Previous Publications Concerning Labor Organization

Statistics. Statistics of unions and membership in the State (for 1894 and 1895) were first published in the annual report of the Bureau of Labor Statistics for 1895. Annual statistics have been published regularly from 1897 to date. For the years 1897 and 1898 these were published only in the annual reports of the Bureau of Labor Statistics. From 1899 to 1913 summary figures were published in the Bulletin of that Bureau (quarterly in 1899 and 1900, thereafter semi-annually) which after 1900 became the Bulletin of the Department of Labor, with detailed annual figures in the annual reports of the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

A compilation of international statistics of trade unions has been published from 1901 to date, except in 1902 and 1908, in the Department Bulletins for December of 1901, March of 1905 and 1906 and September of other years.

Other Publications. Information somewhat fragmentary or general in character concerning labor organization is to be found in the reports of the Bureau of Labor Statistics for 1885 (chapter on Labor Organizations), 1888 (section on Union Rates of Wages and Hours of Labor, 1883-7) and 1894 (Growth of Organized Labor and its Accruing Benefits).

More specialized material is to be found in the following:

Laws and Court Decisions as to Labor Combination (16 pp.). Reprint from Vol. 17 of the Report of the U. S. Industrial Commission, in Annual Report of the New York Bureau of Mediation and Arbitration, 1902, p. 204. The Open-Shop Discussion (37 pp.). Annual Report of the Commissioner of Labor, 1904, p. 228.

Union Initiation Fees and Dues (65 pp.). Annual Report of Bureau of Labor Statistics, 1907, pp. lxv and 877.

History of Typographical Union No. 6 (pp. xx+717). Part I of Annual Report of Bureau of Labor Statistics for 1911.

New York laws concerning labor organization have been regularly included in the annual compilation of labor laws published in the Annual Report of the Commissioner of Labor. New York court decisions bearing on the subject have been regularly included in Bulletin summaries of all decisions concerning labor. The U. S. Supreme Court decision in the Hatters' Boycott Case, and that court's decision on the anti-discrimination clause of the Erdman Law of 1898, both in 1908, were reprinted in Bulletins Nos. 36 and 38, respectively, of that year.

Of the publications above referred to, files of which may be found in many public libraries, the Department can now supply only the following:

Quarterly Bulletins: 1899, No. 2; 1902, No. 15; 1907, No. 35; 1908, 36, 37, 38; 1911, Nos. 47, 48, 49; 1912, Nos. 51, 52, 53.

Nos.

Annual Report of the Commissioner of Labor:

1904.

Annual Reports of Bureau of Labor Statistics: 1895, 1907, 1911, 1912. Annual Report of Bureau of Mediation and Arbitration:

1902.

ALBANY

J.B LYON COMPANY, PRINTERS

Published by the State Industrial Commission

Whole No. 74

ALBANY

September, 1915

LABOR ORGANIZATIONS IN 1914

On September 30, 1914, there were in New York State 2,617 labor organizations with 595,824 members. This was a decrease of 26 in the number of organizations and of more than 69,000 in membership as compared with the corresponding date one year previous. There were 182 new organizations formed during the year but these were more than offset by a loss of 208 organizations (174 lapses and 34 amalgamations).

As will be noted on inspection of the following table, 1914 was the first year since 1908 in which a decrease in membership has been reported. The decrease was greater in absolute members than in 1908 but the percentage of decrease was smaller than in that year. Notwithstanding the decrease, the membership was 69,000 greater than in 1912 which, with the exception of 1913, was the year of greatest membership on record.

TABLE 1.— Number and MEMBERSHIP OF LABOR ORGANIZATIONS IN NEW YORK STATE, 1894–

* Decrease.

In 1888 there were 826 labor organizations in New York, but not all of them reported their membership to the Bureau. The 580 unions that made such reports had 118,628 members; assuming that the remaining 246 unions averaged the same number of members, the aggregate membership of all unions in 1888 would have been 169,000, or about 12,000 more than in 1894, when industry was in the midst of an unusually severe depression,

Cities and Villages

The distribution of labor organizations and of their membership as between New York City and the remainder of the State is given in Table 2 following. New York City had 29 per cent of the organizations and 73 per cent of the membership of the entire State. Of the total decrease in membership throughout the State during the year, 86 per cent was in New York City, but the decrease in number of organizations was confined to up-state localities. The average number of members per union was, in New York City, 566, and, in the remainder of the State, 88, a decrease of 81 and of 4 respectively as compared with the previous year. The number of localities in the State with at least one labor organization was 209, a decrease of 10 as compared with the previous year.

TABLE 2.- NUMBER AND Membership of LABOF. ORGANIZATIONS IN NEW YORK CITY and the REMAINDER OF THE STATE, 1898-1914

†The number of cities and villages with at least one labor organization in September from 1898 to 1914 was as follows:

1898 1899 1900 1901 1902 1903 1904 1905 1906 1907 1908 1909 1910 1911 1912 1913 1914 87 106 132 140 162 195 187 186 188 200 196 195 195 201 214 219 209

There were 31 localities in the State having 1,000 or more members of labor organizations on September 30, 1914, as compared with 33 such localities in 1913. (Mount Vernon) entered the list, Ogdensburg) dropped out of it.

During the year, one locality and three (Dunkirk, Ilion and In fifteen of these localities,

there were decreases in membership during the year, and in fourteen there were increases. The only locality from which as many as a thousand new members were reported was Port Chester, where the increase was caused by new unions among the building and street laborers. From these thirty-one localities were reported 95 per cent of the total union membership in the State.

TABLE 3.- NUMBER AND MEMBERSHIP OF LABOR ORGANIZATIONS IN LOCALITIES WITH 1,000 or MORE MEMBERS WITH GAINS OR LOSSES IN 1914

In Table 4 will be found the relative standing as to number of union members in the first and second class cities of the State. These nine cities contained 65 per cent of the population and 89 per cent of the union membership of the State. Schenectady, with a loss during the year of 14 per cent of its membership, dropped from fourth to fifth place, and Syracuse, which had practically an equal membership with Schenectady the year previous,

moved up to fourth place by reason of a loss of only 6 per cent. The relative standing of the other cities underwent no change. There were losses in membership in six of the nine cities, amounting to 10 per cent or more in New York City, Buffalo, Rochester, Utica, and Schenectady. The greatest gain was of 3 per cent in Troy.

TABLE 4.- PERCENTAGE OF TRADE UNIONISTS IN THE STATE AT THE END OF SEPTEMBER BELONGING TO ORGANIZATIONS IN FIRST AND SECOND CLASS CITIES AND IN THE REMAINDER OF THE STATE

Following in Table 5 is a summary of the changes in the number and in the membership of labor organizations during the year. In three industries - building, clothing and textiles, and theaters and music there were gains in the number of organizations, and in nine there were losses. In the building industry, the gain was due to new organizations of general laborers in building and street work, chiefly in New York City and vicinity. The gain in number of unions in the clothing-textile industry was chiefly in the garment and textile trades in New York City. There were also

9 new organizations of musicians and 4 of stage employees in the theaters-music group, all but one of which were up-state. Of the decrease of 21 organizations in the transportation industry, 12 were in the teaming and cab driving group, all but two of which were up-state, the remainder being distributed among all the other groups. Of the 10 organizations lost in the food-liquors industry, 9 were of workers in food products, chiefly up-state. There was no change in the number of organizations in the printing industry.

In membership, all of the industries suffered losses except three, the gains in which were slight. In the building industry, the loss