return he would receive certain sick or accident benefits which would accrue to him if he were too ill or disabled to work. These would be paid weekly at the rate of three-fourths of his weekly salary. No benefits could exceed $45 a week, could extend over more than 26 weeks in any one year, or could be paid for an absence of less than 7 working days' duration. The benefit society of the F. C. A. annually elects a board of governors, consisting of the officers of the association and four additional members. This board has general supervision over all the activities of the society and is the final authority in deciding disputed claims for benefits. The F. C. A. council is the legislative body for employees. It is composed of one representative from each section of the store, the officers of the F. C. A., and the F. C. A. members on the company's directorate. The council has power to make the rules governing the discipline and working conditions of employees and to take up wage agreements with the management. It also carries on social and other activities by means of committees. The board of arbitration is made up of one representative elected from each section of the store and of a chairman who is appointed by the president of the F. C. A. The board is entrusted with the responsibility of securing "justice in the administration of the work of the Store, and its duty is to see that justice prevails either by initiating an inquiry or by granting a hearing to any member of the F. C. A." Its authority extends over all cases in which an employee desires to appeal the decision of persons above him in position, of the corporation, or of any committee. The board deals with such cases as reductions in position or wage, transfers, requests for promotion or wage increase, missing sales, shortages, lost packages, breakages, torn or lost garments, differences between employees, vacation wages, payment of insurance, differences between members of the F. C. A. and committees of the F. C. A. The board's decisions are final. In this the board is unique for it is composed wholly of employees and there is no appeal from its decisions. This then gives the entire management of conditions directly affecting the workers into the hands of the workers. Any employee discharged by the firm who appeals his case cannot be compelled to leave his position unless the elected representatives of all the employees approve his discharge. No reduction in wages brought to the attention of the board can be made without its approval. Unlike the average shop committee set up in open shops, the final authority is not the employer or his manager. Unlike the agreement between the cloth THE FILENE COOPERATIVE ASSOCIATION 288 ing employers and unionized labor, the final decision does not rest with an impartial chairman. It is in the hands of the elected representatives of the employees. The William Filene Sons' Company has another interesting feature in its dealings with employees. Non-stock holding employees elected by the workers are admitted to membership on the board of directors and in this way have a voice in the policy of the firm. As they are directly responsible to the workers for the part they play, the employees have an indirect hand in the directorship of the business in which they are employed. The wages paid at Filenes are in advance of many department stores. In addition to wages, the workers receive a commission on sales and a bonus. A 20 per cent discount is allowed employees on purchases. There are certain exceptions to this privilege such as advertised merchandise. Anything not actually carried in the store can be secured through the supply department for practically cost. Luncheons are furnished at slightly more than cost in a lunch room supplied by the firm and operated and managed by employees. Coal and groceries can be bought on the coöperative plan at considerable saving through the F. C. A. Medical service in the store clinic is furnished employees free of charge and they receive special rates from a dentist and oculist with whom arrangements for such service have been made. A bank whose officers are elected by the workers and whose funds are secured affords a safe place for the employees to invest their savings and receive interest at 5 per cent. The association furnishes free legal advice and lends money to its members at a low rate of interest. The F. C. A. has educational facilities and runs courses for culture and business. A library for employees, furnishing books for home reading at low charge, a rest room, and club rooms are among the other privileges enjoyed. Social events, an athletic department, various clubs, and an F. C. A. newspaper bring the employees closer together and promote solidarity, friendship, and enthusiasm in work. CONCLUSION Persons who favor company unions and other schemes of employee representation such as the government plan of shop committees, ordinarily do so at the expense of the trade or industrial union. Such schemes replace the union and defeat union aims. Advocates of these private plans claim that they promote industrial efficiency, give the workers a voice in conditions affecting themselves, promote the employees' education and well-being, create an atmosphere of good will between management and men, and permit the employer to conduct his own business without resort to the union and its coercive restrictions. The union asserts that private plans of employee representation and welfare are largely controlled by the management. Often elections are unfair because propaganda and undue influence induce the workers to vote for representatives approved by the employer. The workers' representatives on joint boards or committees sometimes fear to uphold the workers' rights lest they lose their chances of promotion or their positions. No provision is made for outside representation. The workers lose the advantages of expert advice which is furnished by the competent union delegate with his broader survey of industrial problems. The company union has not the resources to sustain a strike. The union embraces only a