Rochester (NY) Clothiers Exchange Arbitration Files, 1919-1926
Collection Number: 5108
Kheel Center for Labor-Management Documentation & Archives
Cornell University Library
DESCRIPTIVE SUMMARY
Title:
Rochester (NY) Clothiers Exchange Arbitration Files, 1919-1926
Repository:
Kheel Center for Labor-Management Documentation & Archives
Collection Number:
5108
Abstract:
Rochester (NY) Clothiers Exchange and Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, Rochester
Joint Board, cases 1-2208 : 1919-1926.
Creator:
Clothiers' Exchange (Rochester, N.Y.)
Quanitities:
1 cubic feet
Language:
Collection material in English
William M. Lieserson was born In Extonia in 1883. He studied economics at the University
of Wisconsin and at Columbia, and from 1910 until 1911 served as an expert on unemployment
for the New York State Commission on Employers' Liability and Unemployment He was
director of research investigation for the United States Commission on Industrial
Relations in 1914-1915, and the chief of the Division of Labor Administration of the
Department of Labor in 1918-1919. He served the Rochester men's clothing industry
as Impartial Chairman of the Labor Adjustment Board and the New York Men's clothing
industry as Chairman of the Petroleum Labor Policy Board at the time of his appointment
to the National Mediation Board under the Railroad Labor Act in 1934. During much
of this time, he was on leave from Antioch College, where he was a Professor of Sociology.
(N.Y. Times, 22 July 1934, p.l.)
Allen Tibbals Burns was born in Haverford, Mass. In 1876. He attended the University
of Chicago, where he was later Dean of the Chicago School of Civics and Philanthropy.
From 1926 until 1943 he was Executive Director of the Community Chests and Councils
of America. He died on 9 March 1953.
Robert Lee Hale was born in Albany, New York on the ninth of March, 1884. He received
the A.B. A.M. and LL.B. degrees from Harvard University, and the degree of Doctor
of Philosophy from Columbia Univ. where from 1915 until 1949 he was instructor and
then Professor of Political Science. He is the author of Valuation and Hate Making:
Conflicting Theories of the Wisconsin Railroad Commission: Freedom through Law: and
numerous articles which have appeared in scholarly journals. (1952 Directory of the
American Political Science Association.) Norman J. Ware was born in Tilsonburg, Ontario,
Canada, on the fourth of July 1886. He attendedMcMaster University in Toronto and
the Universityof Chicago and became a naturalized citizen of the United States in
1924. He taught economics and sociology at the University of Louisville, the NewSchool
for Social Research (1926-1928) and Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut
(from 1928until his death).
He served as Impartial Chairman in the Rochester men's clothing industry, Senior
Economist in the Bureau of Research and Statistics of the Federal Social Security
Board (1936-1937), and Chairman of the Connecticut State Board of Mediation and Arbitration.
In 1943 he was appointed Chairman of the National War Labor Board for region I. From
1945 until his death on 27 December 1949 he was employed by various firms as an industrial
relations consultant . He is the author of the Industrial Worker, 1840-1960; The Labor
Movement in the United States. 1860-1895; Labor in Modern Industrial Society Labor
in Canadien-American; A History of Labor Interaction: and numerous articles published
in scholarly journals. (Who Was Who, Vol. II.)
The Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America was organized in December 1914, after
the militant New York City locals of the United Garment Workers of America had been
denied representation at that body's October convention. Although the purposes of
the Union were expressed by its Constitution in terms of class struggle and worker
solidarity, ACW leaders instituted a program of union- management cooperation based
upon the experiences of the International Ladies' Garment Workers Union with the Protocols
of 1910-1913, and the UGW locals in New York and Chicago with the establishment of
permanent arbitration machinery during the same period.
A prototype of subsequent agreements in the men's clothing industry may be found
in Chicago Hart, Schaffner & Marx agreements of 1911-1913, since they involved the
Union and a single manufacturer, rather than the Union and the associated manufacturers
of a particular geographical area, as was the casein the ladies' garment industry.
These agreements, however, differed from the majority of Amalgamated Clothing Workers'
agreements in following theProtocol's model of grievance machinery: "Clerks" for the
workers and the employers attempted to settle disputes on the shop level. In cases
of disagreement, the matter went to a "Board of Trade"
(Board of Grievances) composed of equal numbers of representing both sides, but with
an impartial chairman. Supreme authority was held by a Board of Arbitration, composed
of a representative each of the Union and the manufacturer, and a third person not
connected with the industry chosen by the other two.
