Proceedings, Third National Conference Workmen's Compensation for Industrial Accidents

by National Conference on Workmen's Compensation for Industrial Accidents

For years and years we have been going to the Legislature in Illinois pleading for protection; a measure that would protect our lives, a measure that would protect those who are dear to us, and year after year we have failed, until at the present time patience has almost ceased to be a virtue. We expect this Commission will make an investigation into how the men in the State of Illinois work and the compensation that is paid the injured workmen when any compensation is paid at all, and the relief that is given a man's family after the breadwinner is sacrificed on the altar of industry. The conditions are bad in Illinois; I do not believe they are any worse anywhere. I do not believe a man's' life is worth very much in Illinois. I am quite sure of it, and before we get through with the investigation I believe we can show that an employer owning a cart or a wagon, two good draft horses attached to this wagon and a good driver on the wagon, if an accident should occur blotting out the team, wagon and driver, that the employer, through our court system, values each of the horses attached to the wagon and the driver at about the same value; one is worth about as much as the other under our present court system. That is entirely wrong. At least, we believe so.

To the men who are injured at the present time there is very little being paid. I believe, and I am speaking my own belief, I am sorry to say, instead of speaking the opinion of the Commission, that we should have an automatic compensation law in the State of Illinois, where the man will know absolutely what he is going to receive if he is injured; what his family is going to receive if he is killed. It does not make much difference whether we have a double or single liability. I prefer, of course, a double liability, but I find that under our court system a man does not get nearly as much under the double liability as he could expect to receive under a single liability law, and that if we would insist upon a double liability in this State we would have to cut down the other provisions of the bill to secure it.

We have progressed far enough to put just exactly this provision in a circular form in the hands of every trades unionist in the State of Illinois at the present time, and we are going to find out what the rank and file of the workers want. Just as soon as the six labor members on the Commission find out what the workers of the State want we will then try to incorporate it into the bill. A circular has also gone forth from the Commission to the employers of the State, trying to crystallize their ideas into a concrete proposition, and then the six members of the Commission representing the employers and the six members representing the workingmen will sit down at a table and thresh this out just as a committee would do that was trying to settle a wage scale, and I believe we will arrive at some understanding; and when we arrive at an understanding with our employers who represent organized capital in the State of Illinois, and six trade unionists representing the organized workers in the State of Illinois, I believe that that position will be accepted by both sides, and that when we go to the next Legislature they will incorporate that into law, and it will be signed by the governor and put into full force and effect.

I want to say just a word as to why we were anxious to have the Commission organized as it is. The original plan of the provision provided that the public should be represented, but the public is not particularly interested in this matter, not nearly so much as the other parties. The life of the employer is at stake in this matter. If we build up conditions so high that he will have to leave the State or abandon his property, he cannot afford to pay wages to the workingmen. We, on the other hand, have all we have to lose; we have not only our trade, but we have our lives at stake, and the public has no voice in it. Organized capital, through the Manufacturers' Association, the Mine Operators' Association, and so forth, has a voice. Organized labor has a voice, but if the public has any voice at all it does not amount to a great deal in the State of Illinois. We who have put everything that we possess into the balance in this matter expect to get something out of it which is definite, just and fair; and we have good reason to expect that after we have taken this matter up and threshed it out from one end of the State to the other that it will be to the advantage of the Legislature to meet us half-way. I have been in the Legislature as a labor lobbyist for some years and I have had a little experience in such matters.

I do not know, Mr. Chairman, as I can enlighten you very much on what we are going to do. We have taken up the State Bureau of Labor report which we received from the secretary of the Bureau of Labor, who is here present, and we tried to get at the real meaning of that report. We intend to take up the state factory inspector's reports also, and try to get at and understand the real meaning of all these figures in these reports. It is one thing to publish column after column of figures which nobody reads and nobody pays any attention to, but it is an entirely different proposition to get back of those columns of figures and see what they stand for. These columns of figures stand for men's lives and they stand for the happiness of the family; yes, and they stand for the prosperity of the employer as well.

In looking up a state report the other day I found an analysis that interested me. It showed apparently that every householder in the State of Massachusetts was paying $30 a year indirectly on account of the industrial accidents and occupational diseases that occurred in that State. That is where the public comes in; it costs the public too much. Should not that be shifted back upon the employer, and if it is shifted back upon the employer, the employer will, if possible, prevent the accidents, because it costs a great deal less to furnish suitable protection for the machinery than it does to pay damages to the injured employe or to the families of those who are killed.

I want to say this for the trades unions; we do not wish to rob the employer; we do not wish any bill that will materially injure the employer. We want to stop the accidents. We do not want damages from the employers; we want our brothers to remain alive and able to do their work.

Chairman Mercer: Is there any member of the first Illinois Commission present?

Prof. Ernst Freund (Illinois): Professor Henderson asked me a few years ago to give a little assistance in the drafting of the measure that the Commission had decided upon, and that is the only share I had in the work of that first Illinois Commission. That Commission was appointed for the sole purpose of reporting upon schemes of insurance. The whole matter of compensation was, therefore, only indirectly involved; at the same time the report as to insurance was unlimited, as far as I know, and not limited to accidents, but the Commission thought wise to confine their recommendations to an insurance scheme covering simply the matter of accidents.

They found that it would have been extremely difficult to recommend or try to secure some plan of compulsory insurance, and for that reason it was finally suggested that there should be an opportunity offered for the employers to make a contract with the employes by which the employers and the employes together might substitute for the liability under the common law or statute a plan of insurance which was worked out with some care, to some extent upon the basis of the English act, one of the main features being that the employers and employes should contribute each one-half of the insurance premium. But the whole scheme was a tentative one, especially this feature, which was so much opposed, of the sharing of the cost of insurance between the employers and employes, and it was by no means suggested as a final solution. The whole matter was a tentative method of dealing with this problem, it being believed that in this way the plan of insurance might get a foothold in the State and might approve itself by experience.