employer is always supposed to be trying to induce it by Swifts. bell-horses, secret bonuses, frightening the men, etc.

To enforce uniformity you must also have control over the output of the individual and you must control the processes of production. You must prevent the use of methods of stimulation, such as bonus systems, etc., by the employer. Moreover, you must stop up every minutest loophole for the evasion of the principle by the employer. Hence you must watch him carefully; you must have waiking delegates on the job. You must carefully delimit the field of work, and prevent reclassification, so that the employer cannot create exceptions by the use of new men or new work. Here again we find explanation of a great number of harassing detailed demands and rules which the union endeavors to enforce.

It follows, then, that a large portion of the more specific part of the trade-union program is implied in the principle of uniformity and flows directly from the effort to establish and enforce it.

294. Collective Bargaining and the Trade Agreement12

BY JOHN R. COMMONS

Philanthropists have long been dreaming of the time when capital and labor should lay aside the strike and boycott and should resort to arbitration. By arbitration they understand the submission of differences to a disinterested third party. But the philanthropists have overlooked a point. Arbitration is never accepted until each party to a dispute is equally afraid of the other; and when they have reached that point, they can adopt something better than arbitration, namely, negotiation. Arbitration is impossible without organization, and two equally powerful organizations can negotiate as well as arbitrate. This higher form of industrial peace-negotiation-has now reached a formal stage in a half dozen large industries in the United States, which, owing to its remarkable likeness to parliamentary government in the country of its origin, England, may well be called constitutional government in industry.

The bituminous mine operators and the bituminous mine workers of the four great states of Illinois, Indiana, Ohio and Pennsylvania have such a constitution. The annual interstate conference of the bituminous coal industry is the most picturesque and inspiring event in the modern world of business. Here is an industry

19

Adapted from "A New Way of Settling Labor Disputes," in the American Review of Reviews, XXIII, 328-333. Copyright (1901).

where, for many years, industrial war was chronic, bloodshed frequent, distrust, hatred, and poverty universal. Today the leaders of the two sides come together for a two weeks' parliament, face to face, with plain speaking, without politics, religion, or demagogy; and there they legislate for an industry that sends upon the market annually $200,000,000 of product.

The most comforting feature of such negotiations is the matterof-fact way in which each side takes the other. There is none of that old-time hypocrisy on the part of the employers, that their great interest in life is to shower blessings upon their hands; and there is none of that ranting demagogy on the part of the workmen about the dignity of labor and the iniquity of capital. On the contrary, each side frankly admits that its ruling motive is selfinterest; that it is trying to get as much as it can and to give as little as it must; and that the only sanction which compels them to come together, and to stay together until they reach a unanimous vote, is the positive knowledge that otherwise the mines will shut down and neither the miner will earn wages nor the operator reap profits. It is simply wholesome fear that backs their discussions: the capitalist knows that there are no other laborers in the world whom he can import as "scabs" to take the places of those whose representatives face him in this conference and this scale committee, and he knows, too, from a severe experience, that every one of these 110,000 miners will obey as one man the voice of these their chosen representatives. The miners know, also, that these capitalists with whom they are negotiating are the very ones who control their only opportunities for earning the wages that feed themselves and their families. Consequently, everybody knows that an agreement must be reached before adjournment, or else the industry will be reduced to anarchy and their wages and profits, to say nothing of lives, will be destroyed.

In every trade agreement there are usually two large and distinct questions on which the parties differ, namely, wages and methods of managing employees. The labor side wants higher wages (including short hours) and restrictions on bosses and foremen. The employer side wants low wages and a free hand for the boss. Each side thereupon comes to the joint conference with demands more extreme than it expects to see granted. At the conference of 1900 the operators offered an advance of 9 cents per ton and the miners demanded an advance of 20 cents. The operators wished to retain the system of paying for the screened coal only, and not for the slack and waste; but the miners demanded payment on the basis of the "run-of-the-mine," i. e, of all coal brought to the surface, before it is run over the screens. The miners asked also 7 cents

differential between pick and machine mining, but the operators wanted 12 cents differential.

These opposing propositions had been formulated in separate conventions and conferences by the opposing sides. The operators' position was presented to the joint conference and received the unanimous “aye" of the operators and the unanimous "no" of the miners. The miners' proposition was then presented, and received the unanimous "aye" of the miners and the unanimous "no" of the operators. The two sides then began their parrying. Mr. Mitchell accused the operators of "joking." The operators accused the miners of absurdity. Several days were spent in these tilts. Finally concessions were made on both sides. Certain matters were left undecided or referred back to the state conferences. The committee reported a unanimous agreement, and the joint conference adopted it unanimously. It gave an advance of 14 cents in some districts, and 9 cents in others. It permitted the "mine-run" standard in certain districts, and the "screened" standard in other districts, and a "double standard" in yet a third group of districts, but regulated the size of the screen and fixed a wide differential between "minerun" and a "regulation screen." Similar compromises were made on the machine scale, day labor, and all along the line. Nobody was satisfied, yet everybody was satisfied. It was the best they could do, and it saved the business from paralysis. "A failure to agree,' said President Mitchell in his closing speech, "would not only have ruined the homes of the miners, but would have ruined the business of the operators." And though the miners did not get what they expected, yet, said Mitchell, "there has never been a time in the history of mining, even within the recollection of the oldest one among you, when an advance so great as this, and applied to so great a number of men, was secured."

