PERCENTAGE OF POSSIBLE FULL TIME OPERATION OF UNION BITU- b. The strike ended August 19, 1922; September 2 was nearest to a complete report for the districts listed. c. Western Kentucky worked under a no-strike agreement. * Members of the Central Competitive Field. n. r. No report. the national officers had been sustained by narrow margins against the opposition of the insurgents in the regular and special conventions. Adherence to the "no reduction " policy which was practically certain to lead to a strike, would seem, therefore, to have had, at least, a strategic advantage. By such a policy the administration staked its whole fortune upon the unifying effect of a successful strike. A defeat, however, would have been little less disastrous than a continuation of the internal dissention of the spring of 1922. Furthermore, the favorable influence upon the non-union miners of a continued high wage rate in the union fields was undoubtedly well understood. 33 Compiled from reports of United States Geological Survey as printed in the weekly numbers of the Coal Age for the period covered. CHAPTER IX CONCLUSIONS The policies and activities of the six unions selected for study have now been examined in detail for the period from 1920 to 1923. Attention to details, however, tends to conceal similarities in the actions of the unions and to obscure the understanding of the broad general policies by which the organizations were actuated. It may, therefore, prove helpful, preparatory to the statement of the conclusions, to summarize and integrate the account that has been presented in the preceding six chapters. Section one contains an analysis of those agreements which were changed in the first part of the depression; section two treats of the activities of the unions in the latter part of the depression; and section three covers the period of the recovery. It will be assumed that by now the reader has a certain general understanding of the activities of the six unions involved during the period from 1920 to 1923. Detailed points will be found in the respective chapters from three through eight. Readjustment of agreements in the first part of the depression. The first three unions to be reviewed will be the Amalgamated Clothing Workers, the Iron Molders and the Railroad Trainmen. These organizations either reopened their agreements or formed new ones early in the depression. The interchange of proposals with employers dealt either exclusively with wage reductions, or if changes in working conditions were mentioned their consideration was secondary. With each of the unions a wage reduction was accepted, under protest, but with no mention of a strike or a show of determined resistance. The New York State report on unemployment in the men's clothing industry, which is considered representative of all clothing markets, registered a sharp increase beginning May and June of 1920. The positive influence of the depression on the trade, however, was distinctly felt as early as August and September, 1920, when wage increases in the clothing markets of Chicago and Baltimore were denied by the impartial chairmen upon the grounds that the condition of the industry did not justify such changes at that time. Seasonal variations lessened the unemployment beginning with January, 1921, but no improvement of a marked degree came before the manufacturing season for the fall orders of 1922. Although the manufacturers in New York City made aggressive demands upon the union in October, 1920, the demands were identical with those of the Chicago, Rochester and Baltimore markets in 1922, and will be considered in a subsequent section. The first changes proposed by the large unit manufacturers of Chicago, Rochester and similar markets were presented to the union under the reopenable clause of the agreements in January and February of 1921. With one or two minor exceptions the only question involved was a reduction in wages. Except in Rochester, where the wage scale had been comparatively low, the decisions of the impartial chairmen recognized the industrial depression and awarded in April a wage reduction of ten per cent. to the Chicago manufacturers, and in May a reduction of five to ten per cent. in the Baltimore market. Although the clothing workers accepted the wage reductions under protest and "only through a spirit of loyalty to their officers," the officers saw that a reduction was unadvoidable and allowed their general policy to be guided by competitive and economic considerations. In the molding trade the depression first became apparent in October, 1920. While the number of out-of-work stamps issued in the last quarter of 1920 exceeded the issue of the third quarter, a more pronounced change occurred at the end of March, 1921, when the unemployed in the Molders' Union were four times as many as the number on December 31, 1920. This change during the first three months of 1921 was reflected in the proposals of the joint conference. It will be remembered that by mutual consent the conferees at the December, 1920, conference had adjourned to April, 1921, because the uncertainty of industrial conditions made it difficult to draw up an agreement. By April the foundrymen definitely proposed a wage reduction and a change in working conditions. Two significant gains had been made by the Molders in the period immediately prior to the depression, namely, the eight hour working day and the shifting to the employers by the piece work molders of the responsibility for the wetting and cutting of sand, and the dumping out and trimming of castings. These changes became effective January 1, 1920, when industrial conditions were at their best. Within eight months the depression had become recognized in all trades. It thus happened that the expense which usually accompanies the initiation of a new method was emphasized by the depression, and increasingly so by the postponement of the conference from December, 1920, to April, 1921. The pressure by the employers upon the union, however, failed to return the responsibility for the sand cutting to the men, for the union preferred to compensate the employers for the additional expense which the change in system had involved. This compensation took the form of a fifteen per cent. reduction on piece work as compared with a five per cent. reduction for day men for whom working conditions had remained the same. This difference in wage reductions lent direct support to the belief that the foundrymen's demands would have been confined to wage reductions alone, if the change in the responsibility for sand cutting had not been so recently instituted, and if it had not functioned so poorly through the lack of cooperation on the part of the molders. The essential nature of transportation lessened the effect of the depression upon the railroad unions. Although in the last two months of 1920 the carriers had begun individually to seek relief from the depression through minor changes in rates of pay, formal application for wage reductions was not filed with the Labor Board before March, 1921. The resulting decision, Number 147, which became effective July 1, 1921, was, thus, based upon proposals submitted early in the depression and concerned itself only with wage reductions of approximately twelve per cent. The union retained ten per cent. of the increase received under the 1920 decision, and remained in a favorable position in view of the fact that the cost of living had decreased twenty per cent. by July, 1921. There was little doubt about the acceptance by the union of the wage decrease which was moderate, for it was certain that public opinion would support the decision of the Board, and the unions had learned from the Erie Railroad case that public opinion was at times effective. A review of these three unions brings out two tendencies. First, there was a period of six to eight months after the first signs of the depression in June, 1920, before there was a change in the agreements between the employers and the unions which was traceable to economic conditions. As might be expected the employers first stressed the depression. Second, the demands of the employers were confined almost exclusively to reductions in wages, and the percentage of reduction lagged behind the decrease in the cost of living. The effects of the wage reductions upon business conditions in the industries affected were hardly perceptible. With the Trainmen the increase in the revenue freight car loadings came before the wage decrease of July 1, 1921. In the clothing trade unemployment had lessened before the wage reductions had become effective, and no special changes were noticed outside of the seasonal fluctuations until 1922. There was no apparent benefit to the iron molding trade; in fact the maximum number of out-of-work stamps were issued in the same quarter in the first month of which the wage reductions took place and not until the last quarter of 1921 was there a noticeable improvement. Readjustment of agreements in the latter part of the depression. The proposals just discussed were submitted in the first part of the depression, from about December, 1920, to |