MICHIGAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. 41 



ciatiou aud the Cai'j)euteis' Executive Council of Cook County. The 

 membership of Ihe.se unions exceeds twenty thousand and leaves 

 l)i'actically no carj^enters outside the union. 



The rules fall into four main divisions, as follows: a general 

 statement of the rules taken from the joint agreement; their 

 theoretical analysis; an interj)retation from the workmen's point 

 of view ; and a summar}- of some of the significant points of trade 

 unionism brought out. 



■f 



Chapter II. 



The rules adopted by the carpenters' unions have a two-fold i)ur- 

 pose; to give solidarity to the grouj), aud lo control the trade. They 

 fall into two main divisions: first, definitions of principles; and 

 second, provisions for their enforcement. The first division may 

 be subdivided into rules on demands, methods, policies and theories; 

 the latter into i>enalties, provisions to procure prosecution of the 

 emjtloyer, to expedite procedure, to facilitate conviction, to induce 

 con>p]iance and overcome evasion, and administrative enforcement 

 through the Arbitration Board, the District C(mncil, the lousiness 

 Agent, and the Stewards. 



The working rules are a joint agreement between tlie contractors 

 and carpenters. It is a tri-ennial agreement. The present agree- 

 ment of seventy-five rules went into effect on April 15, 1912 and 

 runs for three years. The agreements date back to the third quarter 

 of the niueteentli century but the effective ones appeared in the early 

 eighties during the carpenters' struggle for the eight-hour day. 



The provisi(ms which })rove effective are incorporated in the new 

 agreements from time to time and those which prove to be faulty 

 are altered or dropped out of subsequent agreements. For example, 

 it has been the custom of the carpenters to allow .the contractors to 

 vrork on the job with their tools without carrying a union card. 

 In time it became customary to allow one man to work on each job 

 without a card on the gromid that he represented the contractors. 

 Under this ruling if the contractor did not care to work himself he 

 could employ a non-union man to work in his place. This was a 

 violation of the spirit, if not the letter, of the rule. The union be- 

 came dissatisfied with such introduction of non-union men and 

 droji])ed the rule from the last agreement. Therefore the questions 

 which arise over the drafting of new agreements have to do with 

 efforts to adjust the rules adequately to the prevailing conditions 

 of the trade. 



Of the rules on the definition of principles those expressing the 



