lives among the poorest class of people, knows them personally, and knowing their circumstances can drive the hardest kind of a bargain. A very large number of the people who work in the sewing trade for contractors usually hope to become contractors themselves. When they succeed in this they reduce the prices, since the contractor when he first takes out work takes it for less money than other contractors." (See INSIDE SHOP; TASK SYSTEM; HOME WORK; OUTWORK; SUB-CONTRACTING; SWEAT SHOP; SWEATER; PARASITIC INDUSTRIES.)

Contract System of Convict Labor. Under this system contracts are made with persons, firms, or corporations in accordance with which convicts are employed in industrial work at certain agreed prices for their labor for fixed periods of time, the prisoners working under the immediate direction of the contractor or his agents, but remaining under the general supervision and control of the prison authorities. The contractors are frequently furnished with the power and even the machinery necessary for carrying on the work by the institutions in which the convicts are imprisoned. (See CONVICT LABOR SYSTEMS; PRISON LABOR.)

Contracting Out. This term refers to the practice of seeking relief from WORKMEN'S COMPENSATION and other labor laws by requiring or persuading an employee to sign a contract releasing the employer from liability under such laws. In England contracts made by employees releasing their employer from liability arising under these statutes are perfectly valid and enforceable. An employee may therefore waive the benefit under these acts, and such waiver will be binding not only against himself but against his personal representatives as well. In the United States the courts are generally of a contrary opinion, and the rule of law that prevails here is that it is against public policy for an employee to contract in advance to release his employer from the liability created by these statutes. (See WAGE AGREEMENTS IN GERMANY; ELECTIVE COMPENSATION ACTS.)

Contributory Negligence. See EMPLOYER'S LIABILITY.

Control of Industry. See WORKERS' CONTROL.

Convener. In England, an official whose function it is to call together the SHOP STEWARDS' committee in a particular works. Usually, but not invariably, he also acts as chairman of the committee. Convention. See NATIONAL CONVENTION.

Conventional Necessities. Those articles of food, dress, etc., or that style of living which, though non-essential to physical well-being, have become by custom "necessary" to persons in various walks or stations of life. (See STANDARD OF LIVING; FAMILY BUDGET.)

Conversion Training. That form of intensive industrial education which takes advantage of a worker's previously obtained skill in one trade or occupation and prepares him for an allied trade or occupation. Conversion training was practiced on a large scale during the recent war, particularly in the shipbuilding and munition industries.

Convict Labor Systems. The various systems authorized by statutes in force in the United States for the employment of convicts may be grouped under two generic classes, as follows: (1) Systems under which the product or profit of the convicts' labor is shared by the State with private individuals, firms, or corporations; (2) systems under which convicts are worked wholly for the benefit of the State, or its political subdivisions, or public institutions. Under the first class three distinct systems are authorized, known respectively as the CONTRACT SYSTEM, the PIECE PRICE SYSTEM, and the LEASE SYSTEM. Under the second class three systems also are authorized, commonly called the PUBLIC ACCOUNT SYSTEM, the STATE USE SYSTEM, and the PUBLIC WORKS AND WAYS SYSTEM. All but the two systems last named are vigorously opposed by organized labor, because of the demoralizing competition which they introduce with "free" workers. (See PRISON LABOR; REGIE; ACCORD SYSTEM.)

Coolie Labor. The word "coolie" is commonly used in designation of any native day-laborer in India, China, and the South Pacific Islands. In the United States "coolie labor" almost always denotes Chinese labor. Particularly in agriculture, but in various forms of manufacturing also, coolie labor is prevalent to a considerable degree on the Pacific Coast, where it is strongly opposed by white labor. The chief objection to the Chinese laborer is stated to be that he does not spend in this country what he earns, and therefore does not contribute a normal measure of prosperity to trade and industry as a consumer. Another alleged objection is that he renders a supply of white labor more or less impossible in the same locality or industry, and hence displaces a class of labor whose STANDARD OF LIVING is much higher than his own. Finally, he is said to shut out unskilled labor of all the white races from localities in which he constitutes the main element of supply. The various CHINESE

EXCLUSION LAWS enacted by Congress have mitigated but by no means eliminated the problem of coolie labor.

