General Executive Board. As found in most of the larger national and international American trade unions, this is a central governing body having more or less control over the administrative and judicial affairs of the organization. The chief function of the general executive board is to serve as a check on the power of the NATIONAL OFFICERS. In most cases, the executive board levies assessments appoints temporary officers to fill vacancies, and performs other duties which were vested in the president in the early days of the older organizations. "The duty of declaring strikes, which none of the older organizations ventured to entrust to the president, has been delegated to the executive board by practically all unions save the few which submit this question to popular vote. Perhaps the most important function of the board is to bring to trial and remove officers for misdemeanors and neglect of duty, since control over officers depends so largely upon the ability of the board to exercise this power." As a rule, union members in each section of the country and in each branch of the trade demand representation on the board. Its personnel being thus scattered about the country, meetings of the board are held infrequently, because of the expense of bringing together the members; and much of its business is transacted by mail or telegraph. (See TRADE UNION GOVERNMENTNATIONAL.)

General Federation of Trade Unions. A British organization established in 1899 mainly as a mutual insurance agency against the heavy financial burdens to which trade unions are subject in the distribution of STRIKE PAY. By means of a small annual contribution from a large aggregate membership, the Federation has been able to build up a large reserve fund, upon which the affiliated unions may draw during a trade dispute. Its governing body is a General Council consisting of delegates appointed by affiliated organizations in proportion to their numbers. The General Council chooses each year a Management Committee of fifteen, who together with the Secretary, elected at the annual meeting, form the executive of the Federation. In 1919 the Federation included 141 affiliated unions, with a constituent membership of 1,215,107. Most of the affiliated unions are also affiliated with the TRADES UNION CONGRESS.

General Hazard of the Industry. See TRADE RISK PRIN

CIPLE.

General Labor Conference of the League of Nations. The clauses of the Treaty of Versailles creating an INTERNATIONAL

LABOR ORGANIZATION under the League of Nations provide that this organization shall consist of (1) a General Conference of Representatives of Members of the League, and (2) an INTERNATIONAL LABOR OFFICE. It is the function of the General Conference to frame drafts of conventions or recommendations in regard to labor matters, which shall later be submitted to the national legislative bodies of the constituent members of the League, for adoption or rejection. The General Conference "shall be composed of four representatives of each of the members, of whom two shall be government delegates and the two others shall be delegates representing respectively the employers and the workpeople of the members." Advisers are allowed to accompany delegates, and in questions affecting women one adviser in the delegation "should be a woman." The delegates vote individually. Meetings of the Conference must be held at least once a year at the seat of the League of Nations (Geneva), or elsewhere as may be decided. The first meeting was convened at Washington, D. C., on October 29, 1919, and adjourned a month later. Delegates representing labor and employer groups of all countries included in the League were in attendance. The Conference perfected its permanent machinery, appointed a Director General of the International Labor Office, and adopted six conventions and six recommendations for proposed labor legislation. The conventions were as follows: (1) Establishment of an EIGHT-HOUR DAY and a FORTY-EIGHT HOUR WEEK; (2) establishment of government EMPLOYMENT AGENCIES and abolition of private agencies; (3) prohibition of NIGHT WORK for women except in undertakings where only members of the family are employed; (4) prohibition of children under fourteen years of age from industrial work; (5) prohibition of young persons, male or female, from working at night; and (6) indemnification of wage-earning mothers at time of childbirth. The six recommendations dealt with the following: (1) Remedies for UNEMPLOYMENT; (2) reciprocity in the treatment of foreign workers; (3) prevention of anthrax; (4) protection of women and children against lead poisoning; (5) government health services; (6) prohibition of the use of white phosphorus in the manufacture of matches. The second meeting of the Conference opened at Genoa, Italy, on June 15, 1920, and concluded its sessions on July 10. The agenda related solely to the welfare and protection of seamen; and in addition to the official delegates, a number of representatives of shipowners and of seamen's organizations sat in the Conference as non-official delegates. Several draft conventions in regard to seafaring labor were adopted. The agenda for the third Conference, to meet at

Geneva in the autumn of 1921, has to do mainly with agricultural labor and industrial disease. (See INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR LABOR LEGISLATION.)

General Labor Unions. In England, organizations made up in largest part of the following types or classes of workers: (1) Unskilled workers in industries in which specialized CRAFT UNIONS of skilled workers exist, e.g., engineering laborers, builders' laborers, etc.; (2) workers of all sorts in industries or trades for which no effective special organizations exist, e.g., laundry workers, chemical workers, brewery workers, etc.; (3) workers in trades or industries for which, although special organizations exist, these special organizations do not cover the whole country, or have not been able to establish their claim to organize all the workers employed in a particular trade or industry, e.g., DOCKERS, vehicle workers, etc. These unions, many of which are large and powerful national organizations, are for the most part federated in the NATIONAL FEDERATION OF GENERAL WORKERS.

