Trade Union Congress

“ The Trades Union Congress itself, after en- gendering, as independent organisations, first the General Federation of Trade Unions, and then the Labour Party, has not yet resigned itself to limiting its activities. The General Federation of Trade Unions may be said, indeed, to have now disappeared from the Trade Union world as an effective force in the determination of industrial or political policy. ”

“ But the most extensive federation of the Trade Union world is to-day, as it has always been, the Trades Union Congress, which could count in September 1919 an affiliated membership of more than five and a quarter millions, a number never paralleled in this or any other country. ”

“ It appears to us that the body which is required should and must be developed out of the existing organisation of the Trades Union Congress and out of its closer co-operation with other sections of the working-class movement. ”

“ Combinations of capital organized into trusts to control the conditions of trade among our citizens, to stifle competition, limit production, and determine the prices of products used and consumed by the people, are justly provoking public discussion, and should early claim the attention of the Congress.
The Industrial Commission, created by the act of the Congress of June 18, 1898, has been engaged in extended hearings upon the disputed questions involved in the subject of combinations in restraint of trade and competition. ”

“ Industrial peace along the arteries of commerce is a legitimate objective; and Congress has great latitude in choosing the methods by which it is to be obtained.
The choice by the Congress of the union shop as a stabilizing force seems to us to be an allowable one. Much might be said pro and con if the policy issue were before us. Powerful arguments have been made here that the longrun interests of labor would be better served by the development of democratic traditions in trade unionism without the coercive element of the union or the closed shop. ”

“ If we fail to pass this agreement, we will embolden the purveyors of false populism in our hemisphere. So we must come together, pass this agreement, and show our neighbors in the region that democracy leads to a better life. (Applause.)
Trade brings better jobs and better choices and better prices. Yet for some Americans, trade can mean losing a job, and the federal government has a responsibility to help. (Applause.) I ask Congress to reauthorize and reform trade adjustment assistance, so we can help these displaced workers learn new skills and find new jobs. ”

“ The deliberate refusal of the Trade Union leaders to discuss internal problems in public Congress under such circumstances was not surprising. Most men in their position would have hesitated to let the world know that the apparent solidarity of Trade Unionism covered jealous disputes on technical questions, and fundamental differences as to policy. They easily persuaded themselves that a yearly meeting of shifting delegates was fitted neither to debate technical questions nor to serve as a tribunal of appeal. ”

“ It is unnecessary for us to argue whether this conception of the functions of law and government is or is not an adequate view of social development. The able and conscientious men who formed the Front Bench of the Trades Union Congress of 1876-85 had grown up without any alternative political theory, and had accordingly erected the objection to legislative interference or Governmental administration into an absolute dogma. ”

“ Fair Trade " delegates were expelled, on it being proved that their expenses were not paid by the Trade Union organisations which they nominally represented. A renewed attack on the Congress of 1882 ended in the triumphant victory of the Parliamentary Committee, the complete exoneration of Broadhurst and his colleagues, and the final discomfiture of the " Fair Trade " delegates. ”

“ Good jobs depend on expanded trade. Selling into new markets creates new jobs, so I ask Congress to finally approve trade promotion authority. ”

“ Without taking a vigorous part in promoting, enforcing, and resisting all sorts of legislation affecting education, sanitation, the Poor Law, the whole range of the Factories, Mines, Railways, and Merchant Shipping Acts, the Shop Hours, Truck, Industrial Arbitration and Conciliation, and now even the Trade Boards’ Act, the Trade Union cannot properly fulfil its function of looking after the regulation of the conditions of employment. ”

“ The right of Free Association, won by Allan, Applegarth, Odger, and their allies, is now a past issue, but the Trade Union interest in legislation has, with the advance of Democracy, extended to larger and more complicated problems. The complete democratisation of the political machinery, the duty of the Government to be a model employer, the further regulation of private enterprise through perfected factory legislation, the public administration of monopolies, are all questions in which the Trade Union world of to-day considers itself keenly interested. ”

“ As the Trade Union movement develops in power and intelligence, it inevitably stretches out its hands towards the control of industry. The Trade Union, no doubt, begins as a mere bargaining body, “a continuous association of wage-earners for the purpose of maintaining or improving their conditions of employment”; but it cannot grow to its full stature without becoming far more than this, without claiming for itself and its members the right to control production. ”

“ Here then we find the special function of the Trade Union in the administration of industry. The simplest member of the working-class organisation knows at any rate where the shoe pinches. The Trade Union official is specially selected by his fellow-workmen for his capacity to express the grievances from which they suffer, and is trained by his calling in devising remedies for them. But in expressing the desires of their members, and in insisting on the necessary reforms, the Trade Unions act within the constant friction-brake supplied by the need of securing employment. ”

“ For now that Trades Unions are becoming universal, and each artisan has to pay prescribed moneys to one or another of them, with the alternative of being a non-unionist to whom work is denied by force, it has come to this, that the right to labor is a Trade-Union right, which the Trade Union can sell and the individual worker must buy! ”

“ To require, rather than to induce, the beneficiaries of trade unionism to contribute to its costs may not be the wisest course. But Congress might well believe that it would help insure the right to work in and along the arteries of interstate commerce. ”

