ing the situation was fast becoming. After the settlement of August, 1915, through the intervention of Mayor Mitchel's Council of Conciliation, the struggle, mostly of a verbal character, between the organized employers and the union, was resumed, finally culminating in the break between the Protective Manufacturers' Association and our International Union.

It was not until the lockout was actually declared that the plans of the organized employers to disrupt our organization were clearly seen to have been in preparation, even while the agreement of 1915 was being signed in apparent good faith.

The employers set their minds on trying conclusions with the union. They had felt secure of their own position and trusted the calculations of their advisers.

But with all their plans and calculations they ignored or overlooked two very important factors in the situation. Firstly, while our union was financially unprepared for a long drawnout conflict, our membership, in any cause where they feel themselves sorely aggrieved, have a great capacity for fighting, even if they must starve and suffer in the process. Secondly, while public opinion is more than in former years enlightened upon the aims of organized labor and more sympathetic to its just claims, it is more often than not inclined to array itself against the aggressive party in extensive industrial disputes.

The employers not only overlooked these factors, but ignored the triumphs of our union in the first three months of the year. They were obsessed. with the idea of smashing the power of the union, and refused to be satisfied until the smashing process had plainly set in within their our ranks.

UNION-SMASHING TACTICS DEAD AND BURIED

We shall not here dwell on the results of the gigantic con

flict, so recent and so all-absorbing, beyond pointing out that the most important part of the victory for the union was the disappointment of the employers at the miscarriage of their designs. Owing to their excessive zeal for the union-smashing scheme, and the headlong militancy displayed in trying to carry it out, they neglected their business and spoilt the chances of a good season. It was inevitable. Our people have thus had little opportunity to enjoy the fruits of the new agreement or properly test its merits.

But never again! At least, not for a very long time will the employers in the cloak industry repeat the unionsmashing tactics of 1916. The experience has had a salutary effect upon them, and it was a tonic to the cloakmakers. The very purpose and manner of the attack nerved and stimulated the workers to resist the employers' aims to the bitter end.

Thus, while the International during 1916 has been writing a glorious chapter into its history, the organized cloak, waist and dress manufacturers have been impressed with the power of working class solidarity and endurance under the most trying circumstances. They cannot easily forget the lesson it taught them.

And 1916 ended, as it had begun, with cheer and inspiration. The thirteenth convention, although held four months later than the regular constitutional date, lacked nothing in enthusiasm and power of harmonizing all the elements of which our great union is composed. The strenuous and epoch-making events of the year imparted to the biennial gathering a rare spirit of confidence, faith, and resolve to go from strength to strength.

We do not expect quite such soulstirring events in the new year as we have experienced in 1916. So far as we can surmise at this moment, the issues will not be so concentrated in one center of industry, but fought out separately in many centers.

The scope of the movements to be undertaken and those already in full swing in New York, Newark, Baltimore, Toronto, Montreal, Cleveland, Cincinnati and Chicago is very extensive, and the outcome should prove no less satisfactory and beneficial to a large number of ladies' garment workers; for the time is very propitious. Our International Union is sure to receive added strength and prestige as a result of the movements now developing in various branches of industry.

We expect success in these movements because our fair methods of dealing with individual and organized employers are known far and wide. Employers have less to lose from. negotiating with our officers agreements embodying fair labor conditions. than from contemplating all sorts of imaginary disasters and allowing the situation to drift to strikes.

Reasonable employers are not so steeped in stupidity and inexperience as to forget or deliberately shut their ears to the fact that a strike involves real disaster to their interests, especially at the beginning of the season. This is the experience of most employers in all the most important centers of our industry, with rare exceptions. What holds good in the cloak, waist and dress trades of New York, Philadelphia, and other centers, must

also hold good in the trades now organizing and joining the union.

WELL-PAID
LABOR IS
EFFICIENT LABOR

The unusual ad

vance in the cost of living and in the price

of commodities does no harm to manufacturers, for they, too, raise the prices of their manufactured goods. It is no secret that they take good care to secure a margin of profit above and beyond the extra cost of materials and labor. But the increased cost of living exceedingly hurts the workers.

