The quality of the labor is still more diffi cult to contract for with accuracy than the qual ity of the material. When the contractor starts in on the contract, he may not have in his em ploy more than two or three of the men who are to work upon the job, but he undertakes to see that the work shall be performed in a "thoroughly workmanlike manner." The work manlike manner of the human laborer in times of great business prosperity, when there is a job for every man, is a different matter from the workmanlike manner of the same man after he has resigned from the union or before he has joined it, when there are two men for every job. The owner is entitled unquestionably to receive the grade of work that the contract calls for; but how to specify in words that grade of work without room for a great deal of misunderstand ing and subsequent trouble, is a problem that has not yet been generally solved except upon the understanding that the grade of work shall be in accordance with the established practice in the locality and at the time when the contract was signed or when the work is carried out.
The quality of the finished work, its appear ance, its dimensions, its density, and its general resistance to outside forces, can often be pretty well defined, and this implies a certain quality of workmanship. On a piece of riveting work, for example, the owner on an ordinary contract should be reasonably entitled to have the rivet ing done by men of experience in this class of labor; and it might perhaps be a violation of his rights to have the contractor place upon the riveting work green men, training them as the work progresses. The contractor may claim that so long as the rivets fill the holes, are prop erly finished, are not burned, and cannot be found fault with on inspection, he is doing his part; and probably this is true, so long as the green gang does not take so much time upon the work as to interfere with the owner's rights.
(c) Time of Completion. As a business proposition, the owner in the contract makes a stipulation that he is to receive his completed structure or certain parts of the completed structure at certain times. The contract for the structure is of more value to the owner if the structure is completed at a certain time than if it be delayed, for the reason that he makes his ordinary business plans and arranges his various business matters so that he can make use of the structure at the time specified. He does not ex pect to receive it sooner; and if he did receive it sooner, his other arrangements might not admit of its being any more valuable to him than if delivered later; while, if there is considerable delay, he may be put to a large monetary loss. Therefore he is entitled to receive the structure at the time agreed upon, provided that an exten sion of time is not agreed upon, or provided that the delay is not caused through the fault of the owner, or through an "act of God," so called, or through some other cause which is beyond the power of the contractor to prevent.
One of the causes most likely to produce a delay of this kind is a strike. Now, a strike may be caused by ignorance on the part of the con tractor of proper methods of management. Men will sometimes strike while working for an ig norant contractor, whereas if working for a suc cessful manager, they would not strike under the same conditions. A contract such as we are now considering frequently includes a clause to the effect that a strike shall involve an extension of the contract time corresponding to the amount of the delay from the strike. It will be noticed that such a clause, while protecting the contractor in absolving him from the assumption of such risk, is a distinct disadvantage to the owner, who has no redress on that account if the strike takes place; and if a contractor finds that he is going to be delayed in the work, he can with very little trouble produce a strike. The time or duration of a strike may not be the same as the time of delay caused by such strike, and it is sometimes difficult to establish just what this time allow ance ought to be.
(d) Special Privileges. A railroad building a bridge on a contract will often require that the contractor shall so conduct his work as not to interfere "in any manner" with the regular pass age of the trains that are operated by the rail road. This gives the railroad, or the "owner," the privilege of very considerably interfering with the work of the contractor at times in order to maintain its traffic in an uninterrupted way. Such a clause, when worded as above, is often ridiculous in its importance, because a contractor cannot build a bridge under traffic without re quiring at least that the trains shall be slowed down. The owner may sometimes wish to have certain articles that he possesses, and for which he has special fondness, incorporated in the work —for instance, such as an ancestral mantel-piece or a particular grade of stone or a particular col ored stone. Special features such as these are very frequently inserted by architects in order to obtain special artistic effects, and they un questionably have a certain monetary value, which is very difficult to estimate in dollars and cents from the owner's point of view, but which may cost a very definite amount from the point of view of the contractor.
The owner will frequently decide upon ask ing certain privileges of this kind after the con tract is well under way, and at a time when com pliance with his wishes will involve a much greater hardship upon the contractor than would have been imposed had the privilege been settled upon originally. This forms an excellent reason —and too often an excellent excuse—for the con tractor to demand a large extra compensation.