The Organization of a Whole Industry 
 By Dr. WM. JAY SCHIEFFELIN 
 
 President of Schieffelin & Co. 
 
 THE JOINT BOARD IN THE CLOAK, SUIT, AND SKIRT INDUSTRY 
 
 The way it came about that a manufacturer of drugs was chosen to 
 be chairman of the Joint Board of Sanitary Control in the Cloak, Suit, 
 and Skirt industry in the City of New York was as follows: 
 
 In 1910 there was a terrible strike in this city. It was terrible ow¬ 
 ing to the poverty and the misery it caused among many workers, and 
 the number of those who were involved. The mills had to shut down. 
 The retail stores throughout the country were depending upon the 
 stock always manufactured here. They lost a large proportion of their 
 trade. One of the trade’s statisticians seriously assured me that the 
 loss would aggregate $50,000,000 on that one strike. I could hardly 
 believe it, but he said it was true. Considering the loss to the mills, 
 and to the manufacturers and contractors, and the operators, and the 
 losses to the retail merchants and the public, who had to go without 
 their cloaks, skirts, and suits, it may have reached that figure. 
 
 The strike dragged on. There was not very much violence, 
 although at times there was some. Before the strike began, not one- 
 half the trade was unionized. When the strike ended, the unions had 
 control of all the operatives. Their pickets were very efficient, and they 
 won the strike. 
 
 But it nearly killed them to win it, and the manufacturers were up 
 against it, and saw no way to start over again. It is a seasonal trade, 
 and, of course, when the season was over, there was a little breathing 
 space, but the strikers were literally starving, and the manufacturers 
 were nearly ruined. Many of them were ruined, and they were no 
 nearer a settlement than they had been at the beginning. 
 
 There were various matters at issue, but toward the end the ques¬ 
 tion resolved itself into that of the open or closed shop, and the unions 
 were just as strong for the closed shop as the manufacturers were for 
 
 Read at the first meeting of the Efficiency Society, held in New York City, March 18 
 
 and 19, 1912. 
 
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the open shop. They simply came to a deadlock on that. Finally Mr. 
 Louis Brandeis was brought in, and he conferred with Meyer Lon¬ 
 don, the counsel for the strikers, and Julius Henry Cohen, who repre¬ 
 sented the manufacturers. They devised a protocol of peace, which 
 was satisfactory to everybody. Marcus Marks said: “It will last six 
 weeks.” It has already lasted one year and a half. 
 
 THE COMPROMISE BETWEEN CAPITAL AND LABOR 
 
 They compromised by getting down to fundamentals. The manu¬ 
 facturers insisted upon the privilege of employing non-union men. 
 The unions insisted that they should not have that privilege. Bran¬ 
 deis asked: “Is the union a means or an end?” The workmen an¬ 
 swered: “A means.” “What is the end?” said Brandeis. “The end, 
 why, union wages and hours and sanitary conditions up to union stan¬ 
 dard,” responded the union. “Well,” he said, “if you got all those 
 would you say you had won?” “Why, of course,” the union men said. 
 “Very well,” said Brandeis. 
 
 Then he went to the manufacturers, and said: “Is the union wage 
 all right?” “Oh, yes,” said the manufacturers. “And the union 
 hours?” “Yes.” “And you admit that many of the shops are in 
 unsanitary condition, being in cellars and tenements, and should be 
 made sanitary?” “Oh, yes, we are willing to concede all that.” “Then 
 nothing stands in the way but the closed shop. Why do you refuse 
 to allow the closed shop?” They said: “We might as well turn 
 over the whole management of our business to those men.” 
 
 Brandeis said: “Well, supposing you admitted it was well in an 
 industry like this to have collective bargaining.” “Oh, that is all right, 
 yes.” “Supposing you are willing to concede union wages and hours 
 and union sanitary conditions.” “We are willing to concede those.” 
 
 “If you would agree, that in the event of your not being able to 
 get satisfactory labor from the unions, then you would get outside 
 labor, and not until then; and that you would urge your new hands to 
 join the union; in other words, that you would give a preference to 
 union labor, but still have the privilege of employing outside labor if 
 you had to, wouldn’t that suit you?” “Yes,” said the manufacturers. 
 
 One objection advanced by the manufacturers was that when they 
 wanted to take large contracts, if they had a closed shop they might 
 have difficulty in getting labor, as the contracts have to be finished 
 within a given time. 
 
 The union said: “We will agree to your preferential shop, because 
 
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we will call it a preferential union shop; and its success will depend 
 upon the extent to which the manufacturer and the unions cooperate.'’ 
 
