Omaha daily bee., 1920-02-17
Shop Council Plan Covers
Entire Clothing Industry;
Workers Have Grown Rich
Agreement Ended Long and Bitter Warfare With
Garment Workers-Organization Independent
Enough to Refuse Aid of Federation of Labor
Putting Up Million-Dollar Buildings.

ton? Autocracy of capital in in
dustry had not resulted in justice
nor in reign of law; what remained
but to try democracy?
This is the great chadge, the
right-about-face, implied in the pres
ent remarkable wave of experiment
tation, which | have described in
former articles, with the new sys-
tenn of shop committees" works
councils" trade boards"
Two men, both in the same shop,
one an employer, one a worker, are
mainly responsible for the begin
nings of the new development in the
garment trades. They were both
men of vision and of practical cour-
age. 1t is very interesting story.
The employer was Schaffner of
Hart Schaffner & Marx. He had
built up a large business in Chi
cago; he had retained in his work
ers a more than ordinary close and
benevolent interest. When the great
strike began in 1910 it nearly broke
his heart. 1t seemed the height of
ingratitude on the part of the work
ers. But, unlike many employers
who have to face this problem, he
did not become blindly> angry and
assume that he was all right and
the workers all wrong-and that a
stupid resort to force was the only
solution. He asked himself what
the. trouble really was. He began
to inquire into the whole subject of
relationships between employers and
workers. One thing he discovered
Immediately was that as his shops
had grown larger, and more machin-
cry had been introduced the old
personal relationship and personal
understanding between him and his
workers had become impossible.
"The great trouble" he said, SIS
that I don't really know my own
men. l don't really know what is
going on in my own shop.
University Man Pioneer.
If he did not know his men, it
was important that he should know
them. So he employed man who
was entirely outside of the industry
and therefore not prejudiced, a man
with a trained scientific mind, to
study the problem. This was Prof
Earl Dean Howard of Northwestern
university, the pioneer labor man
ager-at least of the new type-in
American industry. Theye are now
over so such labor managers in the
clothing trades alone, many of them
formerly college professors. 1t was
such an evident thing to do! Here
in nearly every business were ex-
perts in advertising, experts i'll SELL
ing, experts in production-and no
experts at all in the most important
factor of all in industry-labor.
Good will in industry is not enough.
Schaffner had had good will and
his men had struck. There must in
deed be good will, but it must be
based upon accurate knowledge and
a common understanding.
This was the beginning OF the new
experiment upon the part of the EN-
ployer
In the same shop there was a
young Jewish clothing cutter named
Sidney Hillman. He was at the
time only "a years old. He was
born in Russia and came up through
the narrow but thorough training
of rabbinical school. Like so many
other restless young Russians, he
became an active revolutionist
against the Czarist government. He
was arrested before he was 18 years
old and thrown into prison, where
he spent his time reading every book
upon economies. and political SCI
ence he could lay his hands upon.
When he got out of prison he left
Russia, spent year in Manchester,
England, and then came to Chicago,
where he worked in the plant of
Sears, Roebuck & Co., and later in
the shops of Hart Schaffner &
Marx. He had an ambition to be a
lawyer. but when the labor disturb
ances began he came at once into
local leadership and was the prin-
cipal agent on the part of the men
in working out the remarkable new
cooperative agreement which went
into, effect the following year, 1911.
Principles of Organization.
At the time of this agreement the
dominant union in the garment
trades was the United Garment
Workers, which was affiliated with
the American Federation of Labor.
But many of the local organizations
were discontented with the old craft
unionism and the militaristic meth
DDS and leadership of the American
Federation of Labor. In the ma
tional convention of the United Gar