The United States Conciliation Service was an agency within the

U.S. Department of Labor The United States Department of Labor (DOL) is one of the executive departments of the U.S. federal government. It is responsible for the administration of federal laws governing occupational safety and health, wage and hour standards, unem ...

that existed from 1913 until 1947 whose role was to bring

labor dispute A labor dispute is a disagreement between an employer and employees regarding the terms of employment. This could include disputes regarding conditions of employment, fringe benefits, hours of work, tenure, and wages to be negotiated during ...

s to a settlement through

mediation Mediation is a structured, voluntary process for resolving disputes, facilitated by a neutral third party known as the mediator. It is a structured, interactive process where an independent third party, the mediator, assists disputing parties ...

History

The origins of the service lay in the act that created the Department of Labor in 1913, which act stated that the department would have the power to step in to act as a mediator in labor disputes whenever "the interests of industrial peace may require it to be done." Getting the service going was a focus of the first Secretary of Labor, William B. Wilson. The service was initially slow to build up because little money was budgeted for it, but by 1917, it had a directorship position and was clearly functioning as its own unit with the department. That first director of the service was Hugh L. Kerwin (who would remain in the position until 1937). Following the US entry into World War I, cases that the Conciliation Service could not or did not resolve were sent to the National War Labor Board. Available in slightly revised form as Mediation cases were handled by people appointed as Commissioners of Conciliation, who vowed to act impartially. The conciliation process could be brought into play for both

strike action Strike action, also called labor strike, labour strike in British English, or simply strike, is a work stoppage caused by the mass refusal of employees to Working class, work. A strike usually takes place in response to employee grievances. Str ...

s and lockouts and for any other type of industrial and labor relations matter. Participation in mediation was voluntary.

Arbitration Arbitration is a formal method of dispute resolution involving a third party neutral who makes a binding decision. The third party neutral (the 'arbitrator', 'arbiter' or 'arbitral tribunal') renders the decision in the form of an 'arbitrati ...

was also offered to those parties willing to agree to it. The service did not possess legal force of action, but instead relied upon both parties being interested in reaching agreement and, as a fallback, parties not wanting to appear uncooperative in the eyes of public opinion. During the

interwar period In the history of the 20th century, the interwar period, also known as the interbellum (), lasted from 11 November 1918 to 1 September 1939 (20 years, 9 months, 21 days) – from the end of World War I (WWI) to the beginning of World War II ( ...

, the service's workload expanded and contracted with the fortunes of unions in the

labor history of the United States The nature and power of organized labor in the United States is the outcome of historical tensions among counter-acting forces involving workplace rights, wages, working hours, political expression, US labor law, labor laws, and other working co ...

. In particular, the number of Commissioners of Conciliation was sometimes as low as 35 or as high as 200. By the early 1930s, management of the service had become lax, with erratic reporting to headquarters of what was happening in the field. When she became secretary of labor,

Frances Perkins Frances Perkins (born Fannie Coralie Perkins; April 10, 1880 – May 14, 1965) was an American workers-rights advocate who served as the fourth United States Secretary of Labor from 1933 to 1945, the longest serving in that position. A member o ...

made changes to get the unit into a better-run and more effective entity. The service grew rapidly with in the mid-1930s and then again in the early-mid-1940s. John R. Steelman was the Director of the U.S. Conciliation Service from 1937 to 1944, having been chosen for that position by Perkins. The service's work was especially important during

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, when any halt in work could adversely affect war materials production or other vital economic activity. Those cases that the service could not solve, which overall was about a quarter of them, would typically get sent to a new instantiation of the National War Labor Board. During fiscal year 1945, the service handled some 26,000 cases, of which 5,000 were at the strike stage or close thereto. The final director of the service was Edgar L. Warren, appointed in 1945. The service came to an end in 1947 due to the union-limiting

Taft–Hartley Act The Labor Management Relations Act, 1947, better known as the Taft–Hartley Act, is a Law of the United States, United States federal law that restricts the activities and power of trade union, labor unions. It was enacted by the 80th United S ...

and the creation of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, a new independent agency that replaced the existing Conciliation Service. The conciliation function was taken out of the Department of Labor in part because industry forces thought the existing service had been too partial to labor, an assessment that officials of the service disputed. Over the lifetime of the U.S. Conciliation Service, it had handled over 122,000 cases.

History

References

Further reading