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July 1, 2016 | NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
Labor 100 Years Ago — July 1, 1916
A look back at the front page stories of the Oregon Labor Press July 1, 1916. A digital version of the front page can be seen at www.nwlaborpress.org/100yearsago
*Open Letter to Chamber of Commerce Members
The Central Labor Council, mindful of the large numbers
of liberal and broad-minded men and women holding
membership in the Portland Chamber of Commerce, has
for obvious reasons decided to lay its case and the cause
it represents before them individually, rather than through
the usual official channels.
This Council wishes to register with you in your ca-
pacity as a member of the Chamber a most emphatic
protest against the action of the board of directors in de-
claring by resolution for the so-called “open shop.”
Not that all proponents of the “open-shop” are labor-
haters, but that all labor-haters are proponents of the
“open-shop” is our reason for withdrawal of membership.
You will find in every city a Chamber of Commerce,
a Central Labor Council and of late years, an Employers’
Association, the latter organized and maintained for the
sole purpose of promoting what its members please to
term the “open-shop” policy.
The first-mentioned organizations have attained the
dignity of institutions, and all broadminded men and
women having any correct knowledge of them admit this.
The antithesis of the “open-shop” policy is the “union
shop” policy, or what the enemies of union labor origi-
nally termed the “closed shop,” and this term is now gen-
erally applied by writers and others in describing the
union shop.
Every Central Labor Council in the United States is
committed to the policy of the union shop. Why? Because
experience has proved it furthers organization of the
workers and as a result more nearly equitable wages and
bettered conditions of employment are obtained.
A Chamber of Commerce, as we understand it, is sup-
posed to function so as to promote the best interests of a
community as such, and it functions best when those in-
terests are promoted without injustice to any particular
set or class of individuals in the community.
The Portland Chamber of Commerce, as reorganized,
promised to do. It adopted and still retains as a slogan:
“All for one and one for all.” With this slogan as a watch-
word, the various interests of Portland were invited and
urged to come into the new Chamber at $50 per year
dues, and the officials of one concern, the Portland Rail-
way, Light & Power Company, became so enthused they
took out some 70 memberships at a trifling cost of $3,500
or so, per year.
This generous application for memberships passed
without any public comment, but when the Central Labor
Council, the Waterfront Federation, the Building Trades
Council, the Stationery Engineers Union and the Oregon
Labor Press each took out a membership, the public press
commented on the fact favorably and prominent mem-
bers and officials of the Chamber were quoted as being
well pleased with our action.
Never on any occasion did any representative of union
labor seek to use the Chamber for the promotion of the
interests of union labor as such. But scarcely had the
Chamber been formally organized, than did the paid rep-
resentative of the Employers’ Association wait up the of-
ficials of the Chamber and solicit its support in a move-
ment to have the City Commissioners refer to the people
a vote on an ordinance prohibiting this council or its
unions from picketing or putting on the streets a boycott
banner, and as a result as committee of the Chamber
waited on our Mayor and urged that he change his vote
on the matter.
When this came to the attention of this Council, a com-
mittee was provided to wait upon the Mayor. Mayor Albee
*
suggested that representatives of the Chamber and this
Council meet in his office with him. This was agreed to.
At this conference it was suggested by representatives
of this Council to the committee from the Chamber, that
if it wished to do something of real and lasting benefit
that the Chamber join with us in a movement to form a
joint board that would hear both sides of any industrial
controversy and attempt to adjust same. As a result, such
a board was formed with jurisdiction over any industrial
dispute “between employer and employee.”
Please bear in mind the representatives of the Chamber
were intent on doing something that would cause the dis-
appearance of the boycott banner, and bear in mind fur-
ther, that all boycott banners are occasioned by either a
strike or lockout or where the union believes workers are
being underpaid or overworked.
Time passed and the meatcutters went on strike for a
ten-hour day. The union asked the advice of the Central
Labor Council. The Council advised that it place its griev-
ance before the Joint Conciliation Board. The meatcutters
did so. The employers were so notified by the officials of
the Board. Coincident with this the representative of the
Employers’ Association of Oregon wrote each member
of the Board (from the Chamber of Commerce) a letter
saying the Board had no jurisdiction over the case as the
men on strike were no longer employees. The Board took
up this interpretation and finally decided to lay the matter
on the table until they could submit an amendment to the
rules governing the Board to the Chamber and to the
Council.
The amendment extended the jurisdiction of the Board
to cover strikes, lockouts and boycotts, and the full Board
without a dissenting member, recommended the adoption
of the amendment by both Chamber and Council. The
Council adopted the ammendment and the board of di-
rectors of the Chamber rejected it. As a result, the Board
was powerless to act as a conciliator.
The entire Coast is now affected by a longshoremen’s
strike, and a strike of river steamboat men is on in Port-
land. Had not your board of directors laid down the order
of the Employers’ Association of Oregon, long ere this
the Joint Conciliation Board of the Chamber of Com-
merce and the Central Labor Council would have given
to the public the facts in each strike.
The longshoremen of this port are on strike to force a
parity of rates between this port and those of San Fran-
cisco and Seattle, our competitors. Your Chamber of
Commerce has been demanding this. What is its answer
to the strikers? The “open shop.”
The following explains our aversion to these answers:
The theory of the “open shop” (according to 320 witnesses
representing employers) is that the workers are employed
without reference to their membership or non-membership
in trade unions. While as a matter of fact it was found upon
investigation that these employers did not willingly or
knowingly employ union men. Page 438 in a separate re-
port made by representatives of the employers on the
Commission says: “We frankly say if we were wage-earn-
ers we would be unionists, and as unionists we should feel
the keen responsibility of giving the same attention to our
trade union duties as to our civic duties.”
Is it possible that the Employers’ Association of Ore-
gon is in such disrepute that it is forced to hide behind
you as a member of the Chamber of Commerce when ad-
vocating its policies?
Last year, $300,000 and more was spent by the Cham-
ber of Commerce. Three hundred thousand dollars ought
to build quite an organization. If it is to be used for the
benefit of Portland and Oregon, the investment is a good
one. If merely to function as an auxillary to the Employ-
ers’ Association, it is not.
This Council would be pleased to hear from you on
this matter, either orally or by letter.
By order of Central Labor Council of Portland and
Vicinity.
EUGENE F. SMITH, Pres. E.J. STACK, Sec.