Union officer

“ Nowadays the salaried officer of a great Union is courted and nattered by the middle class. He is asked to dine with them, and will admire their well-appointed houses, their fine carpets, the ease and luxury of their lives. ”

“ An officer, therefore, chosen by the whole Union, would be a more suitable person to preside, and give a casting vote, since he would be more free, than any member of the senate, from local attachments, and local interests ”

“ If for any reason the Government of the Union is unable to meet the wish of any officer as regards choice of abode, the officer concerned will choose some place in respect of which no difficulty exists. In the case of other ranks of the active troops of the said forces of the Protectorate, such other ranks shall be interned under proper guard at such place in the Protectorate as the Union Government shall decide upon. ”

“ They may unite with other unions. The officers they appoint, or any other person they choose to listen to, may advise them as to the proper course to be taken in regard to their common employment; or if they choose to appoint any one, he may order them on pain of expulsion from the union peaceably to leave the employ of their employer because any of the terms of the employment are unsatisfactory. ”

“ In practice very large powers, both of office management and of negotiation, are necessarily exercised by the six salaried officers, the President, the General Secretary, and the four Assistant Secretaries, each of whom is responsible for a separate branch of the Union's work. ”

“ In the main the unskilled workmen have had to rely for officers on men drawn from their own ranks. In not a few cases a sturdy general labourer has proved himself a first-rate administrator of a great national Union. ”

“ But the official corps is dispersed throughout the country, in every town, village, and city, mixing with the people, attending their meetings and conventions, becoming chairmen and members of committees, and urging and stimulating partisans to active and vigorous exertion. Acting in concert, and, throughout the whole union, obeying orders issued from the centre, their influence, aided by executive patronage, by the post-office department, and all the vast other means of the executive, is almost irresistible. ”

“ For the time being all these unions will remain practically intact, each one becoming a department in the amalgamated union. When other unions decide to come in they simply elect their quotas of delegates to the general executive board and take their places as departments in the big union. ”

“ The officers of the national unions consist of secretary and treasurer, and executive board. Each national union elects delegates to the department to which it belongs. The same procedure is followed in electing delegates as in electing officers.
Industrial departments hold conventions and nominate the delegates that are elected to the general convention. Delegates to the general convention nominate candidates for the officers of the general organization, which are a General Secretary-Treasurer, and a General Organizer. ”

“ If a Union of one hundred thousand members can be organized in three years like has been so wonderfully done here by your leaders and by your officers and your membership, my friends, anything is possible. ”

“ Compared with this modern system of organization the present craft. unions, each going its separate way and duplicating the union work of the industries as many as thirty times, is confusion worse confounded. The departmentalized union will be like an army, with its separate branches of artillery, cavalry, infantry, etc., but all welded together into one powerful machine.
Under the industrial system of unionism the workers will obtain tremendous power compared with the craft or federated form. Unity of action will at all times be obtainable. ”

“ While due regard to the security of the rights of officers and to the nice sense of honor which should be cultivated among them would seem to exact compliance with the established rule of promotion in ordinary cases, still it can hardly be doubted that the range of promotion by selection, which is now practically confined to the grade of general officers, might be somewhat extended with benefit to the public service. ”

“ As it is considered essential that only men should be selected by a Union who have an intimate knowledge of the working of the Union, the branch secretary or the district delegate or district secretary or a member of the executive or the general secretary of the Union is generally chosen, and he, it should be noted, is picked out, not for his political experience or enthusiasm, but as a trusty protagonist of his own trade body ”

“ It will be seen by the returns from the subordinate departments of the Army that every branch of the service is marked with order, regularity, and discipline; that from the commanding general through all the gradations of superintendence the officers feel themselves to have been citizens before they were soldiers, and that the glory of a republican army must consist in the spirit of freedom, by which it is animated, and of patriotism, by which it is impelled. ”

“ The employees of the Local Authorities—thirty years ago entirely without organisation—are still not so well combined as those of the National Government. A score of different societies, from such grades as school-keepers, police and prison officers and asylum attendants, up to municipal clerks, share the work with the National Union of Corporation Workers and the Municipal Employees’ Association. A large proportion of the wage-earners employed by Local Authorities are to be found in the Unions of General Workers. ”

“ The unit is the industrial local, which is composed of all the workers of an industry in a locality. The various locals of an industry combine to form an industrial department. The departments join together to form the “One Big Union.” The organization is managed by a general secretary who is virtually the executive head. The general secretary-treasurer is assisted by an executive board elected by the six unions having the largest membership. A seventh member is elected by the other smaller unions. ”

“ Recruiting Unions are temporary organizations, formed for the purpose of having organizations to carry on the educational work necessary for the formation of Industrial Unions.
The methods used in getting a Union started depend upon the circumstances in the locality where the Union is to be formed. ”

“ Committees are obsolete to us, and each distinct line of work has one person, called a superintendent, who is responsible for its success in the local, and another in the State, and a third in the National union. She may secure such lieutenants as she likes, but the union looks to her for results, and holds her accountable for failures. ”

“ The governor, for the time being, shall be commander-in-chief of the militia, appoint and commission all officers in the same below the rank of general officers; all general officers shall be appointed and commissioned by Congress. ”

“ Every woman, on attaining her eighteenth and every man on his twentieth year, is bound to inscribe his or her name in a special register kept at the Commissariat of Unions, and must then contract a union within the period of six months. ”

