FURNITURE, RETAIL NATIONAL RETAIL FURNITURE ASSOCIATION DECLARATION OF PRINCIPLES Next only to food, fuel and raiment, furniture is paramount. It is the one big factor in the up-building of American home life and the development of the highest degree of content and efficiency among our people. The Retail Furniture Merchant is an economic necessity, since the furnishing of the home and its accompanying decoration have reached a position where they may justly be termed a profession following the most important and fundamental lines of useful and artistic endeavor. The Retail Furniture Merchant performs a public service that is a most important factor in supplying his community's needs. He is prepared at any time to meet the full percentage of demand and to furnish, to the best of his ability, any kind and quality of furniture needed. He is prepared to advise and serve customers to their mutual interest and advantage. Believing in the actuality of the facts as above presented. the Retail Furniture Association of the United States is organized as a coalition of the individual Associations of Retail Furniture Merchants existing, or to be in the future organized, in the different states, cities and sections of the United States, together with individual members located at points where there is no organized association to which these individual members may be attached. The Association presents the following as the fundamental principles of its organization and operations: 1. The business foundation of a successful merchant must be truth, honesty, courteous service and fair dealing. Any individual merchant or aggregation of merchants falling short of this measure is undesirable as a member of this organization. 2. The Retail Furniture Merchant, eligible to membership in this Association, is entitled to the respect and confidence of his entire community, and the consideration and protection of his fellow business men. 3. He is entitled to a fair return on his investment of capital and service. We believe in open competition and that retail prices should be based upon cost plus a fair profit. 4. The manufacturer of furniture or other articles of home furnishings who stoops to take unfair advantage in his deal ings with The Retail Furniture Merchant by profiteering in seasons of great demand or in other emergencies, does not occupy an honorable place in the business world. Likewise The Retail Furniture Merchant who follows such a system of profiteering is hereby declared undesirable as a member of The Retail Furniture Association of the United States. 5. We, therefore, declare that this Association is organized for the development of the fullest measure of co-operation between its members and for the purpose of keeping The Retail Furniture Trade abreast of the times by encouraging a spirit of progress among its members, to give and to secure fair treatment from manufacturers, manufacturers' exhibition buildings and show rooms, railroads and law-makers, to prevent the restraint of trade, to promote upright dealings within its ranks, to secure to the consumer that true form of economy-which is the outgrowth of honesty, intelligence and regularity in business, and to render such other services in the interest of its members as may be possible. GARMENT TRADES CLOAK, SUIT AND SKIRT MANUFACTURERS' INTERNATIONAL LADIES' GARMENT WORKERS' UNION Certain New York locals of the latter. Treaty of peace, signed Sep. 2, 1910. The Protocol lapsed in 1915, but has been used as a model for other branches of the Ladies' Garment industry. THE PROTOCOL AGREEMENT Whereas differences have arisen between the manufacturers and their employees who are members of the unions. with regard to various matters which have resulted in a strike, and it is now desired by the parties hereto to terminate said strike and to arrive at an understanding with regard to the future relations between the manufacturers and their employees, it is therefore stipulated as follows: First. So far as practicable, and by December 31, 1910, electric power be installed for the operation of machines, and that no charge for power be made against any of the employees of the manufacturers. Second. No charge shall be made against any employee of the manufacturers for material except in the event of negligence or wrongful act of the employee resulting in loss or injury to the employer. Third. A uniform deposit system, with uniform deposit. receipts, shall be adopted by the manufacturers, and the manufacturers will adopt rules and regulations for enforcing the prompt return of all deposits to employees entitled thereto. The amount of deposit shall be $1. Fourth. No work shall be given to or taken to employees to be performed at their homes. Fifth. In the future there shall be no time contracts with individual shop employees, except foremen, designers, and pattern graders. Sixth. The manufacturers will discipline any member thereof proven guilty of unfair discrimination among his employees. Seventh. Employees shall not be required to work during the ten legal holidays as established by the laws of the State of New York; and no employee shall be permitted to work more than six days in each week, those observing Saturday to be permitted to work Sunday in lieu thereof; all week workers to receive pay for legal holidays. Eighth. The manufacturers will establish a regular weekly pay day and they will pay for labor in cash, and each piece worker will be paid for all work delivered as soon as his work is inspected and approved, which shall be within a reasonable time. ished. Ninth. All subcontracting within shops shall be abol Tenth. The following schedule of the standard minimum weekly scale of wages shall be observed.... As to piecework, the price to be paid is to be agreed upon by a committee of the employees in each shop, and their employer. The chairman of said price committee of the employees shall act as the representative of the employees in their dealings with the employer. The weekly hours of labor shall consist of 50 hours in 6 working days, to wit, 9 hours on all days except the sixth day, which shall consist of 5 hours only. Eleventh. No overtime work shall be permitted between the 15th day of November and the 15th day of January or during the months of June and July, except upon samples. Twelfth. No overtime work shall be permitted on Saturday except to workers not working on Saturdays, nor on any day for more than two and one-half hours, nor before 8 A. M. nor after 8.30 P. M. Thirteenth. For overtime work all week workers shall receive double the usual pay. Fourteenth. Each member of the manufacturers is to maintain a union shop; a "union shop" being understood to refer to a shop where union standards as to working conditions, hours of labor and rates of wages as herein stipulated prevail, and where, when hiring help, union men are preferred; it being recognized that, since there are differences in degrees of skill among those employed in the trade, employers shall have freedom of selection as between one union man and another, and shall not be confined to any list, nor bound to follow any prescribed order whatever. It is further understood that all existing agreements and obligations of the employer, including those to present employees, shall be respected; the manufacturers, however, declare their belief in the union, and that all who desire its benefits should share in its burdens. Fifteenth. The parties hereby establish a Joint Board of Sanitary Control, to consist of seven members, composed of two nominees of the manufacturers, two nominees of the unions, and three who are to represent the public.... Said board is empowered to establish standards of sanitary conditions, to which the manufacturers and the unions shall be committed, and the manufacturers and the unions obligate themselves to maintain such standards to the best of their ability and to the full extent of their power. Sixteenth. The parties hereby establish a Board of Arbitration to consist of three members, composed of one nominee of the manufacturers, one nominee of the unions, and one representative of the public.... To such board shall be submitted any differences hereafter arising between the parties hereto, or between any of the members of the manufacturers and any of the members of the unions, and the decision of such Board of Arbitration shall be accepted as final and conclusive between the parties to such controversy. Seventeenth. In the event of any dispute arising between the manufacturers and the unions, or between auy members of the manufacturers and any members of the unions, the parties to this Protocol agree that there shall be no strike or lockout concerning such matters in controversy until full opportunity shall have been given for the submission of such matters to said Board of Arbitration, and in the event of a determination of said controversies by said Board of Arbitration, only in the event of a failure to accede to the determination of said board. Eighteenth. The parties hereby establish a Committee on Grievances, consisting of four members composed as follows: Two to be named by the manufacturers and two by the unions. To said committee shall be submitted all minor grievances arising in connection with the business relations between the manufacturers and their employees. Nineteenth. In the event of any vacancy in the aforesaid boards or in the aforesaid committee, by reason of death, resignation, or disability of any of the members thereof, such vacancy in respect to any appointee by the manufacturers and unions, respectively, shall be filled by the body originally designating the person with respect to whom such vacancy shall occur. In the event that such vacancy shall occur among the representatices of the public on such boards, such vacancy shall be filled by the remaining members representing the public in the case of the Board of Sanitary Control, and in the case of the Board of Arbitration both parties shall agree on a third arbitrator, and in case. |