Cooperation. In a general sense, the theory that MUTUAL AID and not competition is the fundamental law of life, that the individual best serves his own interests by serving the interests of others, with "each for all and all for each" as the guiding maxim of society. In the more common and specific sense, cooperation is the combination of persons into associations or societies for economic advantage "whether in the purchase and distribution of commodities for consumption, or in the production of commodities, or in the borrowing and lending of capital among workmen." There are, then, three principal forms of cooperation: (1) That which is carried on by associations of persons who desire to benefit themselves as consumers by saving the merchant's profits, commonly called distributive or CONSUMERS' COOPERATION; (2) that which is carried on by associations of persons who desire to benefit themselves as producers by eliminating the employer's profits, commonly called productive or PRODUCERS' COOPERATION; and (3) that which is carried on by associations of persons who desire to benefit themselves by the use of their combined capital and their combined credit, commonly called CREDIT COOPERATION. Each form of cooperation presents separate features, advantages, and problems, but the essence of the plan in each form is the elimination of the middleman. The cooperative movement, however, considers not only the purity of the goods bought but the conditions under which they were produced, the wages paid workers in their production, and the hours worked; in short, it endeavors to raise the standards all along the line from production to consumption. The movement is of British origin, Robert Owen (1771-1858) being commonly regarded as its father. Its greatest original impetus, however, came with the establishment in 1844 of the Rochdale Society of Equitable Pioneers, composed of twenty-eight weavers of Rochdale, Lancashire, who sought to find relief from the poverty, unemployment, adulterated food, extortionate prices, and other evils from which they were suffering by getting together a little supply of joint capital and opening a small shop where provisions and other necessities were sold to their members. From this humble beginning has grown the great cooperative movement of today, which involves some fifty million persons throughout the world. According to Adams and Sumner, "cooperation differs from PROFIT SHARING primarily by reason of the fact that, in its industrial form, at least, its aim is to

modify radically, and finally to utterly abolish, the WAGE SYSTEM. Moreover, cooperation is essentially democratic, while profit sharing is essentially paternalistic. The latter is an effort on the part of the capitalist class to increase net profits by means of a bonus to labor more or less contingent upon increased industry and care, while the former is an effort on the part of the working class to abolish profits by distributing surplus funds among those whose labor or trade has created the surplus. Profit sharing aims to increase the total production of wealth, and cooperation aims to promote its more equitable distribution." While many cooperators are socialists, cooperation differs fundamentally from SOCIALISM in that it neither demands nor implies any radical transformation in the present political State. "It begins within the framework of present industrial society, but proposes to transform it gradually and peacefully, though completely, by abolishing a distinct capitalist class of employers, the leading class at present in that society, comprising those who are not inappropriately called CAPTAINS OF INDUSTRY. Cooperation does not desire fundamental change of law, for it hopes by means of voluntary associations to unite labor and capital in the same hands-the hands of the actual workers. Repudiating State help, it proudly adopts as its device, 'self-help."" Historically, cooperation has played an important part in many phases of the American labor movement, and of late trade unionism in this country has shown a decided tendency to experiment with cooperative enterprises, in both the consuming and the producing fields. (See CONSUMERS' COOPERATION; PRODUCERS' COOPERATION; ROCHDALE PLAN; WHOLESALE COOPERATIVE SOCIETIES; TRADE UNION COOPERATION; COOPERATIVE EMPLOYMENT; CREDIT COOPERATION; AGRICULTURAL COOPERATION; COOPERATIVE ASSOCIATIONS; COPARTNERSHIP; INTERNATIONAL COOPERATIVE ALLIANCE; COOPERATIVE LEAGUE OF AMERICA; COOPERATIVE UNION; MAISONS DU PEUPLE; together with the various cross references under these headings.)

Cooperative Associations or Cooperative Societies. Unions of consumers or producers, organized under any plan or method of COOPERATION, are so called. Such associations, as well as their individual members, are often known as "cooperatives"-or, in shortened form, "coops."

Cooperative Commonwealth. The ideal of a State organized as a fraternal brotherhood, in which industry will be conducted through the cooperative efforts of all members of the State-com

munity, is often thus designated. (See MUTUALISM; SOCIALIST COMMONWEALTH.)

Cooperative Companionships.

See ASSOCIATIONS OUVRI

ÈRES DE PRODUCTION; COOPERATIVE EMPLOYMENT.

Cooperative Crews. See COOPERATIVE EMPLOYMENT.

Cooperative Day-Labor System. See COOPERATIVE EM

PLOYMENT.

Cooperative Employment. There are two principal forms of the plan generally known by this name, according to Commons and Andrews's "Principles of Labor Legislation." One of these forms is the cooperative day-labor system, as applied in New Zealand and New South Wales. "This is a time or piece work system under which men out of employment arrange themselves in small groups, averaging about fourteen (the groups were at first, and occasionally still are, larger), select one or two 'headmen,' and enter into contracts with the government for sections of public work at 'schedule rates' based on the estimates of the government engineers in charge of the work." Under this plan the government actually directs the work. The second form is found principally in France and Italy, where workmen organize their own groups and, as such, contract for government work. The government officials are not in charge of the work, but turn it over to the groups of workmen, the plan being a modification of the competitive contract system rather than a form of direct employment. Cooperative employment is sometimes called "direct labor." The groups of workmen under such a plan are often known as "cooperative crews,' or in France as "cooperative companionships." (See ASSOCIATIONS Ouvrières de PRODUCTION; SOCIETÀ DI LAVORO; ARTEL.)

Cooperative League of America. Although previously existent as a federation of the principal cooperative societies of the United States, this organization was reconstituted as a permanent national body at the second National Cooperative Convention held in November, 1920. The objects of the League are "to promote the cause of cOOPERATION; to develop mutual aid in place of antagonism; to favor the spread of knowledge of cooperative methods; to unite all consumers of the United States for the above purposes and for the purpose of international federation; and to encourage the acquirement of the agencies of production." The plan as adopted provides for state leagues with local autonomy, and for district