In 1906 the employing lithographers discontinued their national
agreement with the lithographers' union. In 1907 the United Typothet?
broke with the pressmen, and the stove founders with the stove mounters
and stove polishers. In 1908 the agreements between the Lake Carriers
and Lumber Carriers (both operating on the Great Lakes) and the
seafaring and water front unions were terminated.
In the operation of these unsuccessful agreements the most serious
stumbling blocks were the union "working rules," that is to say, the
restrictive rules which unions strove to impose on employers in the
exercise of their managerial powers in the shop, and for which the
latter adopted the sinister collective designation of "restriction of
output."
Successful trade unionism has always pressed "working rules" on the
employer. As early as the first decade of the nineteenth century, the
trade societies then existing tried to impose on the masters the closed
shop and restrictions on apprenticeship along with higher wages and
shorter hours. As a union advances from an ephemeral association to a
stable organization more and more the emphasis is shifted from wages to
working rules.
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