from certain councils were allowed the privilege of participating in the discussion but not the right to vote. In 1910 the convention refused to admit delegates from local councils.1

The Building Trades Department has not been very successful as yet in bringing the local councils under control, but a brief survey of its efforts will indicate the points at which the national unions desire to curb the activities of the local councils.

The national unions have been particularly desirous of putting an end to the encouragement given to demarcation disputes by the councils. Until the formation of the Department a council was entirely at liberty to recognize the claim of either of two contending unions to a particular class of work. They might, for instance, expel the local union of Stone Cutters on complaint of the Granite Cutters and thus lend their aid to a particular adjudication of the question of jurisdiction. When one considers that there are over two hundred building trades councils in the United States, and that their decisions are given in view of local conditions and not infrequently are the result of coalitions among the various local unions which have jurisdictional disputes, the resulting confusion can be readily conceived.

From the time of its organization the Department has endeavored to establish the principle that a local council has no power to decide a demarcation dispute. In 1909 the executive council of the Department in its report to the convention said:

Your Executive Council has taken the position that jurisdiction lines are laid down by International organizations, and as such they can only be altered, amended, or waived by duly accredited representatives appointed by each International union acting in a general way, and thereafter such amendments, changes, or conditions must be ratified by the Executive Committees of the Internationals in interest.2

At the session of the Department in 1908, when the old controversy of the Plumbers and the Steam Fitters came up, Mr. Duffy, secretary of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners and a delegate from that union to the convention of the Department, said:

I believe every organization represented here has had men involved in strikes with Plumbers on one side and Steam Fitters on the other. Now we are coming down flat-footed to tell you that the Central 1 Proceedings of the Building Trades Department, 1910, p. 96.

2 Id. 1909, p. 36.

Bodies and the local unions affiliated with them must not take any part in the future in these fights that may arise over jurisdiction. ... We not only say must, but you are ordered by this convention to come together.1

On numerous occasions the executive council of the Department has forced local councils to readmit local unions of affiliated national unions which had been expelled on account of demarcation disputes." Before the establishment of the Department local councils frequently admitted to membership local unions which were independent of any national union and local unions affiliated with national unions which were rivals of recognized national unions. Countenance and encouragement were thus given to the formation of independent and "dual" organizations. In the building trades, because of the local character of the industry, such independent and "dual" unions have been easily formed and in some cases have flourished for many years. The executive council of the Department decided in 1908 that local councils might admit to membership local unions of national unions not affiliated with the Department, but only if the "claims of jurisdiction in no way conflicted with the locals of any affiliated union," and this decision was affirmed by the convention. In 1909 the Newark Building Trades Council was forced to unseat the delegates of "dual" unions of Tile Layers and Hod Carriers. In the same year the president of the Department reported that the number of independent unions of Hod Carriers was so large that the national union should be reorganized under the auspices of the Department, and this was finally accomplished in 1910. A year later local councils were ordered to unseat delegates of the "dual" local unions of Electrical Workers.5

The national unions in the building trades have not attempted to bring the local councils under control to any considerable extent except with reference to the admission and exclusion of local unions. It was provided in 1899 that local unions when making a demand for an increase of wages or a reduction of hours must secure the approval of their national unions as well as of the council. But the constitution of the Department from the outset has set forth that

1 Proceedings of the Building Trades Department, 1908, p. 68.

2 Ibid. pp. 9, 16.

3 Id. 1908, p. 35; 1909, p. 124.

4 Id. 1909, pp. 65-70; 1910, pp. 30-32. 5 Id. 1910, p. 90.

no local union affiliated with a council may strike without the consent of the council. Moreover, not only have the national unions been content to permit the local councils to order sympathetic strikes, but in order to facilitate such strikes provision has been made since 1909 in the constitution of the Department that local unions must not enter into agreements which will prevent their "giving each other prompt and effective assistance or their combining for united action and material support." Where councils have ordered local unions to strike and expelled them for failure to do so, the Department has refused to require their reinstatement. The willingness of the national unions in the building trades to allow local councils to order out the members of local unions on strike is explicable by the fact that the trade-unions in the building trades are far less centralized than in most other trades.

