Makers and the Typographia, have inaugurated
systems of sick benefits within a few years after their organization.
The Tobacco Workers' Union introduced national sick benefits in 1896,
one year after organization. Similarly, the Boot and Shoe Workers' Union
at their fourth convention in June, 1899, established a national sick
benefit.[134] This system became operative on January 1, 1900, and
provided for members in good standing sick benefits of five dollars per
week for not more than thirteen weeks in any one year.[135]

[Footnote 134: Proceedings of the Second Convention, Boston, 1896 (Lynn,
n.d.), pp. 42-46; Third Convention, Boston, 1897 (Lynn, n.d.); Fourth
Convention, Rochester, 1899 (Lynn, n.d.).]

[Footnote 135: Constitution, 1899, sec. 65.]

Besides the unions thus described, the Barbers, the Bakers, the Leather
Workers on Horse Goods, and the Plumbers each pay five dollars per week,
the last two for thirteen weeks in any one year, the Barbers for twenty
weeks, and the Bakers for twenty-six weeks; the Piano and Organ Workers,
five dollars per week for eight weeks; the Pattern Makers, four dollars
per week for thirteen weeks; the Garment Workers, three dollars per week
to women and four dollars per week to men for eight weeks in any one
year, or twelve weeks in two years, or fifteen weeks in three years, or
eighteen weeks in four years.

In several other important unions the question of establishing a
national system of sick benefits has been much discussed. The following
unions have given the greatest amount of attention to the subject: the
Typographical Union, the Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners, the
Painters, the Wood Workers, and the Machinists. In each of these many of
the subordinate unions pay a sick benefit. Among the Carpenters the
payment of sick relief has always been an activity of the subordinate
unions.[136] Although the Brotherhood has up to the present left the
management of the sick benefit to the local unions, the national
officials have recommended on several occasions that the benefit should
be nationalized. In 1890 General Secretary-Treasurer M'Guire pointed out
that under the system of local benefits travelling members were
frequently not entitled to sick benefits.[137] At the ninth and tenth
annual conventions, in 1896 and 1898, the subject of unifying the
system was discussed at length.[138] Many local unions had bankrupted
themselves by paying large sick benefits. The conventio