The control exercised by unions over their members is considerable. The only punish ments they can impose are fine and suspension or expulsion, but the force of these is very great. The courts have held that such fines are not unlawful and a few decisions intimate that that they may be collected by law. At least they may expel from membership for failure to pay the fine and this renders it very difficult for the one thus expelled to secure em ployment. The legality of such expulsion will be looked into by the courts and in one case a New York court has ordered restoration to membership. In some unions these penalties may be imposed by the locals. The Carpenters and Joiners Union requires trial by the district council, where one exists.
Benefits.—American unions were much later than the English in developing benefits, although until recent times there was no system of State insurance against accidents, sickness aad unemployment, and no old age pensions. i The leaders in this work have been the Inter national Typographical Union, The Cigar Makers' International Union, The United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners and the Street Railway Employees. The Typo graphical Union began paying burial benefits in 1892 and the same year it opened a home for disabled printers at Colorado Springs. In 1916 it paid $274,822 in death benefits, $352,920 in old age pensions and $109,431 for the main tenance of the home. The death benefits paid by the Carpenters in 1916 amounted to $314,977, by the Street Railway Employees, $353,294, The total of such benefits paid by over 70 unions in the American Federation amounted to $2,264,610, the sick benefits, $1,068,609, death benefits to members' wives, $63,662, for unem ployment, $120,770, traveling benefits (in search of employment), $26,283. In 1916 the Car penters voted almost unanimously for an assess ment of 20 cents a month for an old age dona tion •fund. A man 60 years old and for 25 years a member of the union is entitled to $10 a month. Some unions not affiliated with the Federation have similar arrangements, es pecially the railroad brotherhoods.
The accumulation of strike benefit funds is a common practice. The funds paid out by the members of the Federation in 1916 amounted to $2,708,789 to which should be added $154,009 paid by unions to aid other unions. For the relief of the Danbury Hatters, who were heavily fined for boycotting, the Federa tion collected $158,636.
By far the larger part of organized laborers belong to crafts unions. The industrial revo lution and its continued evolution has brought about a disintegrating tendency in unions, crafts becoming subdivided into many new crafts. The result has been many and bitter jurisdictional disputes. For example, in the building trades, steam fitters and plumbers have often disputed over the handling of certain pipes. Some now show a tendency toward more comprehensive organization along industrial lines, such as the United Mine Workers, which includes all workers about mines. Another still broader
organization is the Independent Workers of the World (q.v.).
Wornen's Previous to the Civil War most of the organizations of women were local and more or less temporary. The mill operators at Dover organized for a strike in 1828 and those at Lowell in 1838. In the fifties there was a renewal of activity and there were many strikes for fewer hours and better pay, but practically all failed. Attempts at peaceful trade agreements also failed, but the public was sufficiently aroused to secure a few laws limiting the hours.
The Civil War had been particularly hard on the working women and brought many into the clan who had never been there before. Organi zation now began anew, though . conditions were so bad in the sewing trade that organiza tion from within was almost impossible. Two States-wide organizations for women were soon formed, one in Massachusetts and one in New York. Only two national unions of men at this time admitted women. In the Typographical Union there was great opposition to the admis sion of women, mainly because of the low wages for which women worked. In 1868 the Woman's Typographical Union was formed, secured recognition of the national convention and Miss Augusta Lewis was elected corre sponding secretary of the national union, but no woman has ever since held a national office. In 1881 women were admitted to the Knights of Labor. At the Richmond convention in 1886 the women delegates (76) formed a permanent organization to investigate the condition of women workers and to demand equal pay for equal work and the abolition of child labor. The organization of locals was now taken up by Mrs. Leonora Barry and carried on for four years with energy. The American Federa tion admitted women from the beginning (1881). In 1891 the office of national organizer to be filled by a woman was created, but little was done for several years, .partly due to the panic of 1893. More male unions now began to admit women. In the later nineties there was a renewal of activity in the organization of women and many locals were formed, notably in the laundries and packing industries. • Real national organization began in 1904 with the Woman's Trade Union League, the main object of which was to secure the organ ization of women, a work in which Mrs. Ray mond Robins (elected president in 1907) be came very active. This organization aided the strikes in the sewing trades in 1909-11. To it is largely due the present unions of the cloak makers, waist makers and other white goods workers. It established with Hart, Schaffner and Marx the °Preferential Shop? on which was based the °Peace Protocol° in the New York cloak and suit industry, affecting 300,000 workers.