10. New York Amalgamated Ladies' Garinent Cutters.. ..7 W. 21st St., New York City 11. Brownsville, N. Y., Cloakmakers. New York Waterproof Garment Workers. 21. Newark, N. J., Cloak and Suitmakers. 22. New Haven Conn., Ladies' Garment Workers. 23. New York Shirtmakers... Si. Boston Skirt and Dressmakers' Union. BOOT &SHOE WORKERS UNION UNION STAMP Factory STA 1701 Pitkin Ave., Brooklyn, N. Y. .241 Tremont St., Boston, Mass .37 Prince Arthur, E. Montreal, Canada .194 Spadina Ave., Toronto, Canada 40 N. 9th St., Philadelphia, Pa. Fraternal Building, St. Louis, Mo. .117 Second Ave., New York City 1815 W. Division St., Chicago, Ill .1178 Cadieux, Montreal, Canada .20 E. 13th St., New York City 103 Montgomery St., Newark, N. J. .83 Hollock St., New Haven, Conn .231 E. 14th St., New York City .241 Tremont St., Boston, Mass 16 W. 21st St., New York City .314 Superior Ave., Cleveland, Ohio .314 Superior Ave., Cleveland, Ohio 153-15th Ave., Seattle, Wash. 314 Superior Ave., Cleveland, Ohio .411 Elm St., Cincinnati, Ohio .Labor Temple, Winnipeg, Man. .414 Warner Building, Bridgeport, Conn. 414 Warner Building, Bridgeport, Conn. .228 Second Ave., New York City .241 Tremont St., Boston, Mass. .314 Superior Ave., Cleveland, Ohio .12 Parmelee Ave., New Haven, Conn. (CONTINUED ON INSIDE BACK COVER) Named shoes are frequently made in Non-Union factories DO NOT BUY ANY SHOE no matter what its name, unless it bears a plain Do not accept any excuse for absence of the UNION STAMP BOOT AND SHOE WORKERS' UNION 246 Summer Street, Boston, Mass. JOHN F. TOBIN, Pres. CHAS. L. BAINE, Sec'y-Treas. Our General Executive Board at its recent sessions in Boston, decided to start an agitation for week work in all branches of our trades where the system of piece work is now in operation. The conviction that week work will bring us many advantages; that it will do away with some of the serious evils in our trades, has long since prevailed among the intelligent rank and file. Among the leaders of our unions there is no difference of opinion on the point. Let us indicate some of the advantages that we may expect from a change in the system of work. 1. Week work would abolish the haggling over work prices and all the troubles resulting from the method. It is needless to dwell on this at length. Every worker knows quite well what hardship and inconvenience are caused by the continual wrangling with the employers over piece prices; how difficult it is to get the proper price committees; how hard it is to avoid the underhand methods of tricky employers to deceive and get the better of the committees, and what bad blood is thereby created between the employers and workers, resulting in discharges and even frequent strikes. All this would disappear with the abolition of the system. 2. To a certain extent week work would mitigate the evil of sub-manufacturing.. Now, while every shop is adjusting its own piece prices, it is impossible to prevent some shops doing the same work at lower wages. People vary in temperament and will-power. In one shop where the price committee is firm, courageous, composed of persons with strong character, it succeeds in gaining good wages. In another shop where the committee is weak and indifferent it consents to lower wages. Were the union ever so watchful it could not prevent it. When a question is left for determination to a large number of individual people each one will form a different decision, and in absence of uniformity of action the present system leads to competition among the workers. But under week work all this must disappear. The union will then have the sole task of enforcing the weekly scale in all shops alike, in small ones as well as in large ones, in sub-factories as well as in inside factories, and it will, beyond a doubt, succeed in maintaining this con trol over all the shops. Then it will not take long to eradicate the competition between the workers of the various shops. 3. Week work would lighten the burden of our members. Under the piece work system they hurry and scurry until their strength is overtaxed. The idea that to secure larger earnings they must produce more garments, possesses their minds to such an extent that they drive their machines with all the energy left them. The week worker does not exert this mysterious driving force; he works in accordance with his natural strength. We do not wish to imply that under a system of week work all the workers, the less skilled as well as the high skilled, will earn equal wages. A weekly scale must be a minimum scale, and the high-skilled worker will be paid above the scale. This is the case in all well-organized trades, where the scale is strictly enforced. There are in every shop a certain number of workers whose wages are above the scale, because they are more efficient. It pays the employer to pay more to a good worker, and he does this willingly. The good worker. therefore, stands to gain much and lose nothing by a system of week work. 4. In time week-work might prolong the seasons. This is bound to happen, because it will be impossible to get as much work done in short seasons as at present. We do not say that it would bring a revolution in the trade and provide regular work throughout the year, instead of only at seasons. We quite realize that an industry the volume of which is determined by the style factor cannot furnish steady work all the year round. But it would be a great gain to us if we succeeded in extending the seasons by two months— that each season should start two weeks earlier and end two weeks later. Two months additional work in the year would be of considerable benefit to our members. 5. Lastly-and I consider this as most important,-week work would afford us the possibility of fortifying our union, extending its influence, rendering it powerful, bringing its aims and purpose more deeply and widely than ever into the lives of our members and drawing them into its service with stronger magnetic force. The present weekly dues are mostly applied towards controlling the shops, employing a staff of business agents, maintaining offices and price adjusters, conducting shop strikes and adjusting disputes over prices. Why does the union need so many employees and officers? Why does the routine work of the union require so great an expense? Because of the complicated and delicate system of price adjustment, which causes no end of vexation. I have no doubt that two-thirds of the expense would be saved if we had week work throughout the trade. If the union had an ample treasury the most urgent work, which for lack of funds is now being neglected, would be accomplished. In the first place the union would be enabled to do more organizing work, by which it would