Industrial Democracy. Sidney Webb
and Operative Stonemasons of Portsmouth," signed in 1893, by ten master builders and four workmen, on behalf of their respective associations, include the following provision, "That no piecework be allowed and no worked stone to come into the town except square steps, flags, curbs, and landings, and no brick- layers to fix worked stone." The London rules are not so explicit. As fonna.lly agreed to in 1892 by the associations of employers and employed, they provide
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We may trace a similar feeling in the protests frequently made by the branches of the National Union of Boot and Shoe Operatives, against work being sent into the country villages, or even from a centre in which wages are high, to one working under a lower " statement." That this is not merely a disguised " local protectionism " may be seen from the fact that the Northampton Branch actually resolved in 1888 to strike, not against Northampton employers sending work out of the town, but against a London manufacturer sending his work to Northampton.^ In 1889, the Executive Council of the same union found itself driven to take action against the systematic, attempts of certain employers to evade the wages agreement which they had formally entered into, by sending their work away to have certain processes
that " piecework and subcontracting for labor only shall on no account be resorted to, excepting for granite kerb, York paving and turning." The London Stone- masons, however, claim, as for instance in their complaint in 1894 against the Works Department of the London County Council, that this rule must be interpreted so as to exclude the use in London of stone worked in a quarry district. This claim was successfully resisted by the Tradte Union repre- sentatives who sat on the Works Committee. We subsequently investigated this case ourselves, tracing the stone (a long run of sandstoiie.kerb for park railings) back to Derbyshire, where it was quarried and worked. We found the district totally unorganised, the stonemasons' work being done largely by boy- labor, at competitive piecework, without settled agreement, by non-unionists, working irregular and sometimes excessive hours. It was impossible not to feel that, although the London Stonemasons had expressed their objection in the wrong terms and therefore had failed to obtain redress, they were, according to the " Fair Wages " policy adopted by the County Council and the House of Commons, justified in their complaint. Unfortunately, instead of bringing to the notice of the Committee the actual conditions under which the stone was being worked, they relied on the argument that the London ratepayers' money should be spent on London workmen. This argument, as they afterwards explained to us, had been found the most effective with the shopkeepers and small manufacturers who dominate provincial Town Councils. The Trade Unionist members of the London County Council proved obdurate to this economic heresy.
1 Shoe and Leather Record, 28th July 1888. In the same way a general meeting of the Manchester Stonemasons, in 1862, decided to support a strika against a Manchester employer who, carrying out a contract at Altrincham, eight miles off, had his stone worked at Manchester, instead of at Altrincham, as required by the working rules of the Altrincham branch. In this case, the Manchester Stonemasons struck against work coming to themselves at a higher rate per hour than was demanded by the Altrincham masons. — Stonemason^ fortnightly Return, September 1862.
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done in lower - paid districts. These employers were accordingly informed, not that the work must be kept in the town, but that, wherever it was executed, the "shop statement " which they had signed must be adhered to. It was at the same time expressly intimated that if these employers chose to set up works of their own in a new place, " they will be at perfect liberty to do so," without objection from the union, even if they chose a low-paid district, " provided that they pay the highest rate of wages of the district to which they go." ^
We have quoted the strongest instances of Trade Union objection to " work going out of the town," in order to unravel, from the common stocE" Of ecunuiiTic~prejuaice, the impulse which is distinctive of Trade Unionism itself. It is customary for persons interested in the prosperity of one establishment, one town or one district, to seek to obtain trade for that particular establishment, town or district. Had Trade Unions remained, like the mediaeval craft gilds, organisations of strictly lo.cal membership, they must, almost inevitably, have been marked by a similar local favoritism. But the whole tendency of Trade Union history has beeij towards the solidarity of each trade as a whole. Th^ natural selfishness of the local branches is accordingly always; being combated by the central executives and national' lielegate meetings, in the wider interests of the whole body of the members wherever they may be working. Just in proportion as Trade Unionism is strong and well established we find the old customary favoritism of locality replaced by the impartial enforcement of uniform conditions upoij all districts alike. When, for instance, the Amalgamated Association of Cotton Weavers, in delegate meeting assembled, finally decided to adopt a uniform list of piecework prices, the members then working at Great Harwood found no sympathy for their plea that such a measure would reduce
1 The " National Conference " of the JUnion passed a similar resolution in 1886; Monthly Report of the National Union of Boot and Shoe Operatives. January 1887/and February 1889.
8o Trade Union Structure
their own exceptionally high rates. And although it was foreseen and declared that uniformity would tend to the concentration of the manufacture in the most favorably situated districts, to the consequent loss of the more remote villages, the delegates from these villages almost unanimously supported what was believed to be good for the trade as a whole.^
In another industry, the contrast between the old " local protectionism " and the Trade Unionist view has resulted in an interesting change in electioneering tactics. The London Society of Compositors and the Typographical Association have, for the last ten years, used more electoral pressure with regard to the distribution of local work, than any other Trade Union. So long as parliamentary electors belonged mainly to^ the middle class, a parliamentary candidate was advised by his agent to distribute his large printing orders fairly among all parts of his constituency, and under no circumstances to employ a printer living beyond its boundary. Now the astute agent, eager to conciliate the whole body of organised workmen in the constituency, confines his printing strictly to the best Trade Union establishments, although this usually involves passing over most of the local establishments and sometimes even giving work to firms outside the district. The influence of the Trade Union leaders is used, not to maintain their respective trades in all the places in which they happen to exist, but to strengthen, at the expense of the rest, those establishments, those towns, and even those districts, in which the conditions of work are most advantageous. \ fWe see, therefore, that in spite of the difficulties ^ government, in spite of the strong inherited tradition of |local exclusiveness, and in spite, too, of the natural selfish- ness of each branch in desiring to preserve its own local monopoly, the unit of government in the workmen's organ- isations, in complete contrast to the gilds of the master-
■ 1 Special meeting of General Council of Amalgamated Association of Cotton Weavers, 30th April 1892, attended by one of the authors ; see other instances cited in the chapter on "The Standard Rate."
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craftsmen, has become th elfi-ade l instead of the Jown.^_ Our description of this irresistiMe tendency to eipan-" sion has already to some extent /r evealed its cause, in the Trade Union desire to secure uniform minimum rnnHj^f f^^-a t hroughout each industiyj In our examination of the Methods and Regulations of Trade Unionism, and in our analysis of their economic working, we shall discover the means by which the wage-earners seek to attain this end, and the reasons which convince them of its importance. In the final part of our work we shall examine how far such an equality is economically possible or (^esirable. For the moment the reader must accept the fact thatfSiis uniformity of minimum is, whether wisely' or not, the most permanent of Trade Union aspirationsJ
Me anwhile it is interestmg to no te that 1 this conceptio n of^the jsolidarity ol each trade as a whol'g \'\ rbpckfrl by raci ^ differe nces^ 1 ne great national unions of Engineers and Carpenters find no difficulty in exte^iding their /)rganisa- tions beyond national boundaries, and 'easily (ppen^KaSches in the United States or the South African Republic, France" or Spain, provided that these branches are composed of British workmen.^ i^Vit it is needless' to