Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 19.djvu/454

* TRADE UNIONS. 396 TKADE UNIONS. paid friendly benefits, and engaged in protracted conflicts with employers, characterized by the essential element of the modern strike. Admit- ting, as Professor Ashlej' suggests, that the journeymen of these fraternities "were almost all luimarried, that when employed they lived in the master's house, that the masters themselves had usually been journeymen, that the number of masters and journeymen was very much the same," there nevertheless seems to the writer no tenable reason for denying to these associa- tions all the essential attributes of the modern trade union. It is evident, however, that etTective and solid trade unionism is intimately dependent upon the existence of a body of workers who will in the natural order of things remain wage- earners throughout their lives. In other words, the trade union follows in general the permanent separation of the emploj'ing and wage-earning classes. This separation, speaking generally, w-as a product of the industrial revolution and the factory system. Trade unions consequently did not become numerous until the latter half of the eighteenth century. In EnyJrjnd the history of trade unionism in the eighteenth century is marked by increasing hostility on the part of Parliament toward com- binations of laborers. Laws regulating wages, apprenticeship, movement of laborers from parish to parish etc., existed, and the open activity of the trade unions during that cen- tury seems to have been largely directed toward the enforcement of those laws, which the em- plo_yers themselves at times foiind it convenient to break. Laws against combinations of work- ingmen in specific trades began to multiply as the doctrine of laissez-faire secured wider ac- ceptance. These laws culminated in the Com- bination Acts of 1709 and 1800, by which every form of combination, whetlier of employer or em- ployees, was rigidly prohibited. In effect, the acts were enforced against the laborers only. For twenty-five years the unions were driven into hiding, but they were by no means extirpat- ed. In 1S24 the whole group of combination laws was repealed, but in the following year a reaction set in, and in another statute the law against combination was revived, leaving labor- ers free to combine, however, for the purpose of fixing the wages or hours of labor of parties to the combination. The act of 1825 was followed by the rise of labor (U'ganizations or general trade unions of a socialistic nature described in the article on L.-iBGR Organizations. During these years, how- ever, the trade union proper was making steady progress within the separate trades, in which identity of interests made unity of organization and policy a comparatively easy task. Toward the middle of the century a reaction against the strike set in, and widespread reforms in the management of the friendly benefit system were inaugurated. The union which applied the new ideas most successfully was the Journeymen Steam Engine and Machine Makers' and Mill- wrights' Friendly .Society, which in 1850 ab- sorbed several other large unions of mechanics and became the Amalgamated Society of En- gineers, whose careful and elaborate set of rules for the financial and general administration of the union served, according to Jlr. and Mrs. Webb, as the "model for all national societies" founded between 1852 and 1889. The reaction from the socialistic trade unionism of the '30's brought to the front a remarkable group of labor leaders, acute, tactful, industrious, and conserva- tive, who between 1860 and 1875 united in a persistent and energetic campaign for legislative reform. The first victory came in the Master and Servant Act of 1867, which corrected the most glaring defects of the old law on this subject. The union leaders, however, aimed at more sweep- ing concessions. By the celebrated Trade Union Act of 1871 it was provided that no trade union should be deemed illegal simply because it was in restraint of trade, and imions were given a legal standing carrying with it protection of their funds, without exposing them to the ordi- nary obligations of an incorporated company. Finally in 1875 the unions secured the passage of a very liberal Employers' and Workmen's Act (replacing the JIaster and Servant Act of 1867), and a revolutionary Conspiracy and Protection of Property Act, which expressly permitted peace- able picketing, and jirovided that no combination to do any act in furtherance of a trade dispute between employers and workmen should be in- dictable as a conspiracy unless such act if com- mitted by one person would be punishable as a crime. In 1860 a giant stride toward collective bar- gaining was taken by the formation iv. the hosiery trade of the first joint conference between em- plovers and employees for the peaceable settle- ment of trade disputes. The federation of trade unions began : trade eoiuicils became common in the cities, and in 1868 the first national Trades Union Congress was held at Manchester. Finally the successful legislation of 1871, like that of 1824, was followed by a tremendous expansion of trade unionism and the reappearance of many of the phenomena which had marked the epoch of labor organizations in the '30's, with their ideal of an aggressive, militant organization, free from the incumbrance of friendl.y benefits, em- bracing working women and unskilled labor, par- ticipating actively in politics, and with ten- dencies toward socialism. The most noteworthy event of late years is the formation in 1809 and 1900 respectively of the General Federation of Trade Unions (see Trade L^nions, The General Federation of) and the Labor Representation Committee (q.v. ). Between 1892 and 1901 inclusive the aggregate membership of British trade unions grew from 1,503,298 to 1,922,780, constituting, according to the latest official estimates, about 20 per cent, of the W'Orking classes from which trade unions recruit their membership, or 25 per cent, if we exclude the agricultural classes. Iti the United States there is no positive record of a trade imion before 1803, the year in which the New York Society of Journe.vmen Ship- wrights was incorporated. In 1806 a union of the House Carpenters of the City of Xew York was organized, and the first union of tlie Jour- neymen Tailors is .said to have been organized in the same year. As early as 1817 the New York Typographical Society had been in active ex- istence for some time, and in 1822 the Charitable Society of Shipwrights and Calkers of Boston and Charlestown was formed. The most important events of the period from 1825 to 1850 are briefly described in the article