rs been able to force
the builders to use only union-label brick, and the carpenters have
forced the contractors to use only material from union mills. There is
practically no limit to this form of mandatory boycott. The barbers,
retail clerks, hotel employees, and butcher workmen hang union cards in
their places of employment or wear badges as insignia of union loyalty.
As these labels do not come under the protection of the United States
trademark laws, the unions have not infrequently been forced to bring
suits against counterfeiters.

Finally, in their efforts to fortify themselves against undue increase
in the rate of production or "speeding up," against the inrush of new
machinery, and against the debilitating alternation of rush work and
no work, the unions have attempted to restrict the output. The United
States Industrial Commission reported in 1901 that "there has always
been a strong tendency among labor organizations to discourage exertion
beyond a certain limit. The tendency does not express itself in formal
rules. On the contrary, it appears chiefly in the silent, or at least
informal pressure of working class opinion." Some unions have rules,
others a distinct understanding, on the subject of a normal day's work,
and some discourage piecework. But it is difficult to determine how far
this policy has been carried in application. Carroll D. Wright, in a
special report as United States Commissioner of Labor in 1904, said that
"unions in some cases fix a limit to the amount of work a workman may
perform a day. Usually it is a secret understanding, but sometimes,
when the union is strong, no concealment is made." His report mentioned
several trades, including the building trades, in which this curtailment
is prevalent.

The course of this industrial warfare between the unions and the
employers has been replete with sordid details of selfishness,
corruption, hatred, suspicion, and malice. In every community the strike
or the boycott has been an ominous visitant, leaving in its trail a
social bitterness which even time finds it difficult to efface. In the
great cities and the factory towns, the constant repetition of labor
struggles has created centers of perennial discontent which are sources
of never-ending reprisals. In spite of individual injustice, however,
one can discern in the larger movements a current setting towards a
collective justice and a communal ideal which society in self-defense is
imposing