The success of each conference depends directly upon the enforcement of the legislation of the preceding conference. Curiously enough, this enforcement falls solely upon the miners' organization. The operators, indeed, have their several state associations, but no national nor interstate association like that of the miners. Moreover, the operators are loosely organized. They can bring only moral suasion to bear upon the recalcitrant operator who rebels at their national decrees. But the miners can do more; they not only can suspend their own local unions which violate the agreement, but they can shut down the mine of the rebellious operator and drive him out of business. The operators understand this, and they know that their own protection against the cutthroat operator depends solely on the Miners' Union. President Mitchell, of the union, at the close of the Indianapolis conference, significantly ac

cepted his office of joint executive in what might be called his inaugural. He said, "I will give notice to the operators now that when they go home, unless they keep the agreement inviolate, we will call the men out; and I will serve notice on the miners that, unless they keep the laws of the organization, we will suspend them from the organization."

In trade agreements the employer must recognize the union. Employers are willing to pay high wages if all their competitors pay the same wages. It is not high wages that they dread, but secret and unfair cutting of wages. This is also exactly what the laborers resist. The joint state or national agreements place all competitors on the same basis in the same market. Indeed, in the coal trade the scale is nicely adjusted so that the districts with the better quality of coal and the lower railway charges are required to pay enough higher wages than other districts to counterbalance their superior natural advantages. On this basis, so far as the union. enforces the agreement, every operator knows exactly what his competitor's coal is costing; there is no secret cutting; and the trade is not brought down to the level of the few unscrupulous and oppressive operators who grind down their laborers. For this reason the bulk of employers who have had experience with these joint agreements are heartily in favor of them.

The most important result of these trade agreements is the new feeling of equality and mutual respect which springs up in both employer and employee. After all has been said in press and pulpit about the "dignity of labor," the only "dignity" that really commands respect is the bald necessity of dealing with labor on equal terms. With scarcely an exception the capitalist officials who make these agreements with the labor officials of these powerful unions testify to their shrewdness, their firmness, their temperance, their integrity, and their faithfulness to contracts. Magnificent generalship is shown in combining under one leadership the miscellaneous races, religions, and politics that compose the miners of America. The labor movement of no other country has faced such a problem.

295. The Economics of the Closed Shop13

BY FRANK T. STOCKTON

In recent popular discussion of the closed shop much emphasis has been put upon its uneconomical character. The charge is made that the demand for the exclusive employment of union men, by

13 Adapted from The Closed Shop in American Trade Unions, 165–175. Copyright by the Johns Hopkins Press (1911).

interfering with the right of an employer to "run his own business," makes high efficiency impossible. This argument is based on the fact that the employer, under the competitive system, is alone responsible for the successful conduct of business undertakings. If he fails to produce as well and as cheaply as others do, the loss is his. It is necessary, therefore, for the most economic conduct of business that the employer "should have power to order his own affairs." He "should not be influenced by any other consideration in the hiring of men than the ability, fitness or loyalty of the applicant." At the same time he should be free to reward exceptional workmen and to discharge those who are inefficient or insubordinate. He should be the sole judge as to the kind of machinery, tools, and material to be used. Only in this way, it is argued, can the employer secure that "effective discipline" which is essential in bringing about the "highest measure of success in industry."

The "essence" of the open shop is that the employer is entirely free "to hire and discharge." The closed shop, on the other hand, denies him the "right to hire and discharge." If the employer wishes to hire competent non-union men, he is prevented from procuring their services if they cannot or will not obtain union membership.

The employer complains that under the closed shop, instead of being able to secure workmen regardless of whether they are union. or non-union, white or black, Catholic or Protestant, Jew or Gentile, he is compelled to draw from a definitely fixed labor market. Very often, too, this market is severely limited by the refusal of the unions on one ground or another to admit competent workmen to membership. He cannot hire members of other unions who are competent to do the work because this will at once involve him in a jurisdictional dispute. One trial is enough to demonstrate the fact that members of rival unions tolerate each others' presence less than they do that of non-unionists. There is then no practicable way in which he can secure additional help when his work increases except by bidding for workmen against other union employers. It is also said that the closed shop serves to prevent the discharge of inefficient employees.

Another evil attributed to the closed shop is that it establishes a minimum wage which becomes virtually also a maximum wage. This is said to produce a disastrous "dead level" of efficiency throughout an establishment and to discourage effort. Accordingly union control is declared to be "absolute death to individual effort and ambition," and to cause the degeneration of "mental and moral fiber." Restriction of output is the direct result of such conditions.