business or at work until the decision of the board is rendered. If possible, this must be given within three weeks of the date of filing the application.

The section in regard to the enforcement of the decision of the Board is very weak. It provides that the parties making application for the assistance of the Board shall be bound by the decision for six months, unless either party wishes to abrogate the agreement after giving due notice. The time allowed by this notice is to be sixty days, or such other period as may have been specified in the agreement. No penalty attaches to the violation of the requirements of this section."

The Board is also authorized to conduct public investigations of complaints or grievances between employers and employees, and to publish the results.10

Only one board of arbitration has been appointed for the execution of this law." Two very trivial controversies were

8 Statutes of California, 1891, pp. 49-50. “Sec. 2. Whenever any controversy or difference exists between an employer, whether an individual, copartnership, or corporation, which, if not arbitrated, would involve a strike or lockout, and his employees, the Board shall, upon application, as hereinafter provided, and as soon as practicable thereafter, visit, if necessary, the locality of the dispute and make careful inquiry into the cause thereof, hear all persons interested therein who may come before them, advise the respective parties what, if anything,, ought to be done or submitted to by either, or both, to adjust said dispute, and make a written decision thereof. This decision shall at once be made public, and shall be recorded upon proper books of record to be kept by the Board.

"Sec. 3. Said application shall be signed by said employer or by a majority of his employees in the department of the business in which the controversy or difference exists, or their duly authorized agent, or by both parties, and shall contain a concise statement of the grievance complained of, and a promise to continue on in the business or at work, without any lockout or strike, until the decision of said Board, which must, if possible, be made within three weeks of the date of filing the application. Immediately upon receipt of said application the Chairman of said Board shall cause public notice to be given of the time and place for hearing. Should the petitioners fail to keep the promise made therein, the Board shall proceed no further thereupon without the written consent of the adverse party. And the party violating the contract shall pay the extra cost of the Board entailed thereby. The Board may then reopen the case and proceed to the final arbitrament thereof as provided in section two hereof."

9 Ibid., Sec. 4.

10 Ibid., Sec. 5.

11 Oscar Lewis representing the employers, Charles Grambarth for the employees, and Oliver Eldridge for the third member and chairman. The Board organized on May 20, 1891, and elected Albert May secretary. The members of the Board were paid five dollars a day for the actual time of service. $2500 was appropriated for the expenses of the Board, but only a small part of the sum was ever expended.

presented to it for investigation. The members of the Granite Cutters' Union of San Francisco and Oakland went on strike because of an order prohibiting smoking during working hours. The contractors claimed that they had recently granted the men the eight-hour day, and that as the working hours were shorter, they could not afford the loss of time due to smoking. The representatives of the union argued that, "a man should not be judged by the number of pipes he smoked, but by the amount of work he accomplished during the day," and also claimed that, when the eight-hour day was granted to the Union, no condition to stop smoking was imposed. The Board decided unanimously that the notices prohibiting smoking should be removed, and that the men should return to their work.12

The second controversy was even more trivial than the first. The Boot and Shoe Makers' Labor League wanted the manufacturers to agree that they would not employ a certain man, who had made himself objectionable by his practice of the "sweating system.' As the man had left the city, the case was dismissed.13

FAILURE OF THIS PLAN FOR SETTLING LABOR DISPUTES.

In submitting the first annual Report of the State Board of Arbitration, its members agreed that, "Arbitration, as a means of settling differences between employers and employees, and preventing, to some extent, strikes and lockouts, is almost impossible under the provisions of the present laws governing this Board, and we therefore respectfully recommend that the Act of March 10, 1891, providing for a State Board of Arbitration, be either repealed or amended so as to become effective.

9714

They suggested that the work of the Board would be more efficient if a permanent office with a paid secretary could be maintained. It would be the duty of this secretary to conduct the correspondence, and keep the records, and also to watch

12 Appendix to Journal of Senate and Assembly, 30th Sess., Vol. 1, Doc. 16. Proceedings and Report of the State Board of Arbitration.

13 Ibid.

14 Ibid. Amendments suggested.

closely for any threatened or actual difference between employers and employees. On discovering such possible causes of controversy, the secretary would visit the parties concerned and try to persuade them to submit their disagreements to arbitration before resorting to a strike or lockout. They thought that many labor troubles which sometimes arose from trivial misunderstandings, might be averted in this way.15

It was also recommended that the Board of Arbitration be given power to summon witnesses and examine them under oath, and that its decisions be given some judicial standing. It was declared that the Board as then organized was entirely without force or use, and that unless it could be strengthened in this way, it should be altogether abolished.