In proportion as high prices do the manufacturers good it takes the wind out of the sails of their usual arguments that an increase of pay and other needful concessions tend to weigh heavily on them. The advance in the cost of every thing, much as we deplore it, has been general, and employers of labor are the real beneficiaries. This explains why many industrial concerns have raised wages voluntarily, without pressure from organized labor. They always can afford to give labor its fair reward and keep it efficient for their own sake.

Many employers have testified that labor satisfied and efficient swells the profits. Those employers never suffer from concessions to labor, for a fair day's wage means a fair day's work. But even if their profits did decrease somewhat, on account of meeting the workers' demands, they would still remain in the most advantageous position as compared with the ever precarious condition of the workers.

In all dealings with employers the representatives of our union have ever displayed remarkable moderation, and

in the present movements they are not departing from the rule of avoiding everything that savors of exorbitance. We have reason to believe that rather than precipitate strikes and all the risks they entail, the employers in every case will come to reason and effect a settlement with the union on the basis of the square deal.

WIDE-AWAKE

WHITEGOODS WORKERS

*

The White Goods Workers' Union Local No. 62 is in a position

different from a number of most unorganized trades in which organizing campaigns are now being conducted by the International organizers. This well-managed and businesslike local union has had a collective agreement with the Cotton Garmen Manufacturers' Asociation since 1913. Two years ago this agreement was amicably renewed in conference. The employers granted a number of concessions, which made the agreement a more workable instrument, but the improvements in wages and conditions, though somewhat satisfactory, still left much to be desired.

Now, the agreement is again going to be amicably renewed, and further improvements must be granted by the employers. Several conferences have already been held, and by the time these lines appear in print, a settlement will probably have been effected. We cannot imagine that the experienced white-goods employers will do aught to force a strike upon the wide awake and well-prepared white-goods workers.

The last two years have been prosperous years for the cotton garment manufacturers; and the new agreement should make good every deficiency in the agreement of 1915. Any other course would be a losing game for the employers. This fact is well

known to them. The White-Goods Workers' Union will emerge from the present verbal conflict secure in its strength and future welfare. The implicit faith in the efficacy of the union characterizing its members, their unabated enthusiasm and unshaken confidence in the local leadership have made Local No. 62 one of the exemplary locals in our International Union.

*

WAIST AND WHITEGOODS WORKERS OF NEWARK, N. J.

A general move

ment

among the waist and white

goods workers of Newark has been going on ever since March, 1915. The International has all along maintained organizers in that field, and gradually a strong local union has been built up. Local No. 113 has been steadily growing and increasing its numbers and is quite ready to marshall its forces in battle array.

New Jersey has ever been regarded as a difficult field, and our organizers have had an uphill task in Newark. Some ladies' garment manufacturers believe that New Jersey is a convenient hiding place out of the union's reach. This shows that they are bent on concealing their methods of exploitation.

Many diseases flourish most in dark places, out of the sunlight and fresh air; so do rotten industrial methodsfor underpay, overwork, and slave driving are veritable diseases of the social organism. The employers, who escape from the union to New Jersey, bring disgrace upon that State by recruiting quiet and inexperienced women of various races and tongues into their shops and enriching themselves by the insufficient pay and unfair treatment of these timid and unprotesting workers.

But the watchful eye of our union

is ever directed at these unhealthy industrial spots. In recent years our International has made repeated attempts to penetrate into this nonunion territory and has succeeded in making its influence felt. Our organizers have advanced step by step and the workers are rallying to the union banner.

The cloak-makers have built up a stronghold of union shops and fair labor conditions in several districts of New Jersey, and are watching every opportunity for increasing the organized ranks and improving the workers' lot. But our concern now is chiefly with the waist and white-goods workers of Newark. From a handful of members at the close of 1914, Local No. 113 of that city has grown almost a hundredfold. A wave of discontent is spreading among these workers, who

麻

are eagerly awaiting the promise of deliverance by the union.

