From the standpoint of the Federation, the
Structural Alliance was at best an extra-legal organization, as it did
not receive the latter's formal sanction, but the Federation could
scarcely afford to ignore it as it had ignored the International
Building Trades' Council. Thus in 1908 the Alliance was "legitimatized"
and made a "Department" of the American Federation of Labor, under the
name of the Building Trades' Department, with the settlement of
jurisdictional disputes as its main function. It was accompanied by
departments of metal trades, of railway employes, of miners, and by a
"label" department.
It is not, however, open to much doubt that the Department was not a
very successful custodian of the trade autonomy principle.
Jurisdictional disputes are caused either by technical changes, which
play havoc with official "jurisdiction," or else by a plain desire on
the part of the stronger union to encroach upon the province of the
weaker one. When the former was the case and the struggle happened to be
between unions of equal strength and influence, it generally terminated
in a compromise.
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