Los Angeles herald., 1910-08-02
DEPUTIES TABLE
NEW LABOR BILL
Included Provision for Collective
Contracts Which Could Be
Enforced by Court
ALSO FIXED HOURS OF WORK
Breaking of Contract by Either
Party Is Subject for DAM
age Suit

PARIS, Aug. LIN the declaration
of ministerial policy which M BRAND
read to the chamber of deputies on
June the prime minister announced
that the government intended to intro
duce a bill which would enable labor
associations to conclude collective con-
tracts with the representatives of cap
ital. The bill, which is backed by the
prime minister, the minister of justice
and the minister of labor, has now
been tabled in the chamber 1t provides
that an association of WoTkpeople may
conclude with an employer or an asso-
citation of employers collective con-
tract laying down the conditions upon
which alone individual contracts with
any OF the parties to the collective
contract may be concluded. Such col
lective contracts may be concluded by
the authority of the members of
capitalist association or of a labor
union, delegated in writing to their
representatives. and contract will be
binding upon all the members unless
within three days due notice of the
contract has been given they resign
their membership in the association or
union. The collective contract must in
all cases be in writing and a copy
must be deposited in every district to
which the contract applies with the
council of labor arbitrators and at the
office of the judge who arranged civil
disputes or tries them in the first in
stance.
The collective contract may be con-
cluded for an indefinite period of time
or it may run for predetermined pc
riod, which in no case must exceed five
years. Contracts thus limited will,
nevertheless, continue to run as If they
we- indeterminate contracts unless
they be expressly denounced. A months
,Y-fry l.1
quired in order to terminate collec-
tive contract which has been concluded
for an indefinite period of time. In
the case of collective contracts of In
definite duration, any individual men,
ber of either of the contracting asso-
Citations may withdraw from the con-
tract by giving a months notice to
the civil authorities with whom the
contract has been deposited and by
resigning his membership of the as
sociation concerned. Separate con-
tracts between individual employers
and employees will be null and void IL
they are contrary to the stipulations
of a collective labor contract by which
the parties are already bound.
Breaches of a collective contract can
be made the subject for an action for
damages, either one of the contracting
associations in it's corporate capacity,
or by any of its members. A contract
ing association is corporately, and its
members are individually, responsible
for breaches of the collective con-
tract by the association. The associ-
ations may act on behalf of their in
dviduaI members without a special
mandate. provided that the individual
member has received due notice and
has entered no objection.
These are the main provisions of
bill which is obviously intended to ia
ciltate and to improve the relations of
capital and labor and to diminish the
caus, disputes and strikes
The Temps manifests considerable
anxiety in consequence of these pro-
pOsals as we'll as on account of two
others which are designed to reduce
hours of adult labor to ten a day
and to enable municipal councils to fix
the Gaily closing hour for shops. The
clause of the collective labor con-
Il cts bill which it most severely crit
icises is one which will enact that the
Individual members of an association.
which Is a party to one of these con-
tracts are bound, in default of a spe-
cial generating provision, to observe
all the obligations of the collective con-
tract in making separate individual
contracts. "even with persons who have
no part in the collective convention"
The Temps thinks that these propos-
ais constitute an illegitimate interven-
tion &c the state in the private affairs
of the citizens such as is calculated
to paralyze French initiative and en-
tCrT Else