For several years there has been talk of a universal label, to take the place of all the labels of the trades. The convention of 1898, and again that of 1899, directed the executive council to consider the feasibility of the plan and to confer with the unions which have labels of their own. The council has taken legal advice as to the possibility of protecting a universal label issued by the Federation. It seems not entirely clear that such a label could be protected. There seems to be a possibility of trouble from the federal character of the organization.

Journal. When the new constitution was adopted, in 1886, it was made one of the duties of the president to publish a monthly journal. A journal called the Union Advocate was accordingly issued for a few months, beginning in June, 1887. The provision for it was abolished, however, by the convention of 1887, and the president was directed to "publish a small quarterly circular."

The convention of 1893 authorized the President to issue a monthly magazine for the discussion of labor and its interests in all its phases. Under this authority the Federationist was established in January, 1894. It is a monthly magazine containing from 32 to 40 pages of reading matter. It prints every month a detailed statement of the receipts and expenditures of the Federation, many pages of condensed reports from national union officers and from organizers in the field, editorial comment, and contributed articles on matters of interest to labor. It also prints the Federation's "We don't patronize" list, or list of boycotted firms.

In the convention of 1897 a resolution was introduced providing that the Federationist should not receive any advertisement from any person, firm, or corporation which did not employ union labor in all branches of its establishment. President Gompers declared that if such a rule were adopted for all labor publications it would put every labor paper out of existence. The resolution was defeated.'

CHAPTER IV.

LABOR ORGANIZATIONS IN THE TEXTILE, CLOTHING, AND ALLIED TRADES.

BOOT AND SHOE WORKERS' UNION.

History. The first great organization of the boot and shoe workers was the Knights of St. Crispin, formed in 1867. It reached the zenith of its power in 1869. It had a monthly journal and various cooperative stores, and it won a large number of strikes. In its best estate it had between 40,000 and 50,000 members. It took part in the political discussions of the seventies, and dissensions over political questions doubtless contributed to its downfall. By 1874 its power had departed, although lodges of it continued to exist a dozen years longer.

The Lasters' Protective Union was formed at Lynn in 1879. This organization maintained a continuous existence till it joined the Boot and Shoe Workers' Union, in 1895, although many members of it were Knights of Labor during the flourishing period of the Knights.

The shoe workers were among the first to join the Knights of Labor, and they always furnished the principal strength of the order in New England. Up to 1884 the Knights had comparatively few other members in that region, and even in their most flourishing period, about 1886, nearly half of the New England Knights were said to be shoe workers. In 1889, after the power and prestige of the Knights had greatly decayed, the Boot and Shoe Workers' Union was formed and affiliated with the American Federation of Labor. In 1895 the Lasters Protective Union was amalgamated with it. At this time the constitution was remodeled and a substantially new organization was created. There was a strenuous contest between the advocates of high dues and benefits and the advocates of low dues. The low dues won. The payments were fixed at 10 cents a week. No benefits were provided for. It is said by Mr. George E. McNeil, in an article published in the official journal of the union for June, 1900, that the old organizations which amalgamated contained approximately 12,000 members, but that it was about a year before the new organization had that number; that in 1896 the membership approached 14,000, and that the membership declined in 1896 and 1897, in conse

'Convention Proceedings, 1897, pp. 29, 95, 97.

quence of large and unfortunate strikes, until only about 4,000 members in good standing remained. These figures are apparently inconsistent with those given in the secretary's report for 1899. The secretary says that on May 31, 1896, the membership was 12,153; on May 31, 1897, 12,229; on May 31, 1898, 9,727; on May 31, 1899, 8,766.

The president and the general secretary believed that a radical change was needed in the constitution and financial methods of the organization. They prepared a draft of an entirely new constitution, with high dues and benefits, and presented it ready-made to the convention of 1899. A few members protested against the consideration of it, because it had not been submitted beforehand to the locals, as the old constitution required. The president ruled, however, that consideration of it was in order under the clause which permitted amendments to be considered by the convention without previous submission to the locals in cases of emergency. The president was sustained by the convention, and the new constitution was adopted substantially in the form in which the general officers had prepared it.

General aims. The preamble to the new constitution is in part as follows:

'For the protracted periods of idleness on the one hand and the prolonged hours of labor on the other, for low wages or no wages, for conditions and methods of work that are essentially destructive of morality, of health, of happiness and life, we are clearly indebted to the competitive wage system.