The General Executive Board had sactioned the calling of a general strike of waist and white-goods workers of Newark and vicinity and the recent convention gave its approval. The union cannot permit that the workers shall be crushed between the upper and nether millstones of low working conditions and the high cost of living. New Jersey must be prevented from being a menace to the hard-won union standards in the waist and white-goods trades of New York. If a strike eventually takes place it. will be because the employers have so long ignored the writing on the wall; and the strike is bound to be a great success, for the workers are throbbing with new life and awakened interest.

The labor movement has long since passed the time when the financial question was regarded as of no importance. Anyone venturing at this present time to advocate the old notion that what a union needs is "men rather than money," would be regarded as one deprived of his senses.

The wage-earners of many years past who embraced this notion proceeded to organize unions on the basis of very low dues, and the belief in the dictum of "men rather than money" went so far that workers were often considered good loyal members even if they paid no dues at all. A weekly dues of 5 cents was deemed quite sufficient.

The cost of running the business of a labor organization was then correspondingly small. Little else was re

quired than a small sum for hall rent and for printing circulars once every three months, or at the beginning of every season. For mostly then the workers were called to a meeting with a view to organizing a new union or re-organizing the old union. The time. was characteristic of an insignificiant movement, scant needs and narrow conceptions.

But the times have since irrevocably changed. Instead of hundreds of members (and a labor organization then believed itself fortunate with hundreds of members) we now have many more unions, unions with thousands of members and tens of thousands of members. New requirements have sprung up and the struggles are more strenuous, involving heavier and more varied expenses.

Petty and speculative organizing campaigns have disappeared into the limbo of the past. Now, stormy agitations and persistent, systematic recruiting are indispensable. The changed times have devolved upon us big mass movements, extensive strikes, numerous organizers, all involving a tremendous cost..

In the past all this was neither required nor even realized. To-day, procrastination or delay results in weakness and defeat. In the past, it was customary to wage strikes in the busy season and relapse into dullness and inactivity in the slack season. Today, continuous vigilance must be kept up in the slack season to maintain the union standards in the busy season; and every step costs money. New times-new requirements. It would be idle and stupid to continue treading the old paths and apply past methods.

LOCALS ALIVE
TO THE QUESTION
OF HIGHER DUES

Precisely this is the meaning of the movement for higher dues in the Cloakmakers' Union of New York. The question has already been. extensively discussed at local meetings. Some locals have already recognized the necessity for higher dues; others have postponed their decision until the next spring season.

Prior to the lockout and strike of last summer general indifference to the question of higher dues had been manifested. The proposition had met with almost general opposition. But the strike of fifteen weeks' duration opened the eyes of all thoughtful people, and the question is: How often could the strongest labor organization in point of numbers conduct similar strikes without very ample resources and without a regular, systematic strike benefit?

CAN NEVER BE SURE OF THE FUTURE

The best settlement after a strike cannot insure us against new and unexpected circumstances, leading to a fresh conflict. (We are not here forecasting the future, but simply urging preparedness.)

In 1911-1912 many of our own leaders dreamt of a prolonged, indefinite era of peace in the cloak industry, and prominent leaders of the Protective Manufacturers' Association shared in this dream. The latter even claimed that they were peace-loving employers, desirous of perpetual peace, and ever ready to discuss new demands in conference, in order to prevent strikes. Philantropists, sociologists and social workers hailed the protocol as the last word on industrial disputes and strongly believed that other industries might copy the example of the cloak industry with advantage.

Gradually, however, the leadership of the Protective Association slipped into other hands, and "there arose a new king who knew not Joseph." The new leaders regarded the protocol as a thorn and an obstacle. They aimed at the sociologists and moralists their arrows of scorn and ridicule. They fought tooth and nail every attempt to amend the protocol and render it a workable instrument, and finally declared a lockout.

What does this experience teach us? It teaches us the same lesson as the nations of the world learned when the great war cloud broke over unfortunate Europe; namely, that highsounding as the phrases may be in any treaty between the high-contracting parties, they cannot positively and permanently insure against the rise of causes, originating in human feelings, leading to strained relations and hostilities and rendering the treaty a worthless scrap of paper.