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which rests upon them much more than do the members of an arbitration board. The members of an arbitration board always feel that they can fall back on the umpire to do the right thing or to do the convenient thing. This Conciliation Board meets, whether any business is on hand or not, once in two weeks, and if there is nothing to be done, I suppose the members shake hands and part; but if there is any business to be transacted they transact it, and they have had before them nine cases during the four or five months that they have been in existence, and every case, except the last one, has been decided by a unanimous vote; and the result, of course, has been eminently satisfactory to both sides. In the ninth case the matter involved a question of a serious principle and the Conciliation Board was unable to reach a conclusion, but they preferred, rather than send the case to arbitration, which, under their contract would naturally follow failure of the Conciliation Board to refer it again to a higher Conciliation Board, namely, the Chairman of your Labor Committee, the Labor Adjuster and two members of the National Executive Council of the Brewery Workmen, and that Board will meet in a short time and no doubt will dispose of the question without a hitch and to the satisfaction of everybody.

I desire to impress this feature upon the members, in order that they may think it over and, either at the time when their contracts expire, urge the adoption of a similar measure in their new contracts, or even anticipate the expiration of the contract and confer with the Union authorities of their respective localities for the purpose of introducing this feature as a condition to existing contracts. I am sure it will result in the greatest satisfaction.

This new departure is possible only because there is a new era now between workmen and employers. They no longer feel that they are two hostile camps. They feel that their interests. are identical, and there is a growth of that spirit of co-operation which is so desirable. I do not forget in this connection what many of you are, even at this time, subjected to on the part of the unions; but I beg of you not to generalize from these individual instances. This very desirable object can not be accomplished in a day; it is a development, a growth, which is steadily progressing and which it is our duty to foster and to help along as much as we can.

I know that so far as the International Executive Board of the Brewery Workmen is concerned, you will have their support in no

doubtful way. I do not doubt that another element is helping this feature along, or rather this spirit of co-operation, and that is the appreciation on the part of the International officers and the International Executive Council of the Brewery Workers that our industry is seriously threatened by the Anti-Saloon League people, by the Prohibitionists, and that this hostile feeling is gaining, and is becoming very threatening, and that their interests are in jeopardy as well as our own. A common danger is apt to bind us more closely together, and to that extent, of course, it is not unwelcome. In order that this spirit may grow, it has been the aim of the Labor Committee, so far as it came in contact with the members, either directly or through the Labor Adjuster, to educate our members to an understanding of the labor question and an appreciation of what is involved in the relation of the employer and the workman, in order that we may, so far as it is possible for us, be just, fair, considerate and liberal to the men we employ. With this end in view, we must not be discouraged by the occurrence of little outbreaks of injustice on the part of the workmen. We are men of wider experience, of better education, of greater knowledge of human affairs and of business affairs, and therefore the responsibility that rests upon us to take the first step, the second and the third-indeed, to take a great many steps towards the establishment of cordial relations with our employees-is greater than upon the workmen. We are of the class who are most largely responsible for tying the men to ourselves, for securing their cooperation, and for proving to them that we are fair, just and liberal employers.

I would ask you, gentlemen, to take the printed report of the Labor Committee and study it. The Labor Committee also asks of you a continuance of your demands for its services. They have been in the past and are now at your command, and the Labor Committee will duly appreciate your demands for its assistance, and will consider the fact that you do appreciate the work of the Labor Committee in proportion to the number of calls you make upon it for its services. (Applause.)

THE PRESIDENT:-Gentlemen, you have heard the report of the Labor Committee. What is your pleasure?

MR. NACHOD:-I move that it be adopted.

The motion was duly seconded and unanimously carried.

REPORT OF THE LABOR COMMITTEE.

GENTLEMEN:-During the past twelve months the field work of our labor adjuster has twice carried him from coast to coast, and as far south as Texas. His work included visits to San Francisco, Portland and Seattle; Helena and Butte, Montana; Salt Lake City and Ogden, Utah; San Antonio, Texas; St. Louis, Mo.; Cincinnati, Ohio; Washington, D. C.; Stamford, Bridgeport and New Haven, Conn.; Rochester, N. Y.; Boston, Mass.; Erie, Pa.; and Providence and other Rhode Island cities. Mr. Moffett's work in these places consisted for the greater part in representing the local employers in contract negotiations; for the remainder, it had to do with the settling of casual disputes. Those cities where colleagues have been advised by our representative in contract negotiations and other labor matters, while in the field, by written communication, would form a considerable group themselves.