"We therefore declare for the ultimate abolition of the competitive wage system and the substitution therefor of the collective ownership by the people of all means of production, distribution, transportation, communication, and exchange.

"Organization being necessary as the first step toward the amelioration and final emancipation of labor, and realizing the necessity of weapons both offensive and defensive, socially, economically, and politically, we call upon all shoe workers to unite with us for the following immediate purposes:

To thoroughly organize our craft; to regulate wages and conditions of employment; to establish uniform wages for the same class of work regardless of sex; to control apprentices; to reduce the hours of labor; to abolish convict and contract labor; to abolish child labor, prohibiting the employment of children under the age of 16; to promote the use of our union stamp' as the sole and only guaranty of union-made' footwear; to support the union labels of all other bona fide trade unions, and to assist them in every other way to the full extent of our power." The president, in his address to the convention of 1899, said: "The final mission of the working class is through their organization to educate the workers to the point that they will use their ballot for the total abolition of the competitive system, and in its place, through the working class political machinery, establish democracy."

Conventions and constitutional amendments.-The constitution provides that a convention be held on the third Monday in June, provided a majority of the locals have voted in the preceding January in favor of holding one. Each local is entitled to one delegate and to an additional delegate for each 200 members or major part thereof.

Conventions have authority to amend the constitution. The constitution may also be amended by a referendum vote on the proposition of any local, seconded by one-third of the whole number of locals. A two-thirds majority of the members voting is necessary to carry an amendment, and the vote is of no effect unless 10 per cent of all the members take part in it.

Officers.-The officers are a president, a vice-president, a secretary-treasurer, and an executive board. The executive board consists of the three officers already named and seven other members, of whom not more than two may be from the same State. Vacancies are filled by the president, with the approval of the local to which the member nominated belongs, and subject to confirmation by the executive board. The executive board has general control of the organization, decides appeals from the decision of the general president, and has power to levy assessments.

The president decides constitutional questions, subject to appeal to the executive board. He is ex officio a member of all committees and boards, local and general. He is the custodian and manager of the union stamp. His salary is $22.50 a week.

The secretary-treasurer is also ex officio a member of all committees and boards, local and general. He is editor and manager of the journal. He has power to hire such clerical assistance as he thinks necessary. His bond is $5,000 and his salary $22.50 a week.

1 Convention Proceedings, 1899, p. 5.

The officers are elected annually by popular vote. A majority of all votes cast is necessary to elect. The constitution provides elaborate rules for nomination by the several locals, for the furnishing of official ballots by the secretary-treasurer, and for the casting and counting of the votes. If no candidate receives a majority of the votes cast for any office, the secretary-treasurer is to issue a second ballot, which is to contain only the names of the two candidates for the office who have received the highest votes.

Local unions. Any seven or more bona fide shoe workers, regularly organized by an organizer authorized by the president, may receive a local charter. There is no charter fee. A local may be either mixed, containing workers in various branches of the shoe trade, or it may contain only workers in a particular craft. Only one charter for one branch of the trade can be issued in any one city. The only passport to meetings of local unions and councils is a due book showing that the member is in good standing. All necessary printed supplies are furnished to locals by the general secretary-treasurer without charge. If the charter of any local is revoked or surrendered the constitution provides that all its money and property is the property of the general union, and must be surrendered to the general president.

Joint councils. In any town or city where two or more local unions exist they may establish a joint council. Joint councils may also be formed by local unions in adjoining cities or towns, or, local unions of the same branch of the trade in different sections. The rules of joint councils must be approved by the general executive board.

Membership. Any boot or shoe worker, male or female, over 16 years of age and actively employed at the craft, is eligible. Each applicant for membership must sign an application, and the application must be filed at the general headquarters. Admission is by majority vote of the members of the local union. If an applicant is rejected, he may appeal to the general executive board; and if the board considers that the rejection was without sufficient cause, it may accept the applicant as a member at large. Members of a local union whose charter is given up, and members who are at work where there is no local union, may also maintain their standing as members at large. Members at large are subject to the same dues and assessments and have the same benefits as if they were members of a local union. They are regarded as collectively constituting a local union.

Discipline.-Charges against any member must be brought in writing, and the accused is entitled to have full opportunity for defense, and, upon written application, to receive a copy of the charges. Appeals may be made from the local union to the general executive board. The sanction of the executive board is necessary to expulsion.

