142 ASSOCIATION OF IRON, STEEL AND TIN WORKERS [274 



manufacturers.^* In 1899 because of alleged dissatisfac- 

 tion with the Conference Committee, President Shaffer was 

 authorized to request the manufacturers to meet all the dele- 

 gates of each craft and settle the scale during the conven- 

 tion. The manufacturers replied that they considered it 

 "impracticable" because of the various combinations of 

 employers then pending. ^^ 



In 1900 the situation was as follows : four scales were 

 drawn up annually by as many di\Tsions of a general con- 

 ference committee appointed by the annual convention of 

 the Association,^^ in consultation with the several interests 

 involved. The employers were no longer represented, as 

 they had been, by associations of manufacturers, but by 

 single great companies which had supplanted the individual 

 employers. Thus, one division negotiated a scale for pud- 

 dling (that is, boiling) and allied processes with the Re- 

 public Iron and Steel Company, instead of with the Asso- 

 ciation of Bar Iron Manufacturers, because the company 

 now included most of the muck and bar-iron mills.^' A 

 second division made an agreement with the same company 

 covering the prices of iron bars and plates and similar 

 products. A third conferred with representatives of the 

 American Sheet Steel Company, which included nearly all 

 the sheet-steel mills in the country, and no longer with an 

 Association of Iron and Steel Manufacturers. Finally, a 

 fourth negotiated with the American Tin Plate Company, 

 which had brought together nearly all the tin-plate mills. 



^* In 1898 the conference on puddling and bar mill prices failed. 

 The matter was referred to a vote of the membership. The local 

 unions decided to have a joint meeting of all lodges, and have the 

 conference reconvened. -Accordingly, 91 delegates from the local 

 unions met the employers in conference on July 31 — an unusual event. 



'6 Proceedings, 1899, p. 5598. 



^•5 The conferees have been appointed by the president, as a rule; 

 in 1896, however, one division elected its own committee, while tlie 

 others were appointed by the president, subject to the approval of 

 the delegates (Proceedings, 1896, p. 4993). 



1^ The American Steel Hoop Co. ( formerly known as the Car- 

 negie Hoop and Steel Co.) refused to meet in conference with the 

 Republic (Proceedings, i<;x)3, p. 6572). Consequently separate con- 

 ferences were granted until the Carnegie mill severed relations with 

 the union several years later. 



