Unionists

“ Strong, that ideas spring up with nothing behind them? All those who are acquainted with the history of unionism know that 'close unionism,' the refusal to work with non-unionists, arose from the persistent preference given by employers to non-unionists, which was a victimising of unionists. ”

“ On the contrary the whole trend of Colonial experience confirms, in the most striking fashion, the essential soundness of the position which Unionists have maintained throughout, that the material, social and moral interests, alike of Ireland and of Great Britain, demand that they should remain members of one effective, undivided legislative and administrative organisation. ”

“ The most experienced Trades Unionists will be the first to admit that any scheme which could deal adequately with the out-of-works and others who hang on to their skirts and form the recruiting ground of blacklegs and embarrass them in ever way, would be, of all others that which would be most beneficial to Trades Unionism. ”

“ The unions, that is, are helping most effectively to accomplish the task, traditionally attributed to the American democratic political system—the task of raising the general standard of living; and the unionists claim that they deserve on this ground recognition by the state and active encouragement. ”

“ XLIV. That every Member of this Union do use his best endeavours, by fair and open argument, and the force of good example, and not by intimidation or violence, to induce his fellows to join the brotherhood, in order that no workmen may remain out of the Union to undersell them in the market of labour; as, while that is done, employers will be enabled to resist the demands of the Unionists, whereas, if no operatives remain out of union, employers will be compelled to keep up the price of Labour. ”

“ The sympathetic strike sentiment was stifled and the men were forced to stay on their jobs and knowingly helped to defeat their fellow unionists by cooperating with scabs, virtually becoming scabs themselves. Another case of too many unions and not enough unionism, augmented, by too many leaders and no leadership. ”

“ Laborers may, by combining, acquire an influence which, if exercised with moderation and discretion, employers will in general be willing rather to propitiate than to oppose. Among the concessions which may in consequence be obtained by unionists, the most material are those which affect the remuneration of labor, and these, it is commonly supposed, cannot, when due solely to unionist action, be of permanent operation. ”

“ The Trade Unionists at this time were the advanced guard of the working class party; and although, early in the day, the sense of superiority to the unskilled workers began to show itself among the members, much of the success which was obtained could never have been got without their aid. ”

“ Unionism” remind the student, not of the mystic rites and skeleton mummery of the Owenite movement, but rather of the restless energy and political ingenuity of the Junta or the Trades Union Congress Parliamentary Committee in those early days when the old Trade Unionists were fighting for legislative reforms with a faith which was as wise as it was fervent and sincere. ”

“ Among labor leaders the struggle centred largely about the control of the Trade Union Congress; in the world at large, the efforts of the new unionists were characterized by the attempt to organize the unskilled workers of the cities, with the ultimate object of forming a large party in favor of municipal ownership, and later of introducing municipal socialism. ”

“ During this agitation the number of members in the Lodge has been steadily increasing, until it comes to include a good propor- tion of the trade in the town. The non-Unionists have also been approached as to their willingness to assist the movement, and the bulk of them readily agree to come out with the Society men if these undertake to maintain them. ”

“ I will fight them!” returned the intrepid officer. “Men, take your places!” The men mounted and leisurely rode down the street. The enemy, supposing it to be a retreat, were getting ready for pursuit, when the Unionists suddenly halted, turned, and faced them. The rebel leader sang out to his men,—“Charge—charge the damned Yankees!” But the rebels never moved. ”

“ The Unionists would support a state convention provided that it would only endeavor to promote a southern convention, for only such action would be effective. The Unionists believed that, had the doctrine of nullification never been ushered in, the South, under the common feeling of a common wrong, would long since have acted in concert and obtained by a dignified but determined course that redress which the intemperate efforts of South Carolina had almost indefinitely postponed. Until South Carolina abandoned her delusion and the South met in convention, no success could be gained. ”

