Jurisdiction in American Building Trades Unions

onversely territorial jurisdiction implies control of a certain extent of country with respect to specified trades or crafts. In the preceding chapter we have sought to analyze the concept of territorial jurisdiction, as used by trade unions, and to ascertain the underlying principles which determine the extent and control of the territory of a union. Here an endeavor will be made to set forth the considerations involved in the claim of a union to a trade, pointing out upon what grounds such claims are based. This study will make no attempt to list the complete jurisdictional claims of any union, for this detailed information can readily be obtained elsewhere, and even if such claims were to be enumerated, they are changing so rapidly and continuously that by the time the catalogue of jurisdiction had been made it would be incomplete and inexact. If the purpose of this study is accomplished, certain criteria will have been obtained by which, given any piece of work, we can determine what unions may be expected to lay claim to it. As this statement intimates, several unions may assert jurisdiction over the same class of work, each, of course, usually having some justification for its claim. The result is a jurisdictional dispute. But in the present chapter the matter will not be pursued so far as that; the concern here is with the grounds upon which these claims are justified, reserving for later treatment a more detailed study of the actual controversies arising ...