249] RESTRICTION OF OUTPUT I I / 



size of balls was left to the mill committees and the district 

 deputies. 



The most important problem was how to enforce the rule 

 restricting average output. The Sons of Vulcan were never 

 able to do this successfully. The Amalgamated Associa- 

 tion, in 1889, required that, although the weight should be 

 averaged for two weeks, the weight of each turn should be 

 displayed on a board.^^ The next year it was provided that 

 the penalty for wilful violation of the legal limit would be 

 suspension, and the publication of the names of offenders 

 in the quarterly report. ^^ In 1901 the penalty was made 

 either a heavy fine or expulsion. Lodges allowing this 

 practice were fined for the first offense, and if they per- 

 sisted in the practice the charter was withdrawn. The 

 charter of a local union was rarely revoked for violation 

 of the law — though there were such cases — and the abuse 

 continued. The leaders of the union began to feel that the 

 remedy lay, not in restricting the output, but in limiting the 

 hours of the workday. So flagrant were the violations of 

 the limit on swarth in the busheling department that, in 

 1905, in accordance with the agreement with the employers, 

 other manufacturers were given the privilege of working 

 without limits. The limit has been nominally retained in 

 the puddling department, but it is no longer effective. 



The manufacturers, as a rule, have not found the restric- 

 tion on the output of puddle furnaces irksome.^^ The scale 

 in 1904 provided that five heats should constitute a day's 

 work in double-turn or three-turn mills, but allowed six 

 heats in a single-turn mill. Large mills usually employ 

 three shifts so as to get the greatest possible production in 

 twenty-four hours, and on three turns it is a physical im- 

 possibiHty to make over five heats per turn ; usually only 

 four can be made. Most employers agree that 550 pounds 

 of i)ig iron is an economical charge ; that it is as much as two 



'1 National Labor Tribune, July 6, 1889, p. 4. 

 ^2 Proceedings, i8qo, p. 3167. 



!» There were instances in which the union regulation was repug- 

 nant to the emi)Ioyer (Proceedings, 1883, p. 1168). 



