LABOR DIFFERENCES AND THEIR SETTLEMENT. CHAPTER I. DIFFERENCES BETWEEN EMPLOYERS AND EMPLOYED. So long as the present organization of industrial society continues, differences between two of the great classes of which it is made up, employers and employed, will of necessity arise. While it is true that in many of the relations growing out of their association they have a common weal, which in such relations permits of no antagonism, it is equally true that in others their opinions and interests diverge, and differences result. These differences will at times grow into disputes, and may end in industrial strife, that is, in strikes and lockouts.' Such contests are 1 Strikes and lockouts I have elsewhere defined as suspensions of work growing out of differences between employer and employed." A strike is a suspension of work resulting from a dispute originating in some demand of the employed—a lockout, in some demand of the employer. A stoppage of work, for example, resulting from a demand on the part of the employés at a works for an advance in wages would be a strike; a stoppage resulting from a demand by the employer for a reduction would be a lockout. It is frequently difficult to determine whether a labor contest should be classified as a strike or a lockout. Practically the distinction is of little importance, except as it bears on the question of the relative tendency of employer and employed to take the initiative in these industrial conflicts. Unless, therefore, it is expressively stated to the contrary, the word strike in this discussion will include both strikes and lockouts. so fraught with disaster, so full of waste and misery, that, ever since labor became free and wages paid, there has been no small solicitude to discover some speedy and efficient way of harmonizing these differences and preventing them from growing into disputes, or of settling these disputes, if unfortunately they arise, without a massing of forces and the shock and waste of conflict. The chief causes of these differences are questions as to rates of wages. It is here that the interests of employer and employed begin to diverge, and it is concerning these questions that differences most frequently result in labor contests. In an enquiry into the strikes and lockouts of 1880 made by the writer for the Tenth Census, out of a total of 813 labor contests investigated, 582 or 71.59 per cent. were caused by differences as to rates of wages.' Of these 582 contests, 86 per cent. were for advances in wages, and 14 per cent. against reductions. While these exact proportions will not hold in all years nor in all sections and industries, it is true that by far the most prolific sources of labor disputes are differences as to wages. It will also be found upon investigation, that many disputes that are not primarily wages disputes, have a direct bearing on rates of wages, and are important only because of such bearing. 'The result of this investigation, so far as relates to cause, was as follows: Apart from rates of wages the causes of these differences are legion. They may arise concerning the basis of computing wages; the method, time, or frequency of payment; apprenticeship; hours of labor; administration and methods of work, such as shop rules, laborsaving machinery, piece-work, objectionable workmen, etc.; trades-unions and their rules, and a thousand and one causes that need not be stated in detail. Nothwithstanding their number, however, it will be found that all causes of difference readily group themselves into three general classes:1 1st.—Differences as to future contracts. 2d.-Disagreements as to existing contracts. 3d.-Quarrels on some matter of sentiment. In this classification the word contracts" is to be regarded as including not only formal agreements, but those customs of the shop or trade, and those methods of work or of administration which, from long usage, have the force of contracts. In the first division would be classified differences as to future rates of wages, and those arising from attempts to change or abrogate existing agreements, customs, or methods, or to introduce new ones. Disagreements under the second class arise either upon matters of fact or construction, having in view existing agreements, customs, or methods, and not necessarily involving the validity of the contracts themselves, nor any change in their terms. Under the third grow out of the class are included those quarrels that offended amour propre either of the individual or the class. It is in the first of these classes-" Differences as to future contracts "-which, as stated, includes questions as to future rates of wages, that differences most fre This is practically Sir Rupert Kettle's classification, |