
"standards of production" fixed with the aid of scientific managers
employed jointly by the employers and the union.
The spring and summer of 1921 were a time of widespread "readjustment"
strikes, or strikes against cuts in wages, especially in the building
trades. The building industry went through in 1921 and 1922 one of its
periodic upheavals against the tyranny of the "walking delegates" and
against the state of moral corruption for which some of the latter
shared responsibility together with an unscrupulous element among the
employers. In San Francisco, where the grip of the unions upon the
industry was strongest, the employers turned on them and installed the
"open-shop" after the building trades' council had refused to accept an
award by an arbitration committee set up by mutual agreement. The union
claimed, however, in self-justification that the Committee, by awarding
a _reduction_ in the wages of fifteen crafts while the issue as
originally submitted turned on a demand by these crafts for a _raise_
in wages, had gone outside its legitimate scope. In New York City an
investigation by a special legislative committee uncovered a state of
reeking corruption among the leadership in the building trades' council
and among an element in the employing group in connection with a
successful attempt to establish a virtual local monopoly in building.
Some of the leading corruptionists on both sides were given court
sentences and the building trades' council accepted modifications in the
"working rules" formulated by the counsel for the investigating
committee. In Chicago a situation developed in many respects similar to
the one in San Francisco. In a wage dispute, which was submitted by both
sides to Federal Judge K.M. Landis for arbitration, the award authorized
not only a wage reduction but a revision of the "working rules" as well.
Most of the unionists refused to abide by the award and the situation
developed into literal warfare. In Chicago the employers' side was
aggressively upheld by a "citizens' committee" formed to enforce the
Landis award. The committee claimed to have imported over 10,000
out-of-town building mechanics to take the places of the strikers.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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