Book Description

Excerpt from The Law of Conspiracy in Its Relation to Labor Organizations The right of men to form organizations or unions is an exercise of the common law right of every citizen to follow his calling whether of labor or business as he thinks is for his own best interests. The tremendous advance in the organization of capital has caused a corresponding advance in the organization of labor. Combinations and co-operation are laws of human society. Experience teaches that men can accomplish their purposes best by organization and co-operation. The only limitations on this right to combine, whether of capital or labor, are that the personal and property rights of others must be respected. Union men under the law of equal rights and equal opportunity, have a liberty of contracting as they please, working when they please and quitting when they please, but these same rights belong to non-union men and all employers of labor. The law recognizes no combinations of either men or manufacturers, made for the purpose of injuring, threatening or intimidating others. Before entering upon a discussion of the law, it may be well to make a brief statement of the industrial trouble that existed in our own state the past year. The recent strike among the tobacco workers in Tampa lasted for a period of seven months. It began in June and ended in January, and some twelve thousand men engaged in the tobacco trade were affected when the trouble was at its height. There had been some differences between the cigarmakers and some of the factories of the Manufacturers' Association over the question of the size of some of the cigars, for which certain prices had been agreed to be paid. Under the constitution and by-laws of the Cigarmakers' International Union of America no strike can legally take place unless it is approved by the proper authorities of the International Union. Several strike applications had been approved on account of these alleged differences between the employes and the manfacturers, but these applications were never enforced and no strike was declared in pursuance thereof. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.