The upward tendency of wages commented upon in our report to the 1912 convention has shown little abatement. The demand for a reduction in hours has continued without modification. Vigorous effort has been made in several places to have new contracts provide for a six-day week for those comparatively few brewery employees the nature of whose duties compels them to work the entire week. In almost all instances, however, a compromise was reached either through a relatively higher increase in wages, or granting days off with pay or a definite vacation, as was unanimously recommended by the convention held at Chicago, in 1911. This recommendation, it will be recalled, bespoke a vacation, with pay, of one week or more each year for employees who enjoyed neither holiday nor half-holiday during the year.

There has been less insistence upon the recognition in the contracts executed during the past twelve months, of the union's right to impose upon the employer such petty restrictions as have in the past so greatly hampered him in the proper conduct of his business. Our workingmen are coming to realize that such interference with the rightful control of his shop affairs delimits by so much the employer's ability to meet a constantly rising wage scale, and that such petty advantages ultimately react upon themselves. Whether they show a better understanding of the abstract injustice of such meddling, we cannot assume to say.

In connection with this same tendency is to be noted the diminution of shop strikes, so-called. The assumption that a con

tracting union may at its pleasure virtually break an agreement in order to force redress for an actual or fancied grievance, is an anomaly that appears to be in a fair way of disappearance. The international officials of the Brewery Workmen appear to have taken a decided stand against the calling of unwarranted strikes, as may be seen from a persual of their report to the convention held by that organization late last year. This stand may have seemed to some employers as tardily taken; nor have shop strikes entirely disappeared. The difficulties which have beset these leaders may best be appreciated by those employers who know and understand the peculiar psychology of the brewery workers' organization. Subscribing as it does, not only formally but to a great extent substantially, to a socio-economic creed wherein the emphasis is placed upon mass action, autonomy has for the rank and file an importance that quite often reduces individual leadership to a mere abstraction.

Although about one-hundred and fifty contracts have been renewed since our last convention, there have been no serious strikes. The only strike of particular importance occurred at Salt Lake City. It resulted in a victory for the employers. The men had struck without the sanction of the international executive board, in the hope apparently that the employers would prove timid, or at least go to pieces once they should feel the pressure applied. Notwithstanding that the busy season was at hand, the employers stood for a fair contract without a single defection, one or more of them refusing offers of special inducements to betray their competitors.

While we believe that the unions in our industry are beginning to exhibit right tendencies, to yield a larger recognition of the rights of the employers, we shall not allow ourselves to indulge in an idle and deceiving optimism. The welcome tendencies we have noted are due in large part to a more general disposition upon the part of the employer to stand more firmly for what is right and fair. There have been one or two striking, not to say dismal, examples to the contrary. While it is conceivable that an employer may at times be so circumstanced as to be unable to offer more than nominal resistance to arbitrary acts upon the part of a union, it is none the less true that in the past too many brewers have been inclined to consider the easiest way the best way.

TO AVERT STRIKES.

An important development during the spring of this year, and one that seems likely to command the attention of the entire industry, is the means adopted in the trade at St. Louis for the peaceful settlement of disputes arising between employers and members of the Brewery Workmen. Here in this great brewing centre the industry has been harassed for years by constantly recurring disputes, now tying up a department of this brewery and now tying up a department of that, with ill feeling and distrust growing åpace. Now all this is in a fair way of being bettered, if the success that has so far attended the plan of conciliation and arbitration included in the new agreements may be accepted as an augury of the future.

The main provisions of the plan may be summarized as follows:

a.

b.

C.

d.

Effort must first be made to settle the given dispute with the superintendent (or chief, or consulting engineer, according to the department); failing which

Either disputant may state his grounds for complaint, in writing, to the other; the Union addressing the employer, or vice versa. If this fails to induce an adjustment, the matter is automatically referred to a standing board of conciliation. In the event of a settlement not being reached by this board, the matter in dispute then comes within the jurisdiction of a board of arbitration. The board of conciliation is composed of three members and three alternates representing the brewery workmen, and an equal number representing the employers. Members and alternates serve for one year, and meetings are held every second week, or oftener if required. Written records are kept of all proceedings. Four members, equally divided as to constituencies, constitute a quorum, and a majority vote decides.

The membership of the arbitration board is composed as is that of the ordinary boards of this kind. Two members are chosen by the unions and two by the employers; the four choosing, in case of disagreement, a fifth person, who must not in anyway be identified with the trade or the unions. The arbitration must commence

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