LABOR ORGANIZATIONS 384 LABOR ORGANIZATIONS and in eighteen States it is based on compensation ranging from 55 to 65 per cent, of the wages paid. Another class of legislation fixes the hours of labor. Here the Federal Gov- ernment, through its power of taxation, has been able to prohibit the employment of children under fourteen in factories, and under sixteen in mines. In many States legislation has been passed to limit the hours of labor, especially in dangerous occupations. Stringent laws have also been passed enforcing sanitary conditions, notably in the textile trades in New York. Other samples of legisla- tion are shown in Ohio, where women are not allowed to be employed at any work involving the lifting of loads more than twenty-five pounds in weight; in Mis- souri, where women may not be em- ployed three weeks before or after child- bearing; in Indiana, where in certain in- dustries the employers are compelled to afford gas masks to their employees, on account of the noxious fumes incidental to employment. "Minimum wage" laws form another class of legislation, whereby the down- ward tendency of wages are fixed. Fif- teen states and territories, and the Dis- trict of Columbia, in 1920, have passed laws fixing a minimum wage. The international aspect of labor leg- islation is shown in the Covenant of the League of Nations, one provision of which enumerates nine principles to be followed by all the members of the League; first, the fundamental principle that labor is not a commercial commod- ity; the right of association; an ade- quate living wage; the eight hour day; a weekly rest of twenty-four hours; the abolition of child labor; equal compen- sation for men and women; and inspec- tion by women as well as men. LABOR ORGANIZATIONS, the band- ing together of industrial workers for mutual protection against the oppressive action of employers, and for aggressive action in bringing about better work- ing conditions, better wages and shorter hours, etc. Such organizations were first formed in Great Britain after the invention of steam-driven machinery brought about the factory system of pro- duction in manufacturing, and were then forbidden by act of Parliament. Dur- ing this period of prohibition the work- ingmen organized secretly and often re- sorted to terrorism in enforcing their demands. Eventually this act was re- pealed and labor organization progressed at a normal rate. The first labor organizations in the United States appeared in the early thir- ties of last century, the various trade unions joining together into municipal and district federations. These bodies also participated in politics, and one, in New York City, sent its president to Congress in 1833. An attempt was then made to form a national labor party, generally known then as the Loco-Foco Party. In New England a broader form of organization was formed, in the late thirties and the early forties, known as the Farmers, Mechanics and Working- men's Association, with central head- quarters in Boston. Another organiza- tion was the New England Working- men's Protective Union, organized on a basis somewhat similar to a fraternal order, with local chapters in each com- munity. This latter fraternity, however, emphasized co-operative buying more than trade union action, and when its commercial enterprises failed, shortly be- fore the Civil War, it too went to pieces. Shortly after the Civil War a nation- wide labor organization was formed, known as the Noble Order of the Knights of Labor, also assuming the form of a fraternal order. This body acquired a strong membership all over the indus- trial sections of the country during the eighties. Its leadership was extremely radical, and desired to bring about a socialistic order of society, not through politics, but through co-partnership and co-operative enterprises. It was this program which brought about the ulti- mate destruction of the organization, as the co-partnership enterprises proved themselves inherently impractical and by their failures irspired the rank and file with a sense of discouragement. At a later date the leaders turned their atten- tion to politics and, with the agTicul- tural elements of the Middle West, formed the Populist Party. The failure of this political organization brought about the final decline of the Knights of Labor. Meanwhile, in the early nineties, a tendency toward trade unionism mani- fested itself, and eventually resulted in the American Federation of Labor, which is the dominating form of labor or- ganization in the United States at the present day. Labor organizations, as a whole, may be divided into two distinct classes, or phases; trade unionism, and industrial unionism. Trade unionism, or crafts unionism, as it is sometimes called, is of British origin. Under this form the workers are organized in bodies accord- ing to their trades, regardless of loca- tion. Thus, on a single house the mem- bers of twenty different labor organiza- tions may be employed.
