THE TRADE UNION LABEL. BY JOHN GRAHAM BROOKS. [John Graham Brooks, expert in department of labor; born Ackworth, N. H., July 19, 1846; graduated from Harvard division school, 1875; studied three years abroad and became lecturer on economic subjects; for two years was instructor at Harvard university; was for several years lecturer in the extension department of the University of Chicago; two years expert United States department of labor at Washington, making report of 1893 upon the Workingmen's Insurance company in Germany. Author: The Social Unrest.] No sign of a trade union label has been found by the writer earlier than 1874. It appears to be wholly of American origin, nor is any evidence at hand that unions elsewhere, except in Canada, show special interest in it. The chief reason for its adoption here is doubtless in the intenser and more embarrassing forms of competition under which labor unions suffer. Many devices, both good and bad, to which the American trade union has been driven, find their origin in the exigencies of this severer competition. If the distinctively race element is included, no single factor in this competition is so powerful as that of immigration. It is not merely a question of numbers. It is not merely a question of multitudinous unskilled labor. It is also a question of race. All a priori theories of liberty and brotherhood yield quickly before the actual competition of different standards of living in a common market. The Australian trade unions were powerful enough practically to exclude the yellow race. The unions there, as in England, are overwhelmingly of the same race. This fact makes the competitive struggle relatively a simple one. The attempt to understand the American trade union is incomparably more perplexing because of the racial effects. The constant pressure, through immigration, of a great multitude of half skilled laborers, representing far lower standards of life and at the same time introducing race antagonisms, has driven the trade union in this country to catch at every weapon of defense. The label is one of these weapons. Its first appearance was in California during the sand lot agitation against the Chinese. The Burlingame treaty with China was concluded July 28, 1868. In article 5 both countries cordially recognize the inherent and inalienable right of man to change his home and allegiance, and also the mutual advantage of the free migration and emigration of their citizens and subjects respectively from one country to the other for the purposes of curiosity, of trade, or as permanent residents. This hospitable mood was of short duration. In this same year (1868) 11,085 Chinese landed on the Pacific coast. In 1872 a San Francisco firm of cigar makers took on a number of Chinese. The number which came into direct competition with the work of any trade union must have been slight, except perhaps with the cigar makers, yet, as with the insignificant product of prison labor, it aroused instant hostility. Much of the more recent state legislation concerning the label throws light upon its origin, as in Illinois, where it is held that a label upon cigars showing them to have been made by a first class workman, a member of an organization opposed to inferior, rat shop, coolie, prison, or filthy tenement house workmanship is legal, etc. Against the rat shop, coolie made cigars the California cigar makers first struck. But how should a sympathizing public know which were rat shop and coolie made cigars, and which the product of American labor with its superior standard? To meet this practical difficulty a label was adopted, not the blue label in present use, but a white one, to show the buyer that he was patronizing white labor. It was thus against the competition of a low class unorganized labor that this weapon of the label was first directed. Its appeal was to the smoker: Buy no cigars except from the box marked with the trade union label, thus you help maintain the white as against the coolie standard of life and work. In 1875 another label appeared in St. Louis during a strike of the cigar makers against a reduction of wages. The color was changed from white to red. The fight was, however, strictly over the issue of organized and unorganized labor. Both were putting cigars upon the market. The trade union wished in this instance to win the support of the consumer for a product made under union conditions. To show this a red label was used. There was at least success enough in this attempt to cause the counterfeiting of this label, upon which the trade union placed on the label its own seal. At that time there was no thought of legal protection against counterfeiting. At the convention held in Chicago, 1880, a dispute arose between delegates from the Pacific slope and those from St. Louis as to the color of the label. Let us, said an eastern delegate, take the other color on the flag, upon which the present blue label was adopted. At this convention great stress was laid upon the fact that the unions were suffering not only from Chinese labor, but from the competition of the prisons and the tenement house. A further and more systematic use of the label was urged in order to strengthen the cause of the union against such competition. The apparent success of the label among the cigar makers raised the question of its adoption with other unions in 1883 and 1884. The powerful organization of the hatters introduced it in 1885. The label is attached under the lining or sweatband of the hat. Its use has become so common in stiff hats that a visit to 12 New York stores (not the more fashionable ones) showed that 9 of them regularly kept the labeled hats. It is admitted by manufacturers that the influence of the label is increasing. The label appeared in the ready made clothing trade in 1886 at a time when the Knights of Labor were in control of organized labor. It took the form of a small card tied to the garment by a thread. The present form of the label was adopted by the National union in 1891. It is of cloth attached to the inside of the garment, and costs the seller of the garment one third of a cent, the purpose being merely to cover its cost. The inscription on the label shows that it is issued by the authority of the general executive board of the United Garment Workers of America, and the garment is guaranteed union made. From 1891 the label has been taken up by printers, bakers, wood workers, harness makers, iron molders, broom makers, coopers, photographers, shoemakers, custom tailors, mattress makers, horseshoers, brewers, egg inspectors, and |