The Open Shop; A Debate - Tapa blanda

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1921 edition. Excerpt: ... ADDRESS OF MR. ANDREW FURUSETH Ladies And Gentlemen: Again, may I ask you to use your heads for a little while, (laughter). Give your hands and your feet a rest. A Voice: We want to know who the "people" are, Mr. Furuseth. Mr. Furuseth. Mr. Chairman, Mr. Merritt, Ladies and Gentlemen: The Open Shop--Strictly there is, there can be, no such critter in our industrial jungle. The shop belongs to the employer and he can and does determine who shall be permitted to. work in it. At the best the shop can only be open to such as the employer is willing to admit. If he cannot in his own vicinity find men willing to work with those whom he prefers, then he has the entire United States in which to search for such men and under some conditions the whole world. The open shop is a misnomer. The contending forces do not agree upon any definition. Trie term was, I think, invented by the Anthracite Coal Commission some years since i902, and was then adopted by former President Roosevelt, who was a master at seizing upon and using words, which meant different things to differen people; (laughter) but which carried within them both an accusation and a decision. To debate such a term standing by itself is futile. I shall not try any such thing. I shall try to deal with it as part of a policy, which may or may not be in furtherance of evolution based upon principles--fundamentally Christian and American. From the employer's point of view the open shop is a defensive measure in his struggle tP maintain a system of industry and a view of labor, that has come down to us from pre-Christian times. From the workman's point of view it involves the right of the worker to determine with whom he will or will not associate in his work. It is part of that question or...