Proceedings of the Convention (Volume 10) (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: tering few limited to one year; these last having been permitted to renew automatically. Although we have reason to believe the number of strikes which has occurred might have been still fewer in number, the brewing industry remains secure in its position as having fewer serious labor troubles than any other important industry. In saying this we do not flatter ourselves that as an industry ours is singularly free from friction as between employer and employee. That friction which arises when either employer or employee inclines to treat other than objectively the rights of the other manifests itself continually; but eventually a way out is found and what might have culminated in a serious disturbance is averted. Without in the least disparaging the efforts put forth by the officials of the unions to keep the more radical of the rank and file in check, the employers of the industry may well claim the larger credit for this condition. The average brewer is inclined, when involved in a labor dispute, to follow the line of least resistance. Not so much because of lack of courage of his convictions, as because of his psychology as an employer. The conditions of the industry with which he is identified, have inspired him to regard with uncommon indulgence the human side of labor. The workingman, moreover, is his customer and should have more consideration than any other class. Some there are who take the position that this sentimental viewing of the human side of labor may be overdone, is being overdone; that it has failed to beget a reciprocal attitude upon the part of the unions, and, on more than one occasion stimulated them to even greater efforts to force acceptance of their demands. This point of view is no less worthy of consideration than is the other and more complaisant ...