“ Dues paid by the Union to the General Organization are fifteen cents per member per month.
If those who sign the Charter Application Blank are employed in the same industry they will be chartered as an Industrial Union Branch, with jurisdiction over all wage workers employed in that industry in that locality. If the signers of the Charter Application are employed in two or more industries, they will be chartered as a Recruiting Union. ”

“ During the year* of her presidency the Stale union has increased from five-thousand to twenty-one-thousand members and from 17910 842 local unions, and in work, membership and organization stands at the head of the forty-lour States of the National union. ”

“ The local unions are obliged to pay their tithe into the greater treasury, to make stated reports, to appoint a 116 certain roster of committees, and in certain small matters to conform to the requirements of the national union. ”

“ General officers should be selected as at present, and one-third of the other promotions should be made by selection, the selection to be made by the President or the Secretary of War from a list of at least two candidates proposed for each vacancy by a board of officers from the arm of the service from which the promotion is to be made. ”

“ It is especially to be observed that notwithstanding the union of so considerable a force, no act was committed that even the jealousy of an irritated power could construe as an act of aggression, and that the commander of the squadron and his officers, in strict conformity with their instructions, holding themselves ever ready for the most active duty, have achieved the still purer glory of contributing to the preservation of peace. ”

“ There exists in one of the Territories such a union as is contemplated in the resolution. In Louisiana a person holding the office of Governor, is at the same time Commander-in-chief of the Army of the United States, in virtue of his appointment of Brigadier-General. Will any man pretend to say that a union of offices, such as these, the discharge of whose duties is incompatible, is such a union as is contemplated in the constitution? No; the union in the constitution was only intended to give the President a control over the Army and Navy ”

“ The number of unions should be reduced to a minimum. (b) Congress should not encourage the formation of any new Union. (c) This Congress instructs the General Council to continue its work of amalgamation of existing unions with One Big Union as the ultimate goal. ”

“ Besides these institutions, the union is in possession of a number of other enterprises, of which ten are agricultural, covering 300,000 acres and all worked by the organization." All the national unions are divided into departments to carry on the various phases of their educational and organizational work. ”

“ By their certainty of tenure, dependent on good service, and by their freedom from the necessity for political activity, these local officers would be induced to become more efficient public servants. ”

“ The principle of forming the Unions was that which the Commissioners had previously adopted in England, namely, that the Union should consist of a market-town as a centre, and the district of country surrounding and depending on it, and extending to about ten miles round it in all directions. ”

“ All persons who have been naturalised in any of the Colonies shall be deemed to be naturalised throughout the Union. 140. Subject to the provisions of the next succeeding section, all officers of the public service of the Colonies shall at the establishment of the Union become officers of the Union. 141. (1) As soon as possible after the establishment of the Union, the Governor-General in Council shall appoint a public service commission to make recommendations for such reorganisation and readjustment of the departments of the public service as may be necessary. ”

“ But the grand officers of the several unions attend one another’s conventions and join in solemn chorus in telling the delegates of each other’s union what wise grand officers they have, how kind the corporations are to them, and how proud they ought to be of their noble brotherhoods.
In the next few years locomotive engineers will become motormen and firemen will disappear. It is safe to say that in another twenty years locomotive firemen will be practically of the past. ”

“ With certain other new recruits joining us, we decided to form a Union of Workers with members and affiliations in all private industrial and business organizations and in all public offices and with the purpose of having the Board of this Union assume the direction of the civic life of the country. ”

“ The various officers of the union, from the medical officers to workhouse porters, including masters and matrons of workhouses, are generally appointed by the guardians, and the areas, duties and salaries of all the paid officers may be prescribed by the local government board. ”

“ If you wish to know the attitude of the Trades Unions, you should look at the Trades Union Congress which wholly supported us, and gave a very different picture of affairs. They know well that in all questions of labour, the trades unions have the decisive voice. I told you that the unions send a majority of the members of the College which controls the work of this Commissariat. I should have added that the three most important departments-the department for safeguarding labour, the department for distributing labour, and that for regulating wages-are entirely controlled by the Unions. ”

“ Yet as the Laws now stand, an old Officer, a Man who has often ventured his Life, and often spilt his Blood, in the Service of his Country, may be dismissed, and reduced, perhaps, to a starving Condition, at the arbitrary Will and Pleasure, perhaps at the Whim of a favourite Minister; so that by the present Establishment of our Army, the Reward of a Soldier seems not to depend upon the Services done to his Country, but upon the Services he does to those who happen to be the favourite Ministers at the Time. ”

“ The Federation is divided into five departments, representing the most important groups of labor: the Building Trades, the Metal Trades, Mining, Railroad Employees, and the Union Label Trades. 1 Each of these departments has its own autonomous sphere of action, its own set of officers, its own financial arrangements, its own administrative details. Each holds an annual convention, in the same place and week, as the Federation. Each is made up of affiliated unions only and confines itself solely to the interest of its own trades. ”

“ To form a permanent union, accommodated to the opinion and wishes of the delegates of so many states, differing in habits, produce, commerce, and internal police, was found to be a work which nothing but time and reflection, conspiring with a disposition to conciliate, could mature and accomplish. ”

“ The reports of the various officers at the head of the administrative branches of the military service, connected with the quartering, clothing, subsistence, health, and pay of the Army, exhibit the assiduous vigilance of those officers in the performance of their respective duties, and the faithful accountability which has pervaded every part of the system. ”