The HART SCHAFFNER & MARX LABOR AGREEMENT INDUSTRIAL LAW IN THE COMPILED BY EARL DEAN HOWARD DIRECTOR OF LABOR FOR HART SCHAFFNER & MARX CHICAGO, ILLINOIS 1920 Exchange University of Minnesota 19 1937 T Introduction HE enormous public interest in the subject of industrial relations which has developed since the war created a great demand for information about the Hart Schaffner & Marx Labor Plan. The latest pamphlet, published in 1916, became inadequate both as to supply and completeness, and therefore this new edition is issued. The general reader, less interested in technical details, might better begin by reading the two articles on page 83 by Ray Stannard Baker. Mr. Baker has succeeded in presenting a vivid picture of the present status of our industrial relations after the nine years experience with the "Agreement." After personal investigation of the various experiments in industrial relations which have sprung up so numerously within the past year or so, he characterizes the plan as "the most significant and comprehensive experiment at present under way in America, in the introduction of a new co-operative and democratic relationship in industry." The title to this pamphlet calls attention to the feature of the Plan which has most interested students of this subject. There has been a development here of a body of industrial law; Dean Wigmore, of Northwestern University Law School, referred to it as "a new field for systematic justice." The agreement itself is largely a codification of decisions. growing out of specific cases. Since the last codification in 1916, a considerable body of law has been added through decisions of the Boards and abstracts of these decisions have been included as annotations to the text of the agreement. The similarity between the growth of this body of industrial law and the development of the English and American common law is apparent. When the original arbitration agreement (page 39) in 1911 provided for "a method for settlement of grievances, if any, in the future," nobody had any thought of the important consequences which would flow from it. That it happened so is largely due to the wise counsel and guidance of the first chairman of the Board of Arbitration, John E. Williams, to whom this volume is dedicated. Because every complaint or problem, no matter how great or small, may be authoritatively and finally settled by an impartial arbitrator who possesses the respect, even the reverence, of all parties, there has been built up a confidence in the arrangement and a habit of obedience to law. Wherever there is law, there must be courts to interpret and apply it. |