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The American labor legislation review (1913)
The American labor legislation review - 1913 Author:John Bertram Andrews Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: HOW THE WISCONSIN INDUSTRIAL COMMISSION WORKS John R. Commons Industrial Commission of Wisconsin. A year ago I discussed the legislation, which had jus... more »t been enacted, creating the Industrial Commission of Wisconsin. At that time its problems were vaguely understood. We have now had practically a year and a half of experience and, while we think we have been successful during that time, we are by no means convinced that the method is applicable to all states in quite the form in which we have adopted it. .But there are certain general principles which, at the present stage of labor law and labor law enforcement, seem to be applicable in all states. The Industrial Commission of Wisconsin was created after the model of a great private corporation—the United States Steel Corporation or the International Harvester Company—at that stage when such a corporation has decided that it is going into the conservation of human life and health as well as into getting out a product. The head of one of these big corporations, who had determined that "welfare work", as he then called it, should be carried on, but who had no idea what welfare work meant, called in all the superintendents from its twenty or thirty establishments and had a conference with them. But he was not able to obtain any ideas from them for they had little knowledge of what should be done. His general manager came to the rescue and said to these thirty superintendents: "We have decided to go into welfare work and it is up to you superintendents to work it out. We have engaged an expert who will consult with you, but you have got to do it, and we will hold you and this expert responsible for results." Then the president and the general manager left the room. Within five or six years that company has worked out perha...« less