The Washington times., 1901-10-14

local unions. II is the local that decides
| Tor the most part what acts are to be
considered offences. In many of the ma
| uonal organizations, however, criminal
codes have grown up. and in some OF
them the number of offences specified is
large. .
national codes than undermining broth
er members in prices or wages or condi-
| tions of work. Allied TO this is working
or offering to work below the union
| scale. Several unions forbid taking a
| job or offering to take IL for less than II
has paid before. Going TO work where a
! strike is on Is mentioned rather less of
/ ten; possibly because it is so obvious and
J grievous an offence that specific mention
! seems even less necessary. Revealing the
| business or ransactions of the union to
| outsiders, and especially to employers. is
| often referred to-
Touching on the question of wages. the
authors say:
THE establishment of a standard rate
| Of wages may perhaps be said t. be the
/ primary object of trades-union policy.
| Without the standard rate the trades
| union, such as 1t is could have no exist
ence. The union exists to modify the
condition of its members by making the
contract of employment through a col
| lective instead of an individual bargain.
But II a single bargain is to determine the
pay of a considerable number of men, the
pay Of each man must evidently be refer
able to a common standard. This prin-
ciple is not peculiar to the trades union.
The small master may make an inde-
pendent bargain on such terms as he can
with every person who comes into his en-
play; but in every employment on a large
scale whole classes of workers are neces-
sarily grouped together. and their pay is
regulated by common rule"
OF the theme Of labor and holidays. the
report states that ''it was not until the
close of the eighteenth century, apparent
ly, that the English unions began to in
terest themselves in making the working
day shorter or more regular. The work
r@ 1al4ga
work at their pleasure, within certain lin
its, and a large part of the workers were
In their own homes and had their time
entirely a. their own disposal The few
attempts which were made In the eight
eenth century to establish common rule
for the days work Of a trade were con-
fined to those craftsmen who were paid
by the day or the week and who worked
on the PREMISES of their employers
THE rise Of machine industry bound the
human instrument to the instrument of
iron. While the machinery ran the work
er had 70 keep TO his task. It was in the
cotton industry, in which machine produc-
tion first developed, that the first strug-
giles were made for definitely fixing and
for shortening the hours of labor The
agitation for legislative action on these
points was directed nominally to the in
terCsts Of the women and children. and it
was to the women and children only that
the successive acts Of Parliament applied;
but the real strength Of the agitation was
in the desire OF the male workers to short
tives and the coal miners are still the
most strenuous advocates among the
British work-people OF definitely limited
and uniform hours of labor. They feel
the greatest need Of this defence because
their industries are not protected by any
system of apprenticeship. and because the
beginning and the ending Of their work
do not depend on their will, but, in the
cotton mill, on the starting and stopping
Of the engine, and in the mine on the run
ming Of the cage. Those unions which
still rely upon strict regulation Of appren-
uceship are much less strenuous in their
insistence upon regulation OF the hours of
labor. In such trades, where piecework
prevails. and where the old workers have
been able TO maintain rigid restriction
of the number of competitors. they are
sometimes content to let each individual
fix his hours of work for himself. In the
building and the machinist trades. with
the decay OF apprenticeship, and the inn
practicability of maintaining the prac-
tice of exclusion: the insistence on the
definitely limited normal day grows
stronger and stronger"