It has been a frequent experience of
organized labor that, even after a strike has been won, men drop out of
the Union and leave the burden of Union obligation to the loyal minority,
who, weakened in numbers, face not only a loss of what the strike has
gained, but a retrogression of those Union standards that have been the
result of past struggles and sacrifices.
By the preferential Union plan, when an employer obliges himself to
prefer Union to non-union men, a Union man in good standing, that is, a
Union man who has paid his dues and met his Union obligations, is
insured employment to a limited extent, and the dues represent a premium
paid by him for such employment.
It was not an easy task to secure assent to this idea from the
manufacturers, for Mr. Brandeis made it clear that, while the plan did
not oblige the manufacturers to coerce men into joining the Union, it
clearly placed them on record in favor of a trade-union, and obliged them
to do nothing, directly or indirectly, to injure the Union, and
positively to do everything in their power, outside of coercion, to
strengthen the Union.
In Mr. Brandeis' appeal to the Union representatives he referred to the
history of the Cloak Makers' Union as a telling illustration of the
futility of their past policy.
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