in labor-management relations. A contractor named L. K. Comstock was one of the most interested members of this Conference Club. He proposed that members of the club get together with a committee from the IBEW for the purpose of drafting a “National Labor Agreement” which would be to the mutual benefit of both groups. A joint committee from the IBEW and the Conference Club met in March 1919. Charles Ford, International Secretary of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, was the person chiefly responsible for bringing about IBEW participation in setting up the plan which was eventually to become the Council on Industrial Relations.

When the joint committee met, they decided that a labor agreement between them was not essentially what was needed. A medium for coming together, carrying on frank discussion and effecting an understanding was the procedure dictated and so a “Joint Declaration of Purpose” to be signed by both parties was substituted for the proposed labor agreement. It was at first intended that the IBEW and Conference Club should be the joint subscribers to the declaration, but the Conference Club membership was limited. Therefore, its members decided to interest the National Association of Electrical Contractors and Dealers (name later changed to National Electrical Contractors Association) in becoming the signatory employer organization. This was done by action of their July 1919 convention. The Declaration of Principles which paved the way for the Council on Industrial Relations was approved by the New Orleans Convention of the IBEW in September 1919. Here are the principles as the Contractors and the IBEW accepted them:

Preamble
The vital interests of the public, and/or employee and employer in industry are inseparably bound together. All will benefit by a continuous peaceful operation of the industrial process and the devotion of the means of production to the common good.

Principles
(1) The facilities of the electrical industry for service to the public will be developed and enhanced by recognition that the overlapping of the functions of the various groups in the industry is wasteful and should be eliminated.

(2) Close contact and a mutually sympathetic interest between employee and employer will develop a better working system and will tend constantly to stimulate production while improving the relationship between employee, employer and the community.

(3) Strikes and lock-outs are detrimental to the interests alike of employee and employer and the

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