George Henry Soule

“ Perhaps the greatest outstanding fact in the history of British labor during the last thirty years has been the organization of the great masses of the unskilled and semi-skilled. The dock workers, general laborers, transport workers of all sorts (including truckmen, street railway and busmen, expressmen, longshoremen, etc.) gas workers, track laborers on the railroads, the lower grades of miners, all these and others have become union members during the past generation, to say nothing of the great majority of semi-skilled in manufacturing industries. ”

“ It is probable, at least, that the trend toward industrial unionism will become more pronounced, and that a more aggressive leadership will before many years succeed the present regime of the American Federation of Labor. In addition to this, some look for a drift toward independent political action, toward growth of the co-operative movement, or toward an increase of workers' control in industry. The only certainty is that the unions are facing a bitter warfare forced upon them by the employers, and we all know that under conditions of warfare drastic changes are likely to occur. ”

“ It is true that men and women who have not risen from the ranks are in most unions neither eligible to handle nor capable of handling such important affairs of the unions as the formation of new policies, the making of contracts with employers, the managing of strikes, or the extension of the jurisdiction of the unions to unorganized fields. This does not mean, however, that college graduates are incapable of managing the basic functions of trade unionism if they go through the same training—though of less duration—as do all union officials. ”

“ England was the first country in the world to feel the industrial revolution, near the beginning of the nineteenth century, which brought in large factories, machine-production, and the control of manufacturing by owners of capital. The modern labor movement is therefore older in England than in any other country, and trade-unionism there has had a longer experience and more chances to grow big and powerful. ”

“ The last railway strike awakened labor to the fact that all unions are really involved in a great movement such as a strike in a basic industry. The Triple Alliance itself was not inclusive enough to represent the many workers who would suffer or benefit by a great conflict which might arise between labor on one side, and employers and government on the other, whenever the railwaymen and miners go out. A number of unions began to see that the whole labor movement would have to be better organized to control such matters. ”

“ It is like a brain: it gathers useful information of all kinds, studying the latest weapons and methods of warfare, the plans and equipment of the enemy, the country in which fighting is to be done. It regulates the various branches of the army so that the artillery and the infantry shall not be working at cross purposes, but shall help each other. ”

“ When once they rise to a position of leadership, they can be far more effective in the administration of their unions than if they performed professional services alone. Investigations, the preparation of briefs and statistics for arbitration cases, publicity and other services which intellectuals now render to the labor movement are important and necessary, Those trained along these lines can, however, function far more effectively as union officials, or at least as members of the rank and file of the labor movement, than if they did specific pieces of work as outsiders. ”

“ What the future has in store for the trade union movement in the United States is merely a matter of conjecture, but many believe that a crisis is at hand in which it may see rapid changes. The open-shop campaign of the employers, combined with the reactionary national administration, may bring to a head tendencies which have been gathering force now for some years. ”

“ Of course the system of craft unions gave rise to many jurisdictional disputes, when two or more unions would compete for the allegiance of the same group of workers. One result of these quarrels was a series of amalgamations among the unions concerned. We have a habit of calling the oldline unions craft unions, and yet so many amalgamations have taken place among them in the course of time that there is hardly one of them that is a strictly one-craft union in the old-fashioned sense. ”

“ I believe that the most important way for intellectuals to be of service to the labor movement is for them to become part of the group which they wish to help, to start life as manual workers, to take part in the affairs of their local unions, and to take their chances on being elected or appointed to administrative offices in their unions. ”

“ Of course coal is the basis of all British industry, for without coal the factories have no power. But the railroads transport the coal, and in doing so they must use coal in their locomotives. If there were a long miners' strike, therefore, the railroad men would be out of work, and if there were a long railroad strike, the miners would be out of work. The same applies to the transport workers, who are employed at the harbors and terminals. Therefore the three unions agreed to act in concert as much as possible. ”

“ In Germany at present there is rapidly developing a councils movement similar to the British shop-steward movement. It is unofficial, and not encouraged by the trade-unions themselves. It consists of shop councils including all the workmen in a plant, regardless of the union or the political party to which they belong. These shop councils are in turn being affiliated by industry and by district. The aim is to build up a united labor movement on the industrial and inter-industrial principle, which shall be all-inclusive on the industrial field. ”

“ British labor is now engaged, therefore, in building up a general staff to furnish the various unions with the information and counsel which they need if they are to help each other properly, and are not to be caught napping by the employers. It will try to enable the whole labor movement to plan its campaigns intelligently, instead of fighting as a lot of separate units. ”

“ Another influence affecting our labor movement has been the fact that a large proportion of our manual workers have always been immigrants unfamiliar with the language and customs of the country. It was naturally more difficult for such a vast mixture of races speaking different languages to unite in the Trade Union movement, and racial and national prejudices have cut across the natural unity of the working class. ”