The Department has not been able as yet to enforce effectively even those of its rules relating to jurisdictional disputes and independent unions. The control of the councils by the Department is accomplished, to the extent that it is accomplished, by pressure on the local unions exerted through the national unions with which they are affiliated. If a local council refuses to obey the rules of the Department and its charter is revoked, a part or all of the local unions may form an independent council. The national unions cannot be uniformly depended upon in such cases to prevent their local unions from joining such independent councils. The officers of the Department have proceeded with great caution in enforcing the rules in order to avoid, as far as possible, the formation of "dual" councils. In his report to the convention of the Building Trades Department in 1911 President Short said:

In the case of local councils who saw fit to disobey the mandates 3 of the St. Louis Convention, they were refused any further recognition by the Department in so far as information or the obtaining of supplies etc. was concerned, and charters in various centers would have been revoked had it not been for the fact that it would

1 Proceedings of the Building Trades Department, 1909, p. 64. 2 Ibid. p. 38.

3 The "mandates" here referred to were the decisions by the convention of 1911 that local councils should expel the delegates of local unions of Carpenters and Steam Fitters, since these national unions had refused to accept the rulings of the Department with reference to their jurisdictional claims.

have worked serious injury to innocent parties, by that I mean organizations who were loyal to the Department. It would have been necessary, had charters been revoked, to immediately proceed to organize new councils, with the absolute certainty that some of the organizations would have continued in the old council, thus dividing the strength of the Building Mechanics in such centers as new councils were instituted; as witnessed in the case of the St. Louis Building Trades, where we have organized a new council under the laws of the Department and there still remains a portion of the old council who refuse to obey the laws of the Department.1

Obviously the control exercised by the Department over the local councils can never be effective until the national unions are willing and able to force their local unions to refrain from opposing the councils established by the Department. This result is not likely to be accomplished in the near future. In the first place, the national unions in the building trades have relatively decentralized governments and correspondingly small power over their local unions. Secondly, the national unions are not infrequently reluctant to abide by particular rules of the Department, although they favor the exercise of power in that field by the Department.

In the period since 1897, then, the national union has retained and made more secure its control of the national federation; it has limited in important respects the powers of the city federations; and finally, it has taken the first tentative steps in the control of the allied-trades councils. In no other period of American tradeunion history has the dominance of one of the forms of trade-union grouping been so clearly the ruling principle in the structure of American labor organization. The complete subordination of the city federations and of the allied-trades councils is probable, since the increasing centralization of the larger and more powerful national unions leads them more and more to oppose any interference by local organizations.

JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY

GEORGE E. BARNETT

1 Proceedings of the Building Trades Department, 1911, p. 36.

E

XXVIII

THE NATIONAL FOUNDERS' ASSOCIATION1

MPLOYERS' associations in the United States formed for the purpose of dealing with or opposing organized bodies of workmen are of comparatively recent origin, but in the last fifteen years they have become a factor in industrial relations which is not to be ignored. Each December the Stove Founders' National Defense Association and the Iron Molders' Union hold a conference at which are determined wages and conditions of employment in the stove foundries for the succeeding year; the glass manufacturers meet representatives of the several glassworkers' unions annually; the coal operators in the Southern and Southwestern coal fields have a series of written agreements with the United Mine Workers of -America. In these and several other industries which might be mentioned the system of collective bargaining developed between the manufacturers and their men has resulted in the maintenance of a permanent industrial peace.

On the other hand, a number of organizations of employers exist almost exclusively for the purpose of resisting collective bargaining and recognition of the unions, on the theory that where the complete autocracy of the employer is preserved the interests of all are better cared for than under any scheme of industrial democracy yet devised. Nor has this conclusion been reached by purely deductive reasoning on the part of those who take this position. One of the most significant features of their program is that it is based upon a wealth of experience, for of the employers' associations active in opposing the advance of the unions some of the most important are those which have attempted to operate under agreements with organizations of their men and after affording the system a trial have found it unsuited to their needs and unadaptable to their industries. This is true of the National Metal Trades Association, which now refuses to 1 From Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. XXX (1916), pp. 352-386.