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Show PACKERS 10 SIGN AN AGREEMENT Owners and Employes to " Formally Accept John L. Williams as Arbitrator. PRACTICAL CONTRACT United States Government to Control All Labor Disputes at All Plants. CHICAGO, Dec. 26. The formal agreement between packing house o'wners and employes which makes John L. Williams, federal fuel administrator admin-istrator for Illinois, arbitrator of nil labor disputes in the big planting plants of the United States until the end of tho war, was expected to bo signed today by representatives of both sides. The agreement was rea"ched yesterday after a series of conferences conductqd by President Wilson's mediation board which has I been here for a week investigating labor troubles in the stook yards. The agreement practically is a contract con-tract between the packers and employes em-ployes on one side and the United States government on the other. It gives the government, through the mediator, me-diator, tho right to control all labor disputes in every big packing plant in the United States arid, according to members of the mediation conference, is tho first document of Its kind ever signed in this country. Under it there can bo neither a strike nor a lockout in packing plants during the war. |