General Laborers' National Council. See NATIONAL FederATION OF GENERAL WORKERS.

General Members. See MEMBERS AT LARGE.

General Secretary. The principal administrative officer of a British national trade union is so called. He is usually a full-time salaried official, although in some of the smaller unions he works at his trade and devotes only his spare time to the union's business. The general secretary is, as a rule, elected annually by popular vote. As a matter of fact, however, the tendency is to reelect the same man each year; and, as in the case of the other national officials, his tenure of office is practically permanent as long as he gives satisfaction. In some of the SINGLE-BRANCH UNIONS the general secretary, besides handling all the routine business, carries on negotiations with employers and controls general policy as well. (See BRITISH TRADE UNION ORGANIZATION.)

General Strike. Few terms in the labor movement possess so varied and elastic a meaning as this. It may refer merely to an organized stoppage of work by all the workers in a single community, or by all the workers in a single industry in a community; at the other extreme, it may involve all or practically all the workers of an entire country, or all the workers in a single national industry. When confined to a single community or a single industry (sometimes

called the "partial general strike"), its aims are nearly always economic-the gaining of some definite concession from the employers. When employed upon a national scale by workers in all industries, it is usually political in character-as in the general strike in Germany to defeat the Kapp coup d'état early in 1920, or in the action of the Danish workers against the unconstitutional dissolution of the Cabinet by the King in the same year. What is variously known as the "social general strike," the "revolutionary general strike," and the "expropriatory general strike"-that is to say, a general strike on a national or international scale, which aims at the complete overthrow and expropriation of capitalistic society, and the substitution of a new order-is as yet nothing more than a theory, the central item in the philosophy of SYNDICALISM. According to a French writer, Paul Delesalle, it means "the complete and simultaneous stoppage of production, which must render impossible the normal functioning of capitalist society. The workers, conscious at last of their force and their power, pour forth, with one accord, from factory and workshop and yard, only to return there at length to carry on production for their own profit, working no longer for a master or a capitalist trust, but for themselves, for the profit of the whole community." The French use the term "generalized strike" in contradistinction to the "social" or "revolutionary" general strike. Any form of general strike is often referred to as a "mass strike." (See HARTAL.)

General Wages. See WAGes.

General Workers. In British industry, a common designation for the numerous nondescript workers (usually unskilled or semiskilled) who are either not eligible to or are not sought after by the national craft unions. These workers are strongly organized in several national societies known as GENERAL LABOR UNIONS, which are federated in the NATIONAL FEDERATION OF GENERAL WORKERS.

Generalized Strike. See GENERAL STRIKE.

Generalkommission der Gewerkschaften (General Commission of Trade Unions). See ALLGEMEINER DEUTSCHER GEWERKSCHAFTSBUND; GEWERKSCHAFTEN.

Geneva Internationale. See INTERNATIONALE.

Geographical Jurisdiction. See JURISDICTION.

German General Trade Union Federation. See ALLGEMEINER DEUTSCHER GEWERKSCHAFTSBUND.

German General Workers' Union. See ALLGEMEINE ARBEITER-UNION.

German National Economic Council. See REICHSWIRTSCHAFTSRAT.

German National Labor Administration. There are two main executive departments devoted to labor affairs in the central government of the new German Republic. These are the National Ministry of Labor and the National Ministry of Economics. In demarcation of their respective functions, the following official statement has been issued: "All questions of a socio-political character relating to the labor contract will be dealt with by the Ministry of Labor; in particular, unemployment relief, compulsory engagement of workers, share of workers in business management and WORKS COUNCILS. The Ministry of Economics, on the other hand, deals with labor questions only in so far as they relate to the continuation and reconstruction of the processes of production and its technique. In this connection the cooperative societies, the trade unions, joint industrial leagues, and similar organizations will be dealt with in the National Ministry of Economics."

German Spartacus League. See SPARTACANS.

German Trade Union Congress. See ALLGEMEINER DEUTSCHER GEWERKSCHAFTSBund.

German Trade Union Organization. As a typical example of German trade union organization, Mr. C. M. Lloyd (writing in 1914) thus describes the Metalworkers' Union, the largest of the German "free" (Social Democratic) national unions or ZENTRALVERBÄNDE, with more than a million members: "The Metalworkers' Union comprises 451 branches, grouped in eleven Districts. The government is in the hands of a supreme executive committee of paid officials, elected triennially by delegates from the Districts. The authority of this national executive is very substantial, including, as it does, the power to forbid a strike in any District (except a 'defensive' strike: there its sanction is not required, though it is, as a matter of course, consulted before hostilities are begun), the right to reject at its discretion even duly elected candidates for the District Executives, and the expenditure of something like seventyfive or eighty per cent of the ordinary contributions of the members, which are paid direct into its hands, with a final voice even in the disbursement of the balance that remains in the local exchequer.