“ We had in this country, for instance, the same divergence between the craft unions of the highly skilled and the unorganized majority of unskilled that existed in England thirty years ago, hut here this divergence was intensified by the prejudice of the native-born against the "foreigner."
Therefore, although capitalism has grown here even to vaster proportions than in England, and although a large proportion of our population are now permanently wage-workers, our trade-union movement is far behind that in England. ”

“ Several years before the Great War the American Labor Movement was in approximately the same situation that the British Labor Movement occupied thirty years ago, although in some respects it was even weaker. Most of its unions were organized on the craft basis, although there were exceptional industrial unions like the United Mine Workers and the Brewery Workers. The strongest unions were in the building trades and the printing trades. The coal-miners' organization was growing rapidly, but it was our only stronghold in basic industry. ”

“ But a revolution cannot be started every few months to settle minor grievances. The Triple Alliance will not make good its threat until there is a clear issue and one large enough to engage the support of the entire labor movement. ”

“ Thus, the Railway Employees' department is a national body consisting of delegates from all the various A. F. of L. unions which have members working on the railroads. In negotiations with the government or the private employers about railroad matters it fulfills many of the duties of an industrial union covering the railway lines of the country. The unions concerned, however, retain the craft form of organization for use where, as in the case of the machinists, the membership extends into many other industries also. ”

“ A craft union of machinists, for instance, would not cover all the workmen in a single shop, but one of its locals might extend over a whole city, including machinists in a number of different shops. Such a local could not act easily in individual shops. A form of shop organization was necessary. Therefore the shop stewards of the various unions in a given shop would get together and form a shop committee, representing all the workmen in that establishment in their dealings with a single employer. ”

“ Since the war the labor press has grown rapidly in spite of unfavorable conditions, and a number of newspapers under labor auspices have been set up in various parts of the country. These papers now have their own news service, the Federated Press, which has recently established European connections, and is developing plans for enlarging its activities in the United States. The workers everywhere are awaking to the necessity of having sources of information upon which they can depend. ”

“ There was no hereditary barrier between classes, and so it was easier for the workman to accumulate property and become an employer than in the older countries across the Atlantic. This fundamental factor delayed and restricted the development of a working-class consciousness for years, and still operates to a limited degree in our traditions. ”

“ The natural result has been to bring about amalgamation and federation of various craft unions which had grown up in the same industry. In England, for instance, the Amalgamated Society of Engineers, which originally included only machinists, now has combined with so many other unions that it covers virtually the whole metal industry. Other less recent examples of industrial organization are the National Union of Railwaymen, the Transport Workers' Federation, and the Miners' Federation. ”

“ After America's entrance into the war, many of the unions advanced materially both in numbers and power: This was particularly true on the railroads and in the war industries such as shipbuilding and munition manufacturing. The shortage of labor, caused by the demand for production, and the shutting off of immigration placed the workers in a temporarily advantageous position. ”

“ A few years spent as a manual laborer in a mine, mill or factory is in no way wasted. In the first place, the experience of earning a living in industry and the opportunity which life like this gives for the understanding of human beings is the best kind of a post-graduate course. ”

“ The continental labor movement is not so similar to the American as is the English, and on account of the confusion and destruction of the war its recent tendencies have not been so stable and significant. ”

“ The unskilled day laborers were not organized, and machinery had not yet progressed far enough so that automatic processes had replaced the skilled mechanic with workers who are sometimes called "semi-skilled," due to the fact that they do not require a long period of apprenticeship to learn their trade. ”

“ Threatened by a lockout, the metal workers remained in the metal plants and continued to operate them. The movement spread to many other industries, until a large proportion of Italian factories were actually in the hands of the workers. Neither the government nor the employers attempted to throw out the workers by force, but a compromise was reached by which the factories were returned to their former owners on condition that a certain degree of "control" be given to the workers' committees. ”

“ Their coming into the ranks of organized labor has led to many other changes. First and foremost, it has made the unions representative not merely of a small privileged class of workmen, but of the great majority of all workers in the nation. ”

“ It has even progressed beyond adherence to political action for political purposes, having urged the unions to enter upon a general strike in the Russian and other questions. At the same time it has grown numerically, until now it is the largest party outside the Coalition government. It has already captured many local governments, and hopes before many years to have a majority in Parliament. Organized labor is almost solidly behind it, and it has long been supported by trade-union funds. ”

“ The four big railroad brotherhoods were still fighting for recognition—they consisted of the more skilled men such as the engineers, conductors, firemen and trainmen—and the other railroad employees had only a vestige of organization. ”