much nearer to success than any other previously made in the steel industry that it was justified. The strike might have been lost under the best conceivable form of organization.
8. Workers' Control
As in the British shop-steward movement, our shop committees have led to various steps toward partial "workers' control." This begins with such simple matters as the adjustment of piece rates, it goes on into questions of management such as the improvement of processes and the introduction of standards of production under joint control of the union and the employer, and in one case it went so far as to concern itself with the selling of goods and market conditions. This occurred in the government arsenal at Rock Island, Illinois. Here the workmen wanted to avoid the unemployment which would result from the return of the arsenal to a peace basis, and so they urged its use for the manufacture of commercial products useful in peace times. Their shop committee was working with the management in transforming the plant for this purpose, but the reaction which followed the war, combined with the naturally conservative attitude of the army officers in charge, caused the government to abolish the shop committee plan and so kill this interesting experiment.
Another plan for partial workers' control on a much wider scale was proposed in the Plumb Plan
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