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Perlman, Selig

"A History of Trade Unionism in the United States"

Hence the acceptance of the principle of
"standards of production" fixed with the aid of scientific managers
employed jointly by the employers and the union.
The spring and summer of 1921 were a time of widespread "readjustment"
strikes, or strikes against cuts in wages, especially in the building
trades. The building industry went through in 1921 and 1922 one of its
periodic upheavals against the tyranny of the "walking delegates" and
against the state of moral corruption for which some of the latter
shared responsibility together with an unscrupulous element among the
employers. In San Francisco, where the grip of the unions upon the
industry was strongest, the employers turned on them and installed the
"open-shop" after the building trades' council had refused to accept an
award by an arbitration committee set up by mutual agreement. The union
claimed, however, in self-justification that the Committee, by awarding
a _reduction_ in the wages of fifteen crafts while the issue as
originally submitted turned on a demand by these crafts for a _raise_
in wages, had gone outside its legitimate scope.


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