“ It is quite true that every tariff schedule is subject to objections. No bill was ever framed, I suppose, that in all of its rates and classifications had the full approval even of a party caucus. Such legislation is always and necessarily the product of compromise as to details, and the present law is no exception. But in its general scope and effect I think it will justify the support of those who believe that American legislation should conserve and defend American trade and the wages of American workmen. ”

“ We must also increase economic security for American workers through expanded trade. For over a year now, the United States Congress has debated trade promotion authority. This week, I met with members of the House and Senate to urge them to resolve their differences and approve a bill. If Congress waits, less markets will be open to American goods, and less jobs will be created for American workers. ”

“ Organisation was, between 1904 and 1911, steadily extending in all directions, when the passing of the National Insurance Act, which practically compelled every wage-earner to join an “Approved Society” of some kind, led to a dramatic expansion of Trade Union membership, from which the various Unions of general workers, as they now prefer to be styled, obtained their share of advantage. ”

“ At other times the Trade Union appears to the bulk of its members either as a political organisation whose dictates they are ready to obey at Parliamentary and other elections, or as a mere benefit club in the management of which they do not desire to take part. In the long intervals of peace during which the constitution of the Society is being slowly elaborated, the financial basis strengthened, the political and trade policy determined, less than a half or perhaps even a tenth of the members will actively participate in the administrative and legislative work. ”

“ Its official organ, the National Laborer, declared that "the Trades' Union never will be political because its members have learned from experience that the introduction of politics into their societies has thwarted every effort to ameliorate their conditions." ”

“ In conformity with the recommendation of Congress, a proposition was early made to the British Government to abolish the mixed courts created under the treaty of April 7, 1862, for the suppression of the slave trade. The subject is still under negotiation. ”

“ In order to fulfill its important functions of protecting the workers, giving to them adequate control over their working conditions, and the power of bargaining for the disposal of their labor power through recognized representatives, trade-union organization must be world-wide. Organizations of capital are so, or are becoming so, and in order that the workers may bargain upon an equal footing, they must be in an equally strong position. ”

“ Fundamentally, however, the shortcomings of the political organisation of the Trade Union world are to be ascribed to its failure, down to the present, to develop a staff of trained political officers at all equal to those of the Trade Union organisers and Trade Union negotiators in the industrial field. ”

“ We want to work with Congress on a competitiveness package that will complement these efforts. For Congress to place severe restrictions on international trade with tariffs and barriers and to limit my ability to utilize our trade laws when necessary, would damage our own prosperity and that of virtually the entire world. I urge Congress to bear this in mind. As major trade legislation comes to the floor, the United States is already becoming more competitive. Now, it's up to Congress to show that it understands economic reality. ”

“ So long as each section of workers believed in the intention of the governing class to protect their trade from the results of unrestricted competition no community of interest arose. It was a change of industrial policy on the part of the Government that brought all trades into line, and for the first time produced what can properly be called a Trade Union Movement. In order, therefore, to make this movement fully intelligible, we must now retrace our steps, and follow the political history of industry in the eighteenth century. ”

“ Repeated attempts have been made to arrive at some “line of demarcation” or other compromise, by which this rivalry between Unions could be brought to an end; but hitherto without success. The quarrel is inflamed by a conflict of Trade Union doctrine. The engineers, boilermakers, carpenters, and other trades assert that organisation should be by craft, whatever may be the industry in which the craftsman is working. ”

“ As we have explained, the Trade Union, being essentially an Association of Producers, has never quite lost the idea that, so far as industry is concerned, this form of association, and no other, is Democracy. But the new form in which the faith in Associations of Producers is now expressing itself is concerned less with the ownership of the instruments of production (it being to-day commonly taken for granted that this must be vested in the community as a whole) than with the management of industry. ”

“ Nothing but wisdom and prudence in the leaders and loyalty and devotion in the rank and file could enable the Trade Union Movement to come through a period of such unparalleled crisis with its essential unity unimpaired, its organisation fundamentally sound, and its future uncompromised. ”

“ Throughout all the various struggles of these years the Trade Union leaders kept steadily in view the definite aim of getting rid of a law which they regarded, not only as hampering their efforts for better conditions of employment, but also as an indignity and an insult to the hundreds of thousands of intelligent artisans whom they represented. ”

“ Whether we study the elaborate collection of Trade Union rules and other documents made by the Commission, or the personal evidence given by the leaders or advocates of Trade Unionism, we find from beginning to end absolutely no claim, and even no suggestion, that the Trade Union should participate in the direction of industry, otherwise than in arranging with the employers the conditions of the wage-earner's working life. ”

“ As a matter of fact, the getting and enforcing of legislation is, historically, as much a part of Trade Union function as maintaining a strike. [668] One Trade Union at least, which no one ever dreamt to be illegal, the United Textile Factory Workers’ Association, has existed exclusively for political action, and had no other functions. [669] This kind of Trade Union action is even antecedent in date to any corporate dealing with employers. ”

“ They can, to begin with, seldom devote the necessary time to their new duties. They usually find themselves compelled to strive to combine attendance at the House of Commons with the onerous industrial service of their societies. The Trade Unions have, as yet, only in a few cases realised the necessity of setting free from the constant burden of Trade Union work—as they might by promotion to some such consultative office as that of a salaried President—such of their officials as secure election to Parliament ”