The second and last Report of the State Board of Arbitration was submitted in September, 1894.16 The Commissioners said. that, though there had been occasions in which their mediation might have been beneficial, they had not been called upon to settle any controversies, and that there was nothing of importance to report. Since then, the arbitration law has continued to encumber the statute books, not even attracting sufficient attention to secure its repeal.

The great strike of the San Francisco teamsters in 1901, which proved so disastrous to the business interests of the state, as well as the widespread suffering due to the strike of the Pennsylvania coal miners, renewed the discussion of the need of some means of protecting the public from prolonged industrial disputes. Governor Gage, whose intervention had forced the settlement of the teamsters' strike, urged, in his second biennial message, the passage of a more effective arbitration law. He thought the Governor and Labor Commissioner should be added to the Board, and believed that, with some fair measure, public opinion would induce the disputing parties to refer their differences to this Board, whose decision should be binding."

As

15 Appendix to Journals of Senate and Assembly, 30th Sess., Vol. 1, Doc. 16, p. 6.

16 Appendix to Journal of Senate and Assembly, 31st Sess., Vol. 6, Doc. 13.

17 Second Biennial Message of Governor Gage, Appendix to Journal of Senate and Assembly, 35th Sess., Vol. 1, p. 58.

neither the employers or employees have had much faith in the effectiveness of such a method of settling disputes, propositions of this kind have received but little support.18

However, there have been many instances where impending strikes or lockouts have been averted by arbitration of the disputed points. But the negotiations were carried on between the officers or representatives of the organizations of employers and employees directly interested. They are more competent to discuss the questions raised, which often requires a knowledge of the technical details of the various trades involved. The fact that, before resorting to a strike, the individual unions. nearly always seek the endorsement of the central body, frequently results in an arbitration of the difficulties. The Secretary and Executive Committee of the Labor Council investigate and seek to adjust the difficulties before recommending the endorsement of the strike, and many disputes are settled in this way. There is no lack of recognition of the principle of arbitration in the California labor movement, though the attempt. to secure State intervention has proved a complete failure.

18 A bill of this kind was introduced in 1907. G. B. Benham, the legis lative representative of the San Francisco Labor Council in his report on the labor measures before the legislature says: "Assembly bill 174 proposed an arbitration board for the settlement of labor disputes. It was a mass of incongruities, impossibilities, indefiniteness, and delay, furnishing only a somewhat systematic method of obtaining facts and testimony in labor difficulties, without set time for discussion, which might or might not be retroactive, and with no definite means for, or real likelihood of the decision being accepted as final when given.' As a result of the opposition of the labor organizations, the bill never even came to a vote in the legislature.

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE UNION LABEL.

The union label, which is now recognized as one of the most effective means of securing patronage for goods produced under fair conditions of labor, was one of the products of the long struggle against Oriental labor in California. The cigarmakers, who were among the first workers to come into competition with the Chinese, are generally credited with being the originators of this device for identifying goods made under union conditions. The Chinese have seemed peculiarly adapted to the cigarmaking trade. As early as 1862, we find the white workmen attempting to drive the Chinese from this business by inducing the public to withhold its patronage from their products. At the time of the adoption of the cigarmakers' white label, the trade was almost entirely monopolized by the Chinese. The label was a devise for advertising and creating an artificial demand for the relatively small product of the few remaining white men in the business.2

FIRST USE OF MEANS OF IDENTIFYING PRODUCTS OF UNION LABOR IN 1869-1874

The idea of using some means of identifying goods produced under fair conditions of labor was not entirely original with the cigarmakers. In 1869 when the Carpenters' Eight-hour League was engaged in a contest with the California Mills, resolutions were adopted as follows: "Res. That the members shall not put up work gotten out at the California Mills from and after the day they commence working their men ten hours per day.

"Res. That the League will furnish a stamp to all eight-hour

1 Tuthill, History of California, p. 638; Bancroft, Essays and Miscellany, p. 347.

2 April 29, 1876, two years after the adoption of the label, the Alta contains the following notice in regard to the Cigarmakers' Association: "This association has sixty members enrolled. It is said there are not over a hundred white cigarmakers in the State of California, while in the city of San Francisco alone, from eight thousand to ten thousand Chinamen are employed in the various branches of the business."