 THE BOARD OF SANITARY CONTROL 
 
 Then they drew up a treaty of peace, and this was in the form of a 
 protocol. I will read one clause: 
 
 “The parties hereby establish a Joint Board of Sanitary Control, to 
 consist of seven members, composed of two nominees of the manu¬ 
 facturers, two nominees of the unions and three who are to represent 
 the public; the latter to be named by Meyer London, Esq., and Julius 
 Henry Cohen, Esq.; and in the event of their inability to agree, by 
 Louis Marshall, Esq. Said Board is empowered to establish standards 
 of sanitary conditions to which the manufacturers and the union shall 
 be committed, and the manufacturers and the unions obligate them¬ 
 selves to maintain such standards to the best of their ability, and to the 
 full extent of their power.” 
 
 Under that protocol they appointed two from the unions, two from 
 the manufacturers, and three to represent the public. The three who 
 were to represent the public were Miss Lillian Wald, head of the 
 Nurses’ Settlement, on Henry Street, Dr. Henry Moskowitz, and my¬ 
 self. 
 
 That board elected me chairman, and it met monthly, and its ses¬ 
 sions lasted frequently from eight o’clock in the evening until mid¬ 
 night. We got the best experts obtainable. Neither side hesitated 
 to pay $4,000 or $5,000 annually for the expenses of the Board. It is 
 a huge industry, you know. There are over 60,000 employees. The 
 first inspections were made with great thoroughness and detail, and the 
 inspecting cards presented in their report cover every conceivable va¬ 
 riety of data. The inspection showed that very few of the shops were 
 either safe or sanitary; before that fire in the Triangle, we reported 
 over eighty shops to the mayor and other officials of the city as fire 
 hazards. Some of these were against shops that had fire escapes that 
 led into blind alleys or cul de sacs. 
 
 Both sides cooperated freely. We had a small number of what you 
 might call health strikes. There were certain contractors who did not 
 belong to the Manufacturers’ Association, and who were obstinate 
 about changing conditions, and so the unions were notified that such 
 and such shops were intolerable and could not be made sanitary; and 
 that the workers were working there at their peril. Presently the men 
 did not go to work, and these contractors had to change their quar- 
 
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ters. In several cases they wrote to the Board that they had been 
 meaning to change all the time, but now they were glad to. And to¬ 
 day we have the plan of giving certificates to such shops as comply 
 in every respect with the sanitary standards set up by the Board, and 
 the standards are fairly rigid. 
 
 THE SANITARY STANDARDS 
 
 There are twenty-eight such sanitary standards, and I will read 
 them : 
 
 1. No shop to be allowed in a cellar. 
 
 2. No shop to be allowed in rear houses or attic floors, without 
 special permission of the Board. 
 
 3. Shops located in buildings two stories or more in height must 
 have one or more fire-escapes. 
 
 4. All fire-escapes to be provided with ladders to the roof of same 
 house or to an adjoining house; also with full length drop ladders, 
 properly located and adjusted. 
 
 5. In all shops which are not provided with automatic sprinklers 
 there should be kept a sufficient number of chemical extinguishers, or 
 a sufficient number of fire buckets, properly located and filled. 
 
 6. Special caretakers to be appointed in each shop for the care 
 of the fire buckets, and for their use in case of fire. 
 
 7. All openings and exits to fire-escapes to be left unobstructed 
 by tables, machines, boxes, partitions, and iron bars. 
 
 8. No doors to be locked during working hours. 
 
 9. No smoking to be permitted in workshop. 
 
 10. Conspicuous signs to be placed throughout the shop, marking 
 location and direction of exits and fire-escapes. 
 
 11. Fireproof receptacles, lined with tin, and having a tin cover, 
 to be provided, in sufficient numbers, for rubbish. 
 
 12. Halls and stairways leading from shops to be adequately 
 lighted by natural or artificial light. 
 
 13. Stairs to be provided with secure handrails and safe treads. 
 
 14. Sufficient window space to be provided for each shop, so that 
 all parts of the shop be well lighted during the hours from 9 a. m. to 
 4 P. M. 
 
 15. Where gas illumination is used, arc lights or incandescent 
 mantles should be used. 
 
 16. All light to be well shaded, to be placed above operatives, and 
 not too near them. 
 
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17. At least 400 cubic feet of space, exclusive of bulky furniture 
 and materials, should be provided for every person within the shop. 
 
 18. The shop should be thoroughly aired before and after work 
 hours, and during lunch hour, by opening windows and doors. 
 
 19. No coal should be used for direct heating of irons, and when¬ 
 ever stoves are used for heating shops, they should be surrounded by 
 metal sheet at least five feet high. 
 
