mands were
in the end granted by the Manufacturers' Association, who controlled
the trade, but the settlement nearly went to pieces on the rock of
union recognition. An arrangement was eventually arrived at, on the
suggestion of Mr. Louis Brandeis, that the principle of preference
to unionists, first enforced in Australia, should be embodied in the
agreement. Under this plan, union standards as to hours of labor,
rates of wages and working conditions prevail, and, when hiring help,
union men of the necessary qualifications and degree of skill must
have precedence over non-union men. With the signing of the agreement
the strike ended.

January, 1913, saw another group of garment-workers on strike in New
York. This time there were included men and women in the men's garment
trades, also the white-goods-workers, the wrapper and kimono-makers,
and the ladies' waist-and dress-makers. There is no means of knowing
how many workers were out at any one time, but the number was
estimated at over 100,000. The white-goods-workers embraced the
very youngest girls, raw immigrants from Italy and Russia, whom the
manufacturers set to work as soon as they were able to put plain seams
through the machine, and this was all the skill they ever attained.
These children from their extreme youth and inexperience were
peculiarly exposed to danger from the approaches of cadets of the
underworld, and an appeal went out for a large number of women to
patrol the streets, and see that the girls at least had the protection
of their presence.

The employers belonging to the Dress and Waist Manufacturers'
Association made terms with their people, after a struggle, under an
agreement very similar to that described above in connection with the
cloak-makers.

One of the most satisfactory results of the strikes among the
garment-workers has been the standardizing of the trade wherever an
agreement has been procured and steadily adhered to. It is not only
that hours are shorter and wages improved, and the health and safety
of the worker guarded, and work spread more evenly over the entire
year, but the harassing dread of the cut without notice, and of
wholesale, uncalled-for dismissals is removed. Thus is an element
of certainty and a sense of method and order introduced. Above all,
home-work is abolished.

In an unstandardized trade there can be no certainty as to wages and
hours, while there is a constant tendency to level down under the
pressure