The labor journal. [volume] (Everett, Wash.) 1909-1976, 1922-09-09
HOW JUDICIAL DISPUTES IN
THE BUILDING TRADES ARE SETTLED

(This article under the title
Strikes, appeared in Golfers Week
ly and is worth reading for the in
formation of Building Trades me-
chanicS.-Editor.
Have you ever gone through the
ag, ny of needless delay after delay
in waiting for your new house? VI
for your quarters in the new office
building? Or even for your garage ?
Have you sweat blood while your
carpenters fought with your metal
workers as to which craft should put
in the metal trim on your job? Have
you had them both walk out because
they could not agree, and leave you
literally holding the sack through
no fault of your own?
If so, here is news for you.
The problem of the jurisdictional
strike-those quarrels in which men
quit work not because of wage dis
putes, or hours, or trouble with the
boss, but because the unions them
selves could not agree as to which
should do certain parts of the job
has been solved.
And it was solved by those most
intimately concerned by the simple
expedient of getting round a table
and putting all the cards on it.
With speed, but not without diff
Guilty, board composed of represen-
tatives of the contractors, builders
and workers, together with the pub
lies representative from the United
States Department of Labor, found a
common ground for agreement.
1t is amazing fact that this board
accomplished in a few months what
the employers and laborers had been
struggling to do for more than twen-
ty years. Since the board came into
existence millions upon millions of
dollars have been saved for builders
and many more millions to the labor
ers, in time. But most important of
all is the restoration of morale in
the workers.
Moreover, the work of this board
has dried up the greatest source Of
labor graft. Overnight it destroyed
the weapon that made possible ex-
tortions of men like the late 'Skin-
ny" Madden of Chicago and Bob
Brindell, late of New York, but now
of Sing Sing prison.
Although the jurisdictional strike
had been practiced for quarter of
a century, not many realized how its
tentacles reached into the vitals of
the building trades. Through it
building in whole cities was tied up
season after season, contractors and
investors were forced into bankrupt
cy, while workmen, who perhaps
could stand the loss least of all, lost
weeks and months of employment.
Because of it no workman leaving
home in the morning for his place OF
employment was sure that he would
not be on strike before the day was
out, not on account of wage dispute
or any other difficulty with his en-
ployer, but because the representa-
tives of two unions differed as to
whose men should do a particular
job.
With men of one trade off build
ing, work on it soon ceased, for the
trades are interdependent. Nor did
it help any for the employer to fill
with non-unionists. When he did so,
the other crafts quit, anyway. Which
ever way he turned, he was between
IilS uSNll anu IiS uSSp DluS oSds lhG
rank and file of the workers were no
better off,
Business Agents with Itchy Palms
Moreover, honest disputes were not
the only difficulty. Where, as very
frequently happened, business agents
developed itchy palms, it was an
easy matter to set up a technical
dispute that could only be settled
when the itch was cured by coin of
the realm freely applied.
''In fifty-two weeks" says William
Dobson, general secretary of the
bricklayers' national organization, II
have been in fifty-four jurisdictional
strikes. Frequently | did not know
what | was talking about"
This condition obtained in the au-
tumn of 1918 when Edward j. Rus
sell of the American Institute of
Architects headed delegation sent
from that body to the Building
Trades Department of the American
Federation of Labor to ask if some
way could not be devised whereby
these needless strikes could be avert
ed. John Donlin, president of that
department, replied that they would
welcome the assistance of all other
elements in the industry, but more
particularly the architects, the So
called "aristocrats" Of the industry
"who had previously held aloof from
all labor matters"
With their assistance and that of
John B. Lennon of the Department