 20. Walls and ceilings of shops and water-closet apartments 
 should be cleaned as often as necessary, and kept clean. 
 
 21. Floors of shops, and of water-closet apartments, to be scrubbed 
 weekly, swept daily, and kept free of refuse. 
 
 22. A separate water-closet apartment shall be provided for each 
 sex, with solid partitions to extend from floor to ceiling, and with 
 separate vestibules and doors. 
 
 23. Water-closets to be adequately flushed and kept clean. 
 
 24. A special caretaker to be designated by the employer to the 
 care of the shop and water-closet apartments. 
 
 25. A sufficient number of water-supplied washbasins to be pro¬ 
 vided, in convenient and light locations within the shop. 
 
 26. Suitable hangers should be provided for the street clothes of 
 the employees, and separate dressing rooms to be provided wherever 
 women are working. 
 
 27. Water-closet apartments, dressing rooms, washrooms, and 
 lunch rooms to be properly lighted, illuminated, ventilated, cleaned, 
 and kept clean. 
 
 28. All seats to have backs. 
 
 THE SUCCESS OF THE NEW CONTROL 
 
 In the beginning the representatives of the workingmen said that 
 the rule in regard to smoking was absolutely unenforcible. After six 
 months the sentiment of the workers has changed toward that rule. 
 I called up the central office just before coming here, and they told 
 me they had issued certificates to 344 shops, embracing practically one- 
 half of the employees, because they are the larger shops. 
 
 Now, that is progress. There are probably 1,200 shops much 
 smaller than these still to be brought up to the standard. But in the 
 vast majority of cases they simply need certain minor changes in order 
 to make them complete. In any shops where there was great peril, 
 the changes were made even to the extent of making tunnels through 
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walls to fire-escapes, so that people who had reached the bottom of the 
 fire-escapes could get out. 
 
 I have said to business organizations and religious meetings that 
 one of the most Christian boards I ever served upon has been this Joint 
 Board of Sanitary Control, because the members have shown a spirit 
 of brotherhood that has been perfectly admirable. All the members 
 of the board excepting myself are Jews. 
 
 I want to pay a tribute to Dr. Price, the chairman of the executive 
 committee and expert sanitarian, who has spent himself, in season and 
 out of season, in perfecting these standards, and in personal investiga¬ 
 tion of the conditions. He had had experience as chief medical in¬ 
 spector in the Tenement House Department. 
 
 On a number of occasions this voluntary joint action on the part 
 of the employers and employes, has rectified many unsanitary condi¬ 
 tions which constant complaint to the state and city departments had 
 been unable to help. When you look at the number of factories in this 
 city and in the State, and the small number of inspectors, and then con¬ 
 sider the small number of inspections which that number of inspectors 
 can make, you will be surprised. Our inspectors made twenty or 
 thirty inspections where the state inspectors made four, five or six. 
 When you consider those conditions, you will well understand that 
 this kind of an auxiliary to the state forces, is most useful in bringing 
 about better conditions. 
 
 The thing that I wish to emphasize here is that in this city is being 
 given an example of solving that apparently unsolvable problem of 
 the employer who attempts to run his own business and the employes 
 who demand collective bargaining, and to show it is to their mutual 
 interest to regard the job of producing as one job in which they are 
 jointly engaged. 
 
 Now, if we can go one step further and regard the job of distribu¬ 
 tion as one job, and have everybody in friendly cooperation, we can 
 call upon the public to back this thing up. The way to do that is, as 
 soon as we have a majority of the shops, or workingmen in those shops 
 under the certificate, to educate the public to patronize certificated 
 shops. In that way the public can stamp its approval on this plan of 
 enlightened cooperation. And surely it is a fair thing to bring about 
 wholesome conditions in a way that reflects credit upon both sides. 
 
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ANOTHER EXAMPLE OF JOINT CONTROL 
 
 I want further to call attention to a similar movement started about 
 two months ago. In Michigan there is an organized alliance between 
 the employers and the workers of the Grand Rapids Furniture Com¬ 
 pany, which is very interesting, and it consists of two coordinated asso¬ 
 ciations, each independent. 
 