be considerably strengthened. In recent years our trade has extended to all parts of the country. There are skirt and waist factories even in the South. Cloak shops are now to be found in many cities, large and small, all over the West. All these new centers must be organized without delay. To undertake this work money is required. Week work in our organized cities will afford us the necessary means. Secondly, the union must introduce benefit features. Our members should be paid sick benefit, out-of-work benefit and mortuary benefit. Every extensive union of American workers has such benefits for its members. This has a double effect: it is a direct boon to the members and it knits them together in a bond of faith and loyalty to the union. But the running expenses are now so heavy that it is not possible to think of introducing benefit features without substantially increasing the dues. But when week work, which does not necessitate a large running expense, will bring economy, it will enable us to introduce a system of benefit funds from the surplus left by the present dues payments. Our General Executive Board felt certain that the agitation for week work would be crowned with success. The Board hoped that by the next fall season the change would be carried out. Indeed, the agitation for week work would now have been in full blast if not for the obstacle thrown in our path by the expelled Local No. 1. Those irresponsible individuals who have caused us many troubles have also prevented us from proceeding with this most important work. The obstacle is, however, only temporary. We have no doubt that the cloak operators will shortly be with us again in the union with which all their brothers are affiliated. During the short time that the struggle has been going on the cloak operators had the opportunity to learn what kind of people are those who oppose us; what disgraceful methods they are capable of in order to gain their personal ends. The operators will all come back to the camp of their sisters and brothers with whom they have suffered and sacrificed together to build up the union, and then we shall, with united. forces, strive to bring about all the improvements our present program calls for. Cloak operators! Come and take your place as ever in the duly recognized ranks, and shoulder to shoulder let us march forward. There is a good deal of earnest and important work to do for you; for your brothers, for the other locals, for the entire labor movement. Don't permit a clique to turn you into tools for furthering their ambitions, their grudges or their pockets. SUB-MANUFACTURING ܀܀ The contracting and sub-manufacturing problem has been for some years occupying the attention of the Cloakmakers' Union and other unions in the ladies' garment industry. For years the problem has been discussed and propositions submitted for driving the contractors and sub-manufacturers out of the industry. It might be presumed that the problem is peculiar to our trades and that only in the ladies' garment industry are contractors and sub-manufacturers to be found. Such is, at any rate, the inpression produced by the so-called theoreticians in our ranks, and we believe that many of the rank and file in the shops believe that this evil is specially annoying them; that in other trades nothing like it exists, and, therefore, other unions have nothing to suggest in the way of a solution. This is a great mistake, and the quicker the masses of our people will recognize and admit their mistake, the better for them. Contracting and sub-manufacturing exist nearly in all industries, large and small. Those trades which are immune from their influence are exceptions. Either they are industries in which contracting and sub-manufacturing are practically impossible, as mining, for example, or industries controlled entirely by one big trust, as in the oil and steel industries. Turn to any trade we will and we shall find a well-developed and widespread contracting or sub-manufacturing system. Let us take as a case in point such thoroughly-well organized trades as the building and the printing trades and we find sub-manufacturers and contractors in all their departments. Most of the building construction companies do not put up the buildings through their direct employees but through contractors. The construction company takes the order for the entire building and employs contractors for the bricklaying, the painting, the plumbing, the carpentry. These contractors do the work on these jobs either directly through their own employees or they sub-let part of their contracts to other contractors. There are large printing establishments which give out work to numerous small printing shops-work which for various reasons-technical difficulties or purely business considerations-they are unable to do themselves. Similar conditions obtain in the cigar trade and elsewhere. Yet we do not hear that in these unions there should be complaints about the contracting system. Their members do not discuss its causes or seek to abolish it. It makes no difference to them whether their employer has an Irish name and employes 500 work-people or has a foreign name and employs only five people. The International Typoghaphical Union, one of the most powerful unions in the world, has never refused its label to a printer because he did not happen to employ a large number of people. The reason for this is that these unions have from the beginning pursued one aim-a logical, practical and direct aim-to secure union conditions in all their factories, whether large or small. Their position ever has been this: "We are not at all interested in the business schemes of our employers. Let them introduce any system they choose, or handle their business affairs in any way they care. All we care for is that union conditions should prevail where any of our members are employed; that they should everywhere get the union rate of wages and work the number of hours required by the union." The International Typographical Union applies the same rule to all the employers in its trade. An employer is the same whether he employs 500 or five people; whether he makes all the work in his establishment or sends part of it out to other places. All that the union requires is that every employer, big or small, shall comply with its conditions. We do not wish to enter here into a discussion as to whether theoretically it would be better for the workers that the trades they work in should be in the hands only of big manufacturers, and small shops and sub-factories should not be permitted to exist at all. Nor do we wish to discuss the question whether it is possible for a union to drive the small shops and sub-factories out |