Finances. The initiation fee is uniformly $1 and the dues are uniformly 25 cents a week. The framers of the new constitution which fixed these dues in 1899, remembering the earlier experience with an organization which had started with dues of 25 cents a week and had presently reduced them to 10 cents, to its weakening and destruction, inserted the following provision: "It shall forever be unconstitutional to seek to reduce the amount of dues as provided in this section." Two-thirds of all receipts from initiation fees, dues, and national fines go to the general organization. One-third of such payments and the whole of any local assessments and local fines which may be levied belong to the local unions. The weekly dues and all assessments are receipted for by adhesive stamps, which are affixed to due books of the members. Any member who is in debt for dues or for any assessment or fine for more than 13 weeks is suspended, and in order to be reinstated must pay a reinstatement fee of $1. He is not entitled to sick or death benefits until he shall have been again in good standing for 6 months continuously. The Union Boot and Shoe Worker for March, 1900, declares that under the old system of 10-cent weekly dues it was almost impossible to induce the members to pay up; but that under the new policy of comparatively high dues and liberal benefits more than 95 per cent of the members were, at the time of writing, in good standing.

One-third of all money received by the general secretary-treasurer is to go to the sick and death benefit fund until that fund amounts to $1 for each member entitled to benefit. Thereafter so much is to be transferred to this fund from the general funds on the first of each month as shall replenish it to $1 for each beneficiary member. After the necessary amount has been placed to the credit of the sick and death benefit fund the remainder of the receipts is to be divided equally between the strike fund and the general expense fund. The general executive board has power to levy assessments at its discretion, and it is specially empowered to raise the strike fund by a series of assessments to $5 per capita.

The total receipts and expenditures of the general office for successive fiscal years ending May 31, were as follows:

Benefits. The sick benefit is $3 a week. It is not paid for sickness or disability that is caused by intemperance, debauchery, or other immoral conduct, or which results from military service, or which occurs outside of the United States and Canada. It is not paid for the first 7 days of sickness. No member can receive more than 13 weeks' benefit during one fiscal year.

A death benefit of $50 is paid on the death of a member who has been 6 months continuously in good standing. After 2 years of continuous good standing the benefit is $100. Each member may designate a person to whom his death benefit shall be paid. If no designation is made the local union decides.

Members who have any chronic disease, or who were over 60 years of age when initiated, are entitled only to half benefit for either sickness or death.

The constitution recommends that the locals provide out-of-work benefits, "to the end that from the experience so gained a national plan for relief of unemployed members may be developed."

Strikes. The Union Boot and Shoe Worker, in advocating arbitration and deprecating strikes, says: “In arriving at a decision as to permitting a strike, it should always be remembered that a strike is a dead loss to employer, to employee, and to the community. * * Members should not contemplate or undertake

*

a strike unless satisfied, first, that the cause is absolutely just, and, second, that the chances are in favor of success." 1

Discussing the wisdom of sympathetic strikes, the Union Boot and Shoe Worker for June, 1900, says: "Ten per cent of the earnings of 10,000 who are employed will pay standard wages to 1,000 strikers; but if the 10.000 quit work, it then requires 10 per cent of the earnings of 100.000. Our advice to those who contemplate joining in a sympathetic strike is to consider the matter carefully and determine whether they can assist the strike more by contributing even one-half of their wages than they can by rendering themselves idle altogether."

The constitution says: "We recognize strikes as dangerous and costly, and believe they should not be inaugurated except as a weapon of last resort, after every resource and expedient has been exhausted in an attempt to adjust disputes without strikes." In order to make strikes less frequent and more effective, the union declares that it will not give financial support to auy strikes but those which have been sanctioned by the general executive board before being ordered. Local unions may strike upon their own responsibility, but can not in such case receive aid from the general body. The general executive board may declare any strike off at its discretion, upon petition of 10 members in good standing. It can not order one; that can only be done by the local union.

The action of a local union upon a proposed strike must be by secret ballot of the members. It is forbidden to order a strike in any union-stamp factory without concerted action of all the local unions involved and the approval of the executive board.

