New-York tribune., 1918-05-06
Agreement on Collective
Bargaining Expected
in Conference
Long Defiance of
Unions Given Up
Government To Be Guaran'
teed Against Interrupt
tion of Production
(soceiot Dispatch to The Tribune

WASHINGTON, May 5.-On Thurs
day representatives of the United
States Steel Corporation and the in
dependents will meet with Samuel
Gompers and other representatives of
organized labor to work out an agree
ment involving among other thin~. the
principle of collective bargaining,
whereby the government will be guar
anteed against any interruption in the
iron and steel industries during the
war
The meeting, arrangements for
which have been under way for months
past, is described by labor men as the
most important from a trade unionist
standpoint since the nation entered
war, for it marks among other things
an abandonment of the historic policy
of the Steel Corporation, inherited
from the old Carnegie days, of dealing
with labor organizations only when
it was impossible to do otherwise
Since the Homestead strike in 1892,
when the unions received crushing
defeat, and the bitterly contested tin
workers strike of ten years later, when
the Amalgamated Association of Steel,
Iron and Tin Workers was again beaten,
the mills of the company have been
almost wholly non-union.
Trust Has Defied Labor
Since that fight only the independents
lave operated under contracts with
the union, which has been unable to
make any very great headway in re-
organizing the plants of the trust
Samuel Gompers, president, and
Frank Morrison, secretary of the Amer
lean Federation of Labor, will head the
labor members of the conference. Who
will represent the steel and iron manu-
facturers has not yet been made public.
will be represented by members of the
War Labor Board, of which ex-Presi-
dent William H. Taft IS a member
1t is understood that the question of
the closed or open shop will be dis
cussed, both sides being in agreement
with the Presidents views that moth
ing should be done to disturb the
status quo. The matter of collective
bargaining, for which organized labor
stands. will be taken up. and it is
expected that this will be agreed to, as
will also a provision that all matters
I IN dispute which cannot be otherwise
( adjusted will be referred to the War
Labor Board for settlement.
Under such an agreement it is under
stood that the ban on organizing the
workers in the mills of the Steel
Corporation and those of the indepen-
dents which operate open shops, will be
lifted and employees left free to join OF
rot, as they wish, membership or lack
of it not to be a basis for discrimina-
ton.
The case Of the steel and iron trade
is compared by labor men to the pack
ing industry, which, until recently, was
disorganized, despite every effort to
unlonize the workers. Under the recent
agreement, which government agencies
assisted in procuring. these plants are
now being successfully organized
In bringing about the agreement of
the steel manufacturers to meet with
the sentatives of organized labor,
irrespective of prevailing policies, it is
understood that Bernard NJ. Baruch.
head of the War Industries Board, has
been an important factor.
Men Praise Gary's Efforts
Labor men who are familiar with the
plans Tor an agreement, while rejoic-
ing in the prospects that tho genera
tlon-o old labor war is about to emo.
make no claim of victory They view
the move as being in line with the
spirit of the times and credit Judge
Ebert II. Gary, chairman of the Steel
Corporation. with having shown a ten
dency to meet them at least half way.
Next to the coal miners, the strike
history III the steel trade is the blood
lest in America. Homestead, where
many were killed in battles between
strike breaking guards and strikers, is
the best remembered, but there is hard
ly section in the steel country that
at one time or another has not been
the scene of deadly rioting. The most
recent of these was the riot in Youngs.
town, Ohio, three years ago, where man,
were killed and large amount of prop.
erty destroyed by fire before martial
law was declared.