en to talk over matters
of mutual interest. The function of the shop committee was to consider
wages, hours, safety rules, sanitation, recreation and other problems.
Whenever any employee had a grievance he took it up with the foreman
and, if it was not settled to his satisfaction, he brought it before the
shop committee. If the members of the shop committee decided in favor of
the man with a grievance, they attempted to settle the matter with the
company's agents. All these things failing, the dispute was transferred
to a grand meeting of all the employees with the employers'
representatives, in common council. A deadlock, if it ensued from such a
conference, was broken by calling in impartial arbitrators selected by
both sides from among citizens outside the mill. Thus the employees were
given a voice in all decisions affecting their work and welfare; rights
and grievances were treated as matters of mutual interest rather than
individual concern. Representatives of trade unions from outside,
however, were rigidly excluded from all negotiations between employers
and the employees.

=Profit-sharing.=--Another proposal for drawing capital and labor
together was to supplement the wage system by other ties. Sometimes lump
sums were paid to employees who remained in a company's service for a
definite period of years. Again they were given a certain percentage of
the annual profits. In other instances, employees were allowed to buy
stock on easy terms and thus become part owners in the concern. This
last plan was carried so far by a large soap manufacturing company that
the employees, besides becoming stockholders, secured the right to elect
representatives to serve on the board of directors who managed the
entire business. So extensive had profit-sharing become by 1914 that the
Federal Industrial Relations Committee, appointed by the President,
deemed it worthy of a special study. Though opposed by regular trade
unions, it was undoubtedly growing in popularity.

=Labor Managers and Welfare Work.=--Another effort of employers to meet
the problems of the new age appeared in the appointment of specialists,
known as employment managers, whose task it was to study the relations
existing between masters and workers and discover practical methods for
dealing with each grievance as it arose. By 1918, hundreds of big
companies had recognized this modern "profession" and universities were
giving courses of instruction on the subject