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Perlman, Selig

"A History of Trade Unionism in the United States"

Other rules like the normal
(usually the eight-hour) day with a higher rate for overtime; the rule
demanding a guarantee of continuous employment for a stated time or a
guarantee of minimum earnings, regardless of the quantity of work
available in the shop; again the demand for the sharing of work in slack
times among all employes; and further, when layoffs become necessary,
the demand of recognition by the employer of a right to continuous
employment based on "seniority" in the shop;--all these have for their
common aim chiefly the protection of the job. Another sort of rules,
like the obstruction to the splitting up of trades and the restrictions
on apprenticeship, have in view the protection of the bargaining power
of the craft group--through artificially maintaining an undiminished
demand for skilled labor, as well as through a reduction of the number
of competitors, present and future, for jobs. The protection of the
union against the employer's designs, actual or potential, is sought by
an insistence on the closed union shop, by the recognition of the right
of appeal to grievance boards in cases of discharge to prevent
anti-union discrimination, and through establishing a seniority right in
promotion which binds the worker's allegiance to his union rather than
to the employer.


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