No financial aid is to be given for the first 7 days of a strike. At the end of the second 7 days the local executive board is to send to the general office a list of the names of all persons on strike, and of the names and registered numbers of the members involved. The general secretary-treasurer is then to "forward to the local treasurer such percentage of the total strike fund as the members in good standing who are on strike is of the total membership of the general union in good standing. At the end of the third 7 days ancther statement shall be forwarded and percentage allotted, and so on each 7 days until the strike has been won or declared off.' The amount received each week is to be divided equally among the members in good standing, and each member's dues are to be deducted from his share. It will be seen that this rule effectively prevents the exhaustion of the strike fund. It would be impossible to pay out the whole fund unless all the members were simultaneously on strike. At the same time, by making the payment to each member depend upon the aggregate amount of the strike fund, it

1 Union Boot and Shoe Worker, September, 1900, pp. 5, 6.

offers the possibility of excessively large strike benefit if a large fund has been allowed to accumulate, and makes the benefit exceedingly small when the fund happens to be small. If the fund were brought up to $5 per capita, the amount to which the executive board has authority to raise it by assessments, the strike benefit would then be $5 a week.

A local union is to be cut off from support if its officers fail to make the weekly report required by the constitution, or if the secretary-treasurer becomes satisfied that the assistance has been expended illegally. It is specially provided that the money of the organization shall be used only to relieve the wants of members in good standing. There does not seem, however, to be anything to prevent the taking in of nonunionists after a strike is declared, and the paying of benefits to them after they join.

The boot and shoe workers strictly limit the notion of a lockout. The constitution provides that neither a reduction of wages nor an "ironclad" notice shall constitute a lockout. By an ironclad notice is apparently understood a notification that members must abandon the union.

No local union is permitted under any circumstances to declare a boycott. The union reported to the Federation of Labor in the fall of 1900 that it had won three strikes, compromised one, and lost one during the preceding year. Three hundred and eighty persons were involved, of whom 330 were benefited. The Union Boot and Shoe Worker for October, 1900, said that there was not then a single strike in the shoe trade under the jurisdiction of the union, and that this was the first time in the history of the organization when a month had gone by without a strike.'

A member victimized or blacklisted for activity in the union may receive temporary assistance from the executive board.

Journal. The official journal, known as the Union Boot and Shoe Worker, is published monthly. The subscription price is 50 cents a year, but members in good standing receive the journal without charge. The cost is charged to the general fund.

Union label.-The union stamp of the boot and shoe workers was adopted in April, 1895. It was originally meant to be used only on the bottom of the shoe, but experience showed that some people would refuse to buy a shoe which bore it.? This led to using it on the insole or lining. It is impressed on the sole or insole with a steel stamp, or printed on the lining with a rubber stamp.

From 1895 to 1899 the progress of the stamp was slow, because, the secretary says, the union was "one of the cheap-dues species." Yet 50 stamps were issued during those years to 50 factories and individuals. In September, 1899, the system of high dues and benefits was inaugurated. About January 1, 1900, the revenue became sufficient to permit money to be spent in advertising the union stamp. From that time, it is asserted, the demand for stamped shoes and the readiness of manufacturers to use the stamp increased rapidly. The Union Boot and Shoe Worker for April, 1900, in offering evidence of the value of the union label and of the union-label agitation which the union was carrying on, said that the secretary had within a short time received three unsolicited applications from manufacturers for permission to use the label. Six new factories were unionized in June, 1900, and 7 in July. The total number of union stamps issued up to August, 1900, was 78.3

The form of the contract usually made with manufacturers who use the stamp is given on p. 409.

The Union Boot and Shoe Worker, in discussing the question of the terms on which the union stamp and label ought to be granted to manufacturers, says that it has lately heard of one instance in which the stamp was refused by the local union, except on condition of an increase of wages, which would increase the labor cost of the shoe. The editor considers this bad policy. A little advance in wages here and there is of slight importance, because it can not be made permanent unless the movement is general. The true policy of a labor organization, in his judgment. is to get control of the trade. The label ought to be used simply to forward this purpose. When control has been got, the general movement for higher wages may be made.

1 Union Boot and Shoe Worker, October, 1900, p. 17.

The editor of the Locomotive Firemen's Magazine declared in 1899 that he had been told by a Peoria shoe dealer that the union label on a shoe injured its sale; that antiunion patrons objected to it, and union men did not inquire for it. Peoria, said the editor, is above the average as a union town. Then what must be the conditions elsewhere? (Locomotive Firemen's Magazine, December, 1899, p. 625.)

p. 20.

American Federationist, September, 1900, p. 293. Union Boot and Shoe Worker, April, 1900, 4 Union Boot and Shoe Worker, October, 1900, pp. 5-7.