So complex a system was suitable for the Chicago market, where a few large manufacturers
dominated the production of ready-to-wear clothing, or a market in which a strong
association of manufacturers might be established. Such an association did exist in
Rochester, New York, a conservative city where large firms offering year round employment
were organized into the Rochester Clothing Exchange.
Amicable relations between a powerful union and a powerful association were virtually
assured, if the Amalgamated Clothing Workers could break down the resistance of employers
to the unionization of their workers. At the same time, the absence of intense competition
among manufacturers, in the Rochester market limited the area of friction between
employees and employers, and permitted a more simple arbitration system to be instituted.
Organizing efforts were relatively unsuccessful from 1915 until the summer of 1918.
Although a number of contracts were signed with individual firms, recognition of the
ACW was not considered by the Clothing Exchange until a strike at the Rosenberg Brothers
factory in July, 1918, threatened the entire market with a general work stoppage.
Arbitration by Louis E. Kirsten and William Z. Ripley, each of whom was to serve as
Administrator of Labor Standards for the Department of War, resulted in a partial
concession to the Union's demands for shorter hours and higher wages.
On January 23, 1919, the Exchange announced that its member firms would institute
the forty-four hour week on the first of May. Agitation by the union for an immediate
reduction of hours resulted in the signing of the first agreement between the Exchange
and the Amalgamated, 13 February 1919. This agreement granted the Union the right
to organize, although neither the closed nor the referential-union shop was to be
instituted In addition, machinery for arbitration of grievances was established: five
Labor Managers were to be
chosen to meet with Union representatives, one each by the four largest firms in
the Exchange, and one by the fifteen smaller firms.
An agreement of August, 1920, created a Labor Adjustment Board, composed of the five
Labor Managers representatives of the Joint Board of the ACW, and an impartial chairman.
The Board was empowered to review discharges, to consider demands for wage
increases, and to control sanitary conditions in the shops. The substance of this
agreement have insisted on maintaining the "open" shop, virtually complete organization
of workers in the industry, and the establishment of a Labor Exchange in 1925, has
given the Union the same control it would exercise in a preferential union shop market.
Access to the collections in the Kheel Center is restricted. Please contact a reference
archivist for access to these materials.
This collection must be used in keeping with the Kheel Center Information Sheet and
Procedures for Document Use.
INFORMATION FOR USERS
Rochester (NY) Clothiers Exchange Arbitration Files #5108. Kheel Center for Labor-Management
Documentation and Archives, Cornell University Library.
Related Collections: 5416 mf: William M. Leiserson Decisions on Microfilm
Names:
Montgomery, Royal E. (Royal Ewert), 1896-1966
Clothiers' Exchange (Rochester, N.Y.)
Subjects:
Arbitration, Industrial--United States--Sources.
CONTAINER LIST
Container
|
Description
|
Date
|
|
Box 1 | Folder 1 |
Rochester Clothing Industry Labor Adjustment Board - Indexes
|
|
Box 1 | Folder 2 |
Case No. G-4
|
|
Box 1 | Folder 3 |
Cases 1-180
|
|
Box 1 | Folder 4 |
Cases 181-324
|
|
Box 1 | Folder 5 |
Cases 325-499
|
|
Box 1 | Folder 6 |
Cases 501-670
|
|
Box 1 | Folder 7 |
Cases 671-820
|
|
Box 1 | Folder 8 |
Cases 823-998
|
|
Box 1 | Folder 9 |
Cases 1,000 - 1,114
|
|
Box 1 | Folder 10 |
Cases 1,115-1,339
|
|
Box 1 | Folder 11 |
Cases 1,344-1,365
|
|
Box 1 | Folder 12 |
Cases 1,366-1,520
|
|
Box 1 | Folder 13 |
Cases 1,522-1,604
|
|
Box 1 | Folder 14 |
Cases 1,608-1,698
|
|
Box 1 | Folder 15 |
Cases 1,700-1,808
|
|
Box 1 | Folder 16 |
Cases 1,810-1,965
|
|
Box 1 | Folder 17 |
Cases 1,966-2,208
|
|
Box 1 | Folder 18 |
Duplicates (1 of 3)
|
|
Box 1 | Folder 19 |
Duplicates (2 of 3)
|
|
Box 1 | Folder 20 |
Duplicates (3 of 3)
|