Qualifications for membership. — "Eligibility of persons presenting themselves for membership shall be determined by branches where application is made."
Apprenticeship regulations. — "The number of apprentices shall be left with the different branches to regulate, but in no case shall there be more than three apprentices employed to each full tool sharpener's gang of journeymen, nor more than two when the number of journeymen engaged is less than a full gang; when six or less are employed there shall be but one apprentice. No apprentice tool sharpener to be employed unless there are at least three journeyman tool sharpeners employed. No apprentice polisher to be employed unless there are at least three Journeymen polishers employed.
"The term of apprenticeship at granite cutting shall be three years; at tool sharpening two years, and at polishing two years, and no apprentice shall be admitted to membership in this association unless he has completed his full term of apprenticeship. It shall be the duty of the branches to see that apprentices are given a fair opportunity to make themselves proficient at our trade."
Agreements. — Negotiated by local branches on terms approved by the executive council.
Benefits. — Strike and lockout; death; loss of sight.
Official organ. — The Granite Cutters' Journal.
Headquarters. — 25 School Street, Quincy, Mass.
Organization. — Five territorial divisions: Zone 1, eastern Canada and Vermont; zone 2, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Maine; zone 3, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Pennsylvania, Maryland, District of Columbia, Ohio, Virginia, and West Virginia; zone 4, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, and Louisiana ; zone 5, western Canada, Washington, Oregon, California, Montana, Idaho, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, Wyoming, Colorado, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Minnesota, Iowa, and Arkansas.
Local unions only: United States — California, 4; Colorado, 2; Connecticut, 7; District of Columbia, 1; Georgia, 8; Illinois, 1; Iowa, 1; Kentucky, 1; Louisiana, 1; Maine, 10; Maryland, 2; Massachusetts, 17; Michigan, 1; Minnesota, 4; Missouri, 1; New Hampshire, 3; New Jersey, 1 ; New York, 5 ; North Carolina, 2; Ohio, 3; Oregon, 1; Pennsylvania, 2; Rhode Island, 2; South Carolina, 1; Texas, 2; Utah, 1; Vermont, 13; Virginia, 2; Washington, 3; Wisconsin, 1. Canada— British Columbia, 1; Ontario, 1; Quebec, 1. Total, 101.
Membership.— 8,500.
Hod Carriers, Building and Common Laborers' Union of America, International
Affiliated to the American Federation of Labor.
Organized in Washington, D. C., on April 13, 1903. The organizing convention was called by officials of the American Federation of Labor for the purpose of forming a trade-union from the various directly affiliated local unions of hod carriers and building laborers. The first convention was attended by delegates from 26 American Federation of Labor local unions. At the second convention, held the next year, delegates from 130 locals of the new international organization were in attendance. The name of the union as at first established was International Hod Carriers and Building Laborers' Union of America, and it was solely a building-trades union. Later it widened its scope to include unskilled labor in other fields, and the name was changed to include "common labor."
Upon the dissolution of the American Brotherhood of Cement Workers in 1916, the cement laborers who had been members of that organization were taken over by the hod carriers' union. In 1918 the Compressed Air and Foundation Workers' International Union merged with the Hod Carriers, Building and Common Labor--
