The labor journal. [volume] (Everett, Wash.) 1909-1976, 1911-11-24
THE union LABEL.
Sanitation the Original Basis OIL
LabOr'S Trademark.
HISTORY OF THE EMBLEM.

of Man-Most Potent Weapon of the
Labor Movement-Brinss Victory to
Toll In BloodIess Battle.
To the cigarmakers belongs the glory
of first employing this potent instru-
mentality of organized labor During
the sand lot agitation for Chinese eX-
clusion a firm of cigar manufacture
ers took ON coolie labor. The union
lists presented an intelligent and de
termined resistance Assured of pub
lie patronage, the perplexity arose as
to how the purchaser could discrimi-
nate between a union cigar manufac-
tured under sanitary conditions and
the rat shop, coolie made, filthy prod
uct
From the foregoing it will be noted
that sanitation was the original basis
of the label, and, while the years have
expanded the uses, aims, purposes and
aspirations of the workingman's trade
mark, the question of healthful condi-
tons still remains one of the primal
reasons for its employment.
Other unions, noting the labels sue
cess, set about adopting trademarks.
The hatters' label appeared in 1885,
the garment makers the following
year, and in 1891 the label idea was
appropriated by the printers, iron
molders, shoemakers, horseshoers and
other crafts. Following the utiliza-
ton came efforts to secure statutory
recognition. The cigarmakers' label
has been legaliZed in thirty-one states.
Other labels have been extended SINH
lar recognition, and the tendency of
up to date legislation is to pass one
statute embracing all labels used by
legitimately organized wage earners.
Moreover, many of these statutes are
of a quasi criminal character, provid
ing penalties for counterfeiting and
for unauthorized use. The appellate
courts have declared these laws con-
stitutional and not class legislation.
About thirty cities have ordinances
requiring the printers label on city
printing. Some states have like re-
quirement as to state printing. SINH
larry the ordinances of many munich
palities make it imperative that the
city's horses be shod in union shops
and that the shoes bear the stamp of
the Horseshoers' union. In fact, the
labels reputation for nationality is Sc
curely established.
The aims and purposes of the union
label are:
(a) The assurance that the work is
done under sanitary conditions.
CO. The assurance of the payment of
a reasonable wage and Of a steadily
improving wage.
(c) The assurance of reasonable
hours, reasonableness to signify that
after the eight hour day is completed
victory, then may come the seven hour
day and the six hour day, ever remem-
bering that labor's grand purpose is
the economic and social betterment of
the masses.
(d) The assurance that child labor,
the menace as well as the disgrace of
modern civilization, has not entered
into the product
(e) The assurance that so long as the
intense and deplorable and inequitable
forms of competition, as evidenced in
our present day industrialism. shall
make it necessary for woman to earn
her bread in shop and factory she
shall continue to enjoy economic equal
ity with her male coemployee.
e. The assurance that the condi-
tons of the workers are safer as to
life and limb than are the surround
ings of nonlabel toilers.
(g) The assurance that the product
is not prison made.
h) The assurance that the products
are superior in workmanship and quail
ity to the unlabeled articles.
d The assurance that the label is
the concrete expression and hallowed
escutcheon of conscientious men or
ganized for the purpose of securing
these results and maintaining them
when secured
The aspiratio of the label knows no
bounds. It's ambition is to redeem a
world Nothing in the whole realm of
unionized labor is capable of such eff
fective and continuous utility. Other
agencies have varying degrees of po-
tentiality and are Intermittent in eff
fectiveness. Unhappily they sometimes
fail to win public sympathy, intensity
the suspicion of employers and ener-
gize auction pens into malevolent
assault upon the labor movement.
But the battles of the label are won
without blood. 1t is more powerful
than strikes and picketings, and its po-
tency as a warning TO tyrannical EN-
ployers surpasses a union treasury con-
gested with surplus funds. 1t is as
puissant in the hands Of woman or
child as the menacing declaration of a
labor convention.
The union label aspires to be the EN-
blem of humanism, even as the cross
is the symbol of Christianity. The one
speaks to us of the world beyond and
of the fatherhood of God; the other
speaks to us of this world, this stern,
roughshod world we live in. and of its
redemption by the brotherhood Of man.
p. II. Shevlin.
New officers of Tin Workers.