CONTENTS European Experiences Prior to Legislation by Congress Labor provisions of the Senate and House transportation THE RAILROAD LABOR BOARD ORGANIZATION CHAPTER I HISTORY The United States Railroad Labor Board, an independent establishment of the national government, located at Chicago, Illinois, is a quasi-judicial body, whose general function is the amicable adjustment of disputes arising between carriers subject to the Interstate Commerce Act and their employees and subordinate officers in matters relating to wages, grievances, rules, or working conditions. The first national law aiming at amicable adjustment of labor disputes was enacted in 1888 (Act of October 1, 1888; 25 Stat. L., 501). At this comparatively early date several of the states had already made some initial experiments in this field of legislation and the experiences of European countries afforded much that could have been instructive to the framers of a national law on conciliation or arbitration. There are evidences that the first advocates in Congress of a federal law were influenced strongly by these early attempts to promote industrial peace both in Europe and in the commonwealths of the United States. Moreover, the act of 1888 followed the laws of Massachusetts and New York in an important feature, even to the precise terminology. A brief review 'For example, one of the bills introduced in the first session of the 49th Congress providing for arbitration of labor disputes was so closely modelled after an English law that the phrase was inadvertently included in the bill pursuance to an act passed in the fifth year of the reign of his present majesty."-Congressional Record, vol. 77, p. 2968. * See Cummings, Industrial arbitration in the United States, Quarterly Journal of Economics, IX, p. 358, also Hatch, Government industrial arbitration, Bureau of Labor, Bulletin 60, p. 572. VIMU of the early developments in Europe and in the commonwealths of the United States will, therefore, be essential. European Experiences Prior to Legislation by Congress. The earliest laws in Europe relating to industrial disputes were not enacted to meet conditions of collective bargaining in the modern sense, but were aimed at settlement of individual disputes between employers and employees, thus reflecting the characteristics of the prevailing industrial régime and the illegal status of workmen's combinations, which were then treated as conspiracies. Provision 5 4 for settlement of such individual disputes in England between master and workman was made in the law as far back as the middle of the sixteenth century, but it was not until 1747 that a special law was enacted dealing exclusively with the adjustment of labor disputes. The increasing number of disputes in the cotton industry between masters and weavers which reflected the "transforming influences" of the industrial revolution led to a series of acts between 1800 and 1813' applying, however, only to the center of disturbance, the cotton trade. In 1824 all these acts were consolidated and replaced by the so-called Consolidation Act' which extended the system of arbitration in individual disputes to all trades. Although this act as amended in 1837 was in force till 1896, it was practically never utilized.* *Hatch, Arbitration, in Bliss, New Encyclopedia for Social Reform, p. 60. The Statutes of Apprentices, 1562, 5 Eliz., ch. 4, contained such provision. In 1800 for England (39-40 Geo. III, ch. 90), in 1803 for Scotland (43 Geo. III, ch. 151), in 1804 replacing the law of 1800 for England (44 Geo. III, ch. 87), and in 1813 for Ireland (53 Geo. III, ch. 75). 'This act established a system patterned after the French law establishing Counseils des Prud'hommes. See Weeks, Labor differences and their settlement, Society for Political Education, Economic Tracts, XX, p. 50. Hatch, in Bulletin 60, as above, p. 392. A select committee of the House of Commons appointed in 1856 to inquire into the problem of "amicable adjustment of differences between masters and operatives” found that this law had been inoperative because workmen were unwilling to go before a magistrate to obtain appointment of arbitrators since such action bore the appearance of a criminal proceeding. Moreover, it was believed that the magistrates in the industrial districts generally belonged to the manufacturing class. Another objection found to the system was that there was a new set of arbitrators for each case, so that the parties were continually obliged to refer disputes to unknown men. In 1867 the so-called Lord St. Leonard's Act was passed, which permitted the establishment of agencies like the French system of industrial courts. Numerous voluntary boards of arbitration and conciliation had developed in some of the English industries between 1824 and 1867, and the new law aimed to provide a legal basis for their activities. Private councils established voluntarily by employers and employees were authorized by securing licenses, granted upon fulfillment of certain requirements of procedure and constitution, to exercise such powers as were conferred by the Consolidation Act upon the referees to compel the attendance of witnesses and enforce awards. Like the previous law, the Lord St. Leonard's Act was never utilized. In spite of the fact that there had been wide approval by workmen and employees of the law, no application for a license under its provisions was ever made though the law remained in effect until 1896. Many reasons have been advanced for the failure of the act to function: That the organizations necessary to the successful working of the law were lacking, that the compulsory features were obnoxious both to employer and employee," there were too many hard and fast rules as to constitution and procedure, and, finally, that the question of future wages was excluded from the field of arbitration by the licensed councils." In 1872 the Masters and Workmen Act was passed, providing that industrial masters and workmen might contract as to terms of employment such contract to make submission of disputes to arbitration compulsory upon both parties. Like the previous law this act was in force until 1896, but it was a dead letter. The failure of this act has been ascribed to its lack of recognition of "concrete existing bodies or to provide an agency to put it in operation."" There was no further legislation until 1896, eight years after the enactment of the first national law in the United States. 'By act of March 29, 1873, the Province of Ontario adopted this English law of 1867, "copying the law of the Mother country verbatim and with no changes of any significance." Like the English act, it was never used, and a royal commission of labor appointed in 1886 by the Dominion government reported that its very existence seemed to have been forgotten.—Hatch, in Bulletin 60, as above, p. 558. 10 Weeks, as above, p. 9. |