FOURTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT. To the Senate and House of Representatives in General Court assembled. In the following pages are reports of the most important controversies which have enlisted the attention of the Board during the year 1899. The statements are in each case intentionally made as brief as is consistent with the desire of the Board to exhibit clearly the method, scope and extent of the year's work, without unduly disclosing the details of private business. In response to a request received from special agent of the United States Commission to the Paris Exposition of 1900, this Board has transmitted through the Massachusetts Board of Managers, as a part of the Commonwealth's exhibit in the department of social economy, a handsome set of the annual reports of the Board, bound in three volumes, also a set of the forms used in transacting the business of the Board and a statement prepared by the clerk of this Board for distribution at the Exposition, setting forth briefly the origin and progress of the work of state conciliation and arbitration in Massachusetts. REPORTS OF CASES. P. N. WADLEIGH, CHESLEY & RUGG, ETC. — Early in February the Board was informed that differences had arisen in the shoe factories of P. N. Wadleigh and Chesley & Rugg, and possibly others in Haverhill, arising out of the demands for an increase in the wages paid for turned work, so-called. Inquiry was made upon the spot by interviews with the representatives of the workmen, and it was learned that there had been some strikes in Haverhill occasioned by the attempt to introduce a general price list for turned work, but that in most cases negotiations were in progress which promised to result in settlements fairly satisfactory to all concerned. The officers of the union said that the Board would be called in, if the attempts then being made for a private settlement should fail. It is understood that the expectations of settlement by the parties were substantially realized during the month. |