The sum received by the Joint Board is used to pay salaries, rent, organization expenses, the expenses of shop meetings, donations, and the loss in wages through union business of officials who work in the shop. The relation of the union to the machinery of arbitration and adjustment of disputes has made necessary the development of an additional unit of government and of elaborate administrative machinery. A large part of the life of the factory worker is after all spent in the shop. There he has his disputes with the foreman, objects to rules, protests his new piece rates, feels discrimination in the failure to apply the equal division of work principle, and participates in a stoppage, or is affected by one. In any or all cases adjustment must be made promptly and on the spot. Neither the management nor the worker can afford to wait until the point at issue has been brought to the local union or to the Joint Board and there settled. For matters such as these the employer must have his shop representative and the union its shop organization. As early as the Hart, Schaffner and Marx agreement, therefore, shops acted as units and elected their shop-chairman and assistant shop-chairman to represent them in matters affecting their interest that daily arose within the shop. With the signing of the 1919 agreements this system of shop representation was adopted throughout the market and the shop chairman and his assistant everywhere in the city represents his fellow workers, meets with the representatives of the firm, adjusts differences where possible, and refers difficult cases to other offcers of the union. At the same time, however, the clothing industry in Chicago is in many respects a unit. The union makes agreements not only with individual firms but with the market as a whole. While permitting local and shop settlements of disputed issues, the union must also see to it that working conditions approach a fair degree of standardization. This implies a certain amount of uniformity of policy throughout the city. Through the medium of hundreds of shop chairmen, scattered through the industry and working under varying conditions, it would be difficult, if not impossible, to attain uniformity and standardization. For this purpose, therefore, it is necessary to have another set of officers, with wider fields of jurisdiction, of long experience and a knowledge of the industry and of the policy of the union. It is, likewise, desirable to give to either employer and employee who may be dissatisfied with a ruling of the shop chairman, the right to appeal from his decision, or at least the opportunity to discuss the matter with another agent of the union. Frequently also the failure of a shop chairman to effect a friendly settlement of a stubborn case, without resort to the impartial machinery, makes necessary the intervention of a higher union official, who by reason of his authority, skill, and experience finally reaches an amicable adjustment. To supplement the work of the shop chairman in this way, the Joint Board has as part of its regular staff 34 deputies, 32 of whom are elected by various local unions and 2 by the membership at large. Of the first group, 20 represent the coat makers; 5 the pants makers; 3 the cutters; 3 the vest makers; and 1 the spongers, examiners, and bushelmen. To each of these deputies a certain branch of the industry or part of the city is assigned and he there carries on his work— visits the shops; settles disputes; hears grievances; sees that union conditions are observed; and acts as intermediary between the Joint Board and the shop. With a staff so large and duties so varied, the efficiency of the organization must depend on the ability of its officers to coordinate and direct the work of the men and women engaged in these various activities. In actual practice this task of direction is in the hands of Levin, the manager of the Joint Board, and of his associates, Marimpietri, Rosenblum, Rissman, and Skala. In the offices of the Joint Board on Halsted Street, at daily conferences and meetings lasting long into the night, the day's work is planned, the union policy is outlined, and men are assigned to their jobs. Every day but Sunday, from early morning to late night, a constant stream of men and women winds in and out of Levin's office. Now it is a business agent seeking advice on a dif ficult case or protesting a decision of the Trade Board; now it is a delegation from a contract shop complaining that the contractor has closed his shop and refused to pay the workers their wages. A moment later it is a worker from one of the shops explaining that he is given less work than his fellows in the same shop, while he has a wife and children to support and can earn only a few dollars a week. Another comes from the employment office across the hall to tell a tale of discrimination which has kept him unemployed for a month while the clerk in the employment office has sent hundreds of other members with the same qualifications to jobs he might have had. With infinite tact and patience Levin listens to the stories, scribbles notes on his pad, elicits by shrewd cross-examination the essential facts in the case, and passes to the next complaint. In the next office Marimpietri carries on the work as head of the price-making department. Long in the industry, a veteran of all the battles which the clothing workers have fought in Chicago since 1910, Marimpietri carries at his finger tips a knowledge of the processes in the industry, systems of wage payments, the relation between piece rates and the character of the work that is probably unequalled anywhere in the industry. To him are brought for adjustment the innumerable disputes over the fixing of new piece rates. Work changes, new shops are opened, new processes are introduced, styles change, processes are sub-divided; each change, small or large, raises problems of rate adjustment that require technical and expert knowledge of rate fixing. In cases that are finally brought to the Trade Board for settlement, frequently the testimony of Marimpietri alone is sufficient assurance to the chairman of the fairness of rate. An organization as large as the Chicago Joint Board has from time to time its special problems which must be met promptly and effectively. To perform its function in the system of collective bargaining now prevailing in the industry, the union must participate with the employers and the arbitration machinery in the administration of policies agreed upon in negotiations or ordered by the impartial machinery. Thus the arbitration award of April, 1921, contained, among other things, a provision for the establishment of standards of production for cutters and trimmers. The administration of this decision depended upon an examination of present production, a knowledge of differences in shop conditions, and possession of the confidence of the workers whose standards were to be fixed. This task was assigned to Rissman. Formerly a cutter, now deputy-atlarge and assistant manager of the Joint Board, for a long time the representative of the cutters, Rissman for almost a year, in cooperation with a representative of the employers and with Professor Millis, Chairman of the Board of Arbitration, was engaged in this task of setting standards. With this done he turns to the fixing of trimming standards. Thus there has in a short period developed this division of labor, which brings to the work of the union experience and intelligence. But the activity of the Joint Board does not stop even here. The staff of the Board is composed, of course, of diverse individuals, who react variously to the same situation. The organization must have a policy, however elastic it may be. On Saturday mornings, for example, all of the deputies meet in joint conference. Some have encountered puzzling cases in the course of their week's work. They wonder whether their experience is new or old. Is it wise or not for the organization to adopt one of a number of alternative policies in the settlement of a particular issue? What is the temper of the people with regard to a proposed or adopted policy of the union? Questions such as these are here reviewed in weekly discussion. Out of it comes gradually a policy, an understanding of the many-sidedness of what seems at first a simple point, and the development of a group spirit. Frequently, also, an impending crisis or the making effective a new policy of the union makes it necessary to reach promptly the whole of the rank and file. When the General Executive Board of the union decided to raise a reserve fund throughout the whole of the clothing industry, the first step was to make known the proposal to the rank and file. A |