 It was brought about by a strike in the industry, and it has 
 been followed by better feeling between the two parties than 
 might have been expected. The arbitrators have perfected plans for a 
 unique and helpful cooperative organization, consisting of two coordi¬ 
 nate associations, each largely independent of the other. The manu¬ 
 facturers have banded together as the Furniture Craftsmasters of Grand 
 Rapids, and the employes as the United Furniture Craftsmen of 
 Grand Rapids. The Craftsmen will have branches of not less than 
 twenty-five members in each factory, and every individual member 
 will pay fifty cents monthly dues, to be applied to sick, accident, and 
 death benefits. The Craftsmen will be under the exclusive and entire 
 management of the employes, and will handle their own funds. The 
 Craftsmasters will consist of all manufacturers whose employes are 
 members of the Craftsmen. Each employer obligates himself to pay 
 monthly into the treasury of his organization a sum equal to the total 
 paid by his employes. The Craftsmasters’ organization is inde¬ 
 pendent of the Craftsmen, but agrees that its funds shall be perpetu¬ 
 ally applied to the benefit of employes who are members of the Crafts¬ 
 men, in such a way as may be deemed advisable, especially in supple¬ 
 menting benefits, in creating old-age pensions, in temporary loans to 
 members, and in other avenues of service. 
 
 In addition to the financial benefits to the employes, there must 
 come the spirit of cooperation between manufacturer and laborer, 
 which cannot do other than develop a sympathy and cordiality that 
 will go far toward avoiding all labor troubles, and which will increase 
 operating efficiency. If the six thousand strikers of last spring should 
 all become members of this association, there would be available 
 $72,000 a year, a sum far greater than that at the disposal of any 
 local union organization. Such a sum would offer advantages to em¬ 
 ployes far in excess of those of any existing union, and would be a 
 potent force for betterment in the city, bringing to many a family 
 the help urgently needed in times of suffering. 
 
 The project is most comprehensive, and is undertaken enthusias¬ 
 tically alike by manufacturers and employes. All of the employes 
 
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consulted have expressed their unqualified approval. There seems to 
 be no serious difficulty in the way of perfecting this effective fraternal 
 organization of capital and labor. The consummation of such a two¬ 
 fold labor organization will be a credit to Grand Rapids, and will be 
 watched everywhere as one of the hopeful developments out of our 
 industrial unrest. 
 
 That, of course, is not nearly as practical as this Joint Board of 
 Sanitary Control. 
 
 I omitted to mention that this protocol had another clause which 
 established a Court of Arbitration, which settles every kind of differ¬ 
 ence relating to wages and hours. That appears to be working in a 
 perfectly satisfactory way, too. 
 
 Discussion 
 
 Mr. H. F. J. Porter: I am glad that Dr. Schieffelin has referred 
 to the Court of Arbitration, for I think that is a very important ele¬ 
 ment in this whole scheme of joint control of an industry. There has 
 recently appeared the report of the Congressional Commission ap¬ 
 pointed to investigate the subject of Scientific Management in indus¬ 
 trial plants, which states that in order to accomplish satisfactory results 
 the “consent of the employe” must be obtained. Possibly the success 
 which is coming from the scheme which Dr. Schieffelin has out¬ 
 lined is due to the fact that there is cooperation between employer and 
 employe, which means that the consent of the employe is being ob¬ 
 tained. 
 
 But one of the most important facts which is being brought out by 
 the operation of this Joint Board of Control of an industry is that 
 there are certain features which involve inefficiency which cannot be 
 attacked in any other way than by getting the whole industry so co¬ 
 related that the individual plants composing it can be treated with 
 collectively. 
 
 Dr. Schieffelin has referred to the fact that this is a seasonal in¬ 
 dustry; by that he means that there are every year two busy seasons 
 and two slack seasons. There are, as he says, some 60,000 employes, 
 which means that these people, with those who are dependent upon 
 them for support, constitute a community aggregating close to 200,000 
 people, which is as many as there are in the city of Providence or 
 Indianapolis. Now twice a year when the slack season arrives these 
 200,000 people are necessarily affected, and a very large percentage of 
 them are thrown absolutely out of work, and for two and a half 
 
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months must seek support through some other channel. Many of these 
 people are totally unequipped to support themselves in any other man¬ 
 ner than by the trade which they have learned, and consequently the 
 city has to take care of them through its organized charities, or else 
 they are left to their own devices to work out an existence as best they 
 can. Our students of Social Research advise me that a great deal of 
 the crime which takes place in our cities is due to this seasonal fluctua¬ 
 tion in these plants, and I am sure that when 200,000 people are di¬ 
 verted from their normal channels of work and are thrown upon the 
 streets of New York for two and a half months temporary existence, 
 conditions are in a very abnormal state. It is perfectly apparent to 
 the student of industrial conditions that seasonal fluctuations which 
 affect a whole industry cannot be attacked successfully in a single 
 factory, and that the only way that a cure can be effected will be 
 through the efforts of a Joint Board administering the interests of the 
 whole industry. 
 
 I think I see in this plan a very important step towards the solu¬ 
 tion of problems to which it would be well for this Society to devote 
 considerable attention. 
 
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