Twin city review. [volume] (Champaign, Ill.) 19??-1929, 1922-02-24

d
~ take twenty years II Overcome
TIE sefhack 70 arbitration - a means
q settling wage disputes which the
Federal Judge henesaW Il. lands
aNard IN the Chicago building trades
has provoked, says 3 writer II The
Survey. Another. an economist. com
ments that Judge lands has done
more through his decision - disered.
il arbitration than al those y no favor
/ It have done for Il since the beginning
Of the labor movement. This crit
cism i not based on the contention
that either party 20 the controversy
received toe harsh treatment Rath=
er. il IS held that the arbitrator IN his
awards went 50 far afield from the
dispute placed before him that in.
stead Of 4 growing confidence a
CROWN gdistrust Of arbitration has
resulted.
When last June the contractors aud
unions. who could not agree ON . ne@
wage scale. decided 70 submit the
matter TO arbitration they mutually
agreed upon Judge lands As afhltra-
tor. The skilled crafts had been ne
ceixing Sl-25 an hour. common la
Dor 81. The contractors held cat for
a reduction Of p cents in both eases.
The unions agreed 10 accept redue-
tom of 10 10 l214 cents an hour, but
this was not acceptable 10 the em-
ployers, and lockout followed. The
/ only issue submitted to the arhitra-
| tor was that of wages. Soon after
/ his acceptance of the position, how
ever, Judge lands announced that
I he could not undertake to fly a wage
unless he had the right TO revise the
working rules. Neithr contractors
nor unions were in favor of this as
sumption of power on the part of the
arbitrator: nevertheless they had not
/ the courage To take issue with the
/ Judge because public opinion haa
been so aroused in favor of a resusp-
/ ton of work. Silently they pedmit-
| ted him to proceed. The awards were
made last September when Judge
Lands, with not building trade eN-
perience, and after considering the
/ situation for the short period OF
three months during which time he
was occupied ON the bench, and as
chief baseball umpire, fixed a varied
wage scale and set up new working
rules for some thirty trades unions.
The wage scale in many cases was
lower than that offered by the con-
tractors and the awards applied To
trades which had not submitted heir
eases for arbitration.
The result was tremendous eonfus-
ion in the building trades. The
workers would not abide by the de
cision, and it was only after a strong
effort on the part of their leaders
that they consented to return TO
work pending a rehearing. Mean
time, their discomfort reflected il
self in the quality of their work to
such an extent that the employers
agreed to pay either the old wage
scale or the wage scale agreed to by
the union. In several instances en-
ployers' associations signed new
agreements with their workers re
pudiating the Lands award.
Meantime, following a call sent out
by the Chamber of Commerce, a citi-
zens' committee, representing iinan-
cial interests and large anti-union
employers, was organized to enforce
the ward. II Is reported that they
have raised. $3,008,0e 10 carry out
their purpose. In advertise In
the newspapers they announced that
the open shop should prevail where
unions failed TO agree to the award,
and that contractors who refused To
abide by il deserved neither the en-
enlargement nor the support of the
public" Banks refused To advance
loans TO such contractors and nom
union men we're brought in.
The aroused workers then forced
thu Building Trades Council openly
to repudiate the Lands award and
that under no circumstances would
they arbitrate their grievances in the
future. The last week in January,
twenty-eight of the building trades
unions (all but four of them signed
a petition asking Judge Lands TO
resign. He issued to the newspapers
a statement refusing the request.
Last week, the awards to go into
effect in May were announced. Judge
Lands term then expired but the
self-constituted citizens committee,
organized to enforce the awards, is
still functioning. 1t has already
forced open shop in the majority OF
trades. Moreover, on Friday OF last
week the unions themselves accepted
the decision which, they said, they
would faithfully live up to until its
expiration a year from next June.
The following morning the Chicago
Tribune heralded 1.-The long delayed
building boom" and recorded that the
decision on the part of the workers
CONSTITUTES a virtual surrender on
the part of the unions" The men re-
turned to work that day, but the feel
ing which the method of arbitration
. resorted to left among the workers
is a story which the Tribune did not
tell.
The points on which Judge Landis
violated generally accepted principles
of arbitration might be summed up
as follows:
/. He entered upon. the arbitra-
ton proceedings when all parties had
not submitted their case to him. The
carpenters, for instance, refused.
Judge Lands in going ahead with the
case thus left a loophole through
which the enforcement of the decision
might effectively be blocked, for
building obviously could not proceed
without carpenters. Labor was prob
able not unaware of this.
2. He did not keep within the con-
fines of the dispute.
First, in revising the working
/ rules: There was no question in the
mind of anyone that the rules needed
revision, but this was not the ques-
ton submitted to the arbitrator. He
persuaded the unions to accept rules,
some of them in violation of their ma
tional rules. There are thousands OF
working rules, many of them with a
l.. tsln.aaN