small group of workers and others can be readily found to take the strikers' places. It is more or less dependent on the continued liberality of the management. It cannot influence and promote the welfare of fellow workers not fortunate enough to be employed by a firm with democratic labor policies. While a few individuals may receive many benefits in a company union such as the Filene Coöperative Association, the great mass of workers remain unaffected. The trade union opposes the company union and denounces its members as individualistic. They are unwilling to sacrifice some of the privileges they have attained through a liberal management by joining with the body of unionists to improve the conditions of workers as a whole through legislation, trade agreements, strikes, and publicity. All the measures employed by employers and workers for solving the industrial problem tend toward giving the workers a greater share in the control of industry. In the great majority of cases, this share extends only to matters directly affecting the employees' interests. Democratizing industry to the extent of permitting the workers an actual participation in all phases of the business, in the outside market as well as within the shop, remains, generally speaking, an ideal. The great mass of workers are well content if they are given a voice in the matter of hours, wages, and working conditions. Only the few desire a more complete partnership with capital. The radicals go still further, contemplate the overthrow of the capitalist system and a democratic control of industry either by the workers alone or by the workers in conjunction with consumers. GOVERNMENT CONTROL OF INDUS- VOLUNTARY State Boards. Like workers and employers the public through its agent, the government, has certain means at its disposal for the prevention of industrial disputes. Laws exist in a majority of the states which provide some method by which the government may offer its services should an industrial controversy arise or may give its sanction to some private agency to try to effect a settlement. Most of these schemes make provision for varieties and combinations of mediation and arbitration. Mediation is the intervention by an outside party between two opposing factions in an attempt to bring them together, find a basis for agreement, and end the difficulty. Arbitration is the submission of the dispute to an impartial body which after a hearing renders a decision. The most successful and most widely adopted of the state systems for the settlement of industrial disputes provide for permanent state boards. In general these boards are patterned after those of Massachusetts and New York, the first states to establish them. They are appointive, are intended to act as mediators or arbitrators, giving their services when asked by the parties concerned. They are purely voluntary and awards are binding ordinarily only with the consent of the parties. They often provide for a public investigation of the dispute and for the publication of the findings. They have had a moderate degree of success. Their greatest defect is the charge brought against them of political influence. Owing their positions to the party in power, the members tend to be dominated more or less by party politics. Department of Labor. While no federal board similar to the state boards exists, the Department of Labor maintains a mediation service. This service was created with the Department of Labor in 1913. At that time the new Secretary of Labor was authorized to act as mediator in industrial disputes and to appoint commissioners of mediation whenever he considered that the interests of industrial peace required such action. The Department of Labor has built up a staff of mediators well-fitted because of their own experiences in business, professional, and industrial life to mediate disputes. When it first began its work, 70 per cent of the disputes in which its intervention was sought had reached the strike stage. In 1923 the Secretary of Labor reported that in less than 30 per cent of the cases handled, work had been suspended. From March 4, 1921, to June 30, 1922, 500 cases were acted upon. Three hundred and forty-five of these were satisfactorily adjusted by the department's mediators. Fifty-nine were adjusted by them in coöperation with local officials and agencies. Thirty-nine were pending at the time the report became public. Nearly 1,500,000 workers were involved in these disputes. Federal Regulation of Labor Conditions on the Railroads. The best example of federal regulation of labor conditions in any particular industry is that of the railroad industry. Any serious interruption to transportation would be a national catastrophe causing suffering and deprivation to large numbers of city dwellers dependent on outside markets for food. It would mean the stopping of many industries which could not continue production without fuel and raw material. It would cause great loss to the farmers whose produce could not be shipped to the distributing centers. For these reasons continued transportation is essential and government regulation of railroad labor imperative. Erdman Act. As early as 1888, the first federal law providing some way of settling labor disputes affecting interstate traffic was passed. This law is of little importance as it remained practically inactive throughout its life. It was replaced in 1898 by the Erdman Act. This act was limited in its jurisdiction to disputes involving workers actually engaged in operating the trains. It provided that at the request of the carriers or their employees, the Commissioner of Labor and the Chairman of the Interstate Commerce Commission should mediate in any dispute calculated to interrupt transportation. In case they failed to effect a settlement an arbitration board consisting of three members and representing capital, labor, and the public might be appointed. Parties desirous of submitting their difficulties to arbitration must agree (1) to refrain from a strike or lockout pending the arbitration, (2) to accept the award as final to continue |