Page:LA2-NSRW-4-0482.jpg

TRADE-UNIONS separated by a (q. v.) or of variable weather. Their name comes from tread, which sailors pronounced trade, because they tread so steadily. But it also is said that they are named because of their usefulness to marine trade.  Trade-Unions. A trade-union may be defined as a continuous association of wage-earners, primarily for improving conditions of employment, secondarily for any form of mutual benefit and protection. In the strictest sense it is a combination of wage-earners engaged in the same industry or the same trade. Thus the carpenters' union is of men engaged in the same trade; the United Mine-Workers' Union is of men engaged in the same industry, though of several trades; miners proper, as well as blacksmiths, firemen, etc. The Knights of Labor, on the other hand, was not a trade-union at all, as it included men who were not wage-earners; in fact, any one over 16 might join, provided he sympathized with the purposes of the order.

Trade-unions are distinct from trade-guilds of the middle ages and the succeeding centuries so far as the latter consisted either of masters or of men who, in the normal course of affairs, would become masters. The trade-union proper came into existence only when there was created a sharp distinction between wage-earners as a class and employers as a class, a distinction that arose only with the rise of methods in production that require considerable capital. Thus a man with much capital sets up a shop in which he employs many men, paying them by the day or week and discharging them when he has no further use for them. In certain lines of business, as tailoring, these shops soon drive out of business the shops where there is but one man or a few partners, with a few apprentices to assist. This innovation spread in England, about the beginning of the 18th century. At once the employees in such capitalistic shops found that, unless they combined and bargained collectively, they were liable to a heartless and unbridled tyranny which had been impossible under the old conditions of working; for the employer obviously has a great advantage over the individual employee, which prevents the latter making with the former a free contract in any proper sense of the term. Thus the earliest trade-unions, those of the journeymen-tailors in London and the woolworkers in other parts of England, sprang into being. The laws of England forbade such combinations; but those laws also forbade the employers to pay less than a certain wage, which was regarded as sufficient for decent and healthy living. Between 1756 and 1814, in the desire to secure foreign trade at any cost, the laws controlling wages fell into disuse and were then repealed, while the laws forbidding combinations in restraint of trade were made more rigid and were enforced with great severity against the workmen, but not against the employers. But, working steadily for the good of the men and of humanity generally, Francis Place, whose name should be remembered, though himself an employer, in 1825 secured from Parliament a repeal of the anticombination laws. In 1871 trade-unions received from Parliament full recognition.

In the United States employers and employees started without any definite restriction on combination, though the English law on the subject had some weight on the attitude of the courts. In 1821 Pennsylvania definitely declared trade-unions to be legal; but not till 1843 did Massachusetts follow suit. But the law against labor combinations has never been recognized as binding on the courts of this country. The earliest trade-unions of this country arose in New York City. They were the unions of journeymen-shipwrights (1803), of house-carpenters (1806) and of the famous N. Y. Typographical Society. Since that time the movement has developed on parallel lines in England and in the United States, conditions compelling the English labor-unions to advance somewhat more rapidly.

Between 1825 and 1880 in England and between 1810 and 1880 in the United States the trade-unions as a whole had not learnt the principle of federating the lesser branches into a central organization. The separate unions frequently indulged in useless strikes, foredoomed to failure. The central organizations that came into being from time to time turned to co-operative schemes or to political movements for which the countries were not prepared, usually of a socialistic character. There was no little corruption as well as folly among the leaders. The unions were largely restricted to the stronger trades and to favored localities. Among the noteworthy advances at this time, however, we may note the first provision for a joint conference of employers and employees (1860) held in Great Britain, in connection with the hosiery trade; the formation of some strong national unions, as the typographical union and the national associations of hat-finishers and of locomotive-engineers in the United States; and the adoption of the union label as a sign that the work so stamped has been done under the conditions of payment and employment for which the union stands. The Knights of Labor, established in the United States in 1869, had great success for fifteen years, but have given way to the American Federation of Labor. The Trades-Union Congress, established in Great Britain in 1868, was at first prevented from attaining its present importance because of the restricted character of its membership. 