﻿OOLITIC LIMESTONE INDUSTRY 



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sation for injuries either through compromises or suits at law. 

 Of twenty-seven suits for damages filed within five years in the 

 Monroe Circuit Court, ten are yet pending, five have been venued 

 and the records are not available, while five have been dismissed. 

 Two have been compromised with the sanction of the court, 

 and judgment has been given in favor of the plaintiff: in five 

 cases, in two of which appeals were taken to the appellate court, 

 where they are still pending. So far as compensation for in- 

 juries to workmen goes, the courts g:ive no more satisfactory 

 service here than in other lines of industry. 



The closeness of personal relations between employers and 

 workmen in the oolitic industry varies, as in all industries, with 

 the personality of the employer, the size of the establishment 

 and the relative absence of artificial restraints upon the com- 

 munication between employer and employee. For the most part 

 the employers are inclined to be free and easy in their relations 

 with their men. The social environment obtaining in the oolitic 

 district naturally leads to this, for there are here no wide differ- 

 ences in social rank, such as tend to appear where the popu- 

 lation is denser. Comparatively few employers, it is true, mani- 

 fest much active interest in the welfare of their employees, but 

 these few are frequently in a very real sense friends of their em- 

 ployees, and some court that relation. 



Two classes of employers — the largest and the smallest — 

 are from the very nature of the org-anization of their establish- 

 ments unlikely to come into direct personal contact with their 

 employees, who are supervised and directed in their work chiefly 

 by hired superintendents. This lack of personal relations has 

 been thought to be a cause of the organization of labor unions 

 in the Bedford district, where the largest establishments are lo- 

 cated. Certain it is that there has been far less agitation of the 

 union idea in other districts, where, for the most part, establish- 

 ments of medium size obtain, but the earlier development of 

 the industry in that district, and the organization of the work- 

 men in other lines of industry at Bedford, to a much greater 

 degree than prevails in other portions of the oolitic belt, must 

 also have influenced quite materially the formation of unions 

 among the quarry workers. 



The first class of laborers to be organized in the oolitic lime- 

 stone industry were the cutters, who have through their national 

 organization a monopoly of the labor supply in their trade. The 



