The labor world. [volume] (Duluth, Minn.) 1896-current, 1903-05-30
Employers Believe Legislation Should Be
Had to Incorporate Labor Unions Like
Corporations and Trusts.
Everything to Hold the Corporation to La
Dor Contract, But There Is Very Lit
tie to Hold the Union.

the unions from Individual assessments,
but not one cent of this is reachable
to recompense the industry that bears
the brunt of the conflict. When the
suggestion is made to the average labor
leader that such Incorporation ought
to be enforced, we at once meet with
the answer that it would be fatal to
their methods, which is an open con-
fession that their methods are illegal
and wrong. Business men incur mill
ions of responsibility in obedience to
the law, while labor, much more closely
knit, is immune.
It is only recently in overburdened
England that the court of last resort
ordered the Amalgamated Order Of
Railway Servants to pay the Tef Vale
Railroad t28,000 damages for strike
and boycott. The appellate court held
that incorporated or not, an organized
body could not keep itself outside
the law, and that it must be held Pc
cuniarily responsible for it's acts. The
decision Of vast Importance to all con-
cerned swept away the pleasant fiction
that laWlessneSs and boycott are always
tc be condoned where the working
man. is trying to "elevate' himself. In
short, in England, the worm has turned,
and hereafter the unions will be forced
to meet the responsibility they incur,
just as the railroad does when it wrecks
train and kills or Injuries it's pass
engers. The playful incendiaries, the
murderous boycotters, and the delight
tu1 dynamiters may escape as individ-
uals, but the union which precipitated
the conflict which brought this all
about must settle. This is what we
must come to here, if there is to be any
human right or human liberty left in
the land.
The argument in favor of. incorporat-
ingSis =aasimplez one. "A certain number
Iseafsea
the Hbettement Eof their cond ftion. tio they
| must raise a fund, elect officers. They
| must have a concrete existence, if they
would incorporate as a business body.
This would be the situation: When an
! employer called upon the guild, as it
would best be named, the condition of
employment could be made plain; the
responsibility of taking the work would
be incurred and the duty Of performing
| it would be enforced. Can there be any
honest objection to this practice? We
! have now in this city the most chaotic
| conditions. Men drop out every day at
will in the building trades, and great
| losses are incurred by the contractor
and owner, and the situation is fast
| becoming intolerable.
| Judge Parker, in a recent RECESSION
| holds that the laborer has the right
to do as he pleases about working or
| not working. This is incontestably
| true, yet I should say that when the
laborer had agreed to hire man for
year and uses him only one day, the
hlaw makes him pay for the whole per-
iod. But the plasterer can throw down
| his troWel and quit in the middle of his
employment because he dislkes the ex-
preston Of the foreman's face If
however, he had an Incorporated union
OF plasterers instead of a guerrilla one
the union would have to come forward
| and complete the task''