“ Nothing," he writes in January, 1867, " will force the governing classes to re- cognise [the workmen's] claims and judge them fairly, until they find them wresting into their own hands real political power. Unionists who, till now, have been content with their Unions, and have shrunk from political action, may see the pass to which this abstinence from political move- ments has brought them." x Within a few months of this advice the Reform Bill of 1867 had enfranchised the work- ing man in the boroughs. The Trade Union leaders were not slow to use the advantage thus given to them. ”

“ The unions as well as their common organizations, the Trade Union Congress, the Labour Party, and the General Federation of Trade Unions are drawing closer together, while the Socialists and revolutionary unionists are everywhere taking the lead—as evidenced, for example, by the election of the most radical Socialist member of Parliament, Mr. ”

“ In the great fights that have since occurred the industrial form of our union has stood us in good stead, Had we been so organized that one part of the working force remained at work while the rest were striking, we would have been defeated and our organization broken up long ago. Speaking from experience, we heartily recommend industrial unionism to the labor movement as a whole, and we pledge ourselves to do whatever we can to bring it about. ”

“ Now there are strong unions and weak unions—both arrayed against a capital better organized and stronger than ever before in the world's history. Unionism is primary instruction in revolution. We must teach labor its power, and it is slow to learn. We must prepare, prepare, prepare, and when all is ready we shall rise. Not one union, not the unions of a state, of a country, but the unions of the world...hundreds of millions of men who have been ground down by aristocracies and wealth for generations. ”

“ The reactionists, with their champion, Andrew Johnson, also offer you a Union—a Union based upon deception unscrupulously practiced, upon great promises treacherously violated, upon the National faith scandalously broken; a Union whose entrails are once more to be lacerated by the irrepressible struggle between slavery and liberty ”

“ The painful spectacle of unions going down to defeat before the onslaughts of combined capital, while allied unions stand by with seeming indifference and give their fallen brothers no helping hand, will be a thing of the past, Such preposterous unionism will be buried so deep it will never be revived except in scornful memory. It will then be difficult to imagine that the workers ever had such short-visioned, narrow-minded, self-centered unionism, as our present system. ”

“ Throughout the country the organised constituents of the Grand National fell back upon their local trade clubs.
The records of the rise and fall of the " New Unionism " of 1830-4 leave us conscious' of a vast enlargement in the ideas of the workers, without any corresponding alteration in their tactics in the field. In council they are idealists, dreaming of a new heaven and a new earth; humanitarians, educationalists, socialists, moralists : in battle they are still the struggling, half -emancipated serfs of 1825, armed only with the rude weapons of the strike and boycott ”

“ Every new movement, be it religious, political or economic, has its birth like a volcano, and unionism was no exception to this rule. The labor unions at first had their violent agitators who, possessing greater physical than mental calibre, laid the crude foundation of a [42] force in an arbitrary manner that consequently had its gradual evolution of development. ”

“ Industrial Unionism bids all workers rally to its standard. To all sons and daughters of toil who yearn for a better day we appeal for Solidarity.
Let a sordid crowd of kept men and women imbued with sordid ideals oppose this new redeeming movement of labor—it is bound to succeed in spite of all opposition, whether it be that which show its hideous form in the uniform of the hired and armed Hessians with rifle in hand, or it intrigues and conjures under the cloak of Law, Authority, Order, Religion, et al., or even under the greasy smile and brass face of the "labor leader." ”

“ And now a far greater organization has come to take its place—as much greater as the American Railway Union was greater than the old union—and that organization is the Industrial Workers of the World. This great union is organized on the basis of the class struggle. It makes its appeal to the intelligence of the working class. It commands you workingmen to open your eyes and see for yourselves; to use your brains, and think for yourselves; to cultivate self-reliance and depend upon yourselves. ”

“ When now and then advocates of a better system of society refer to the new unionism they do it, in most cases, without knowing fully the distinction between the old kind of unionism and the unionism that advocates—One Big Union for the Entire Working Class the World Over! ”

“ The British militants thoroughly understand and appreciate the principles of working within the old unions—they are almost entirely free from the virus of dual unionism. Inside the trade unions they have constructed a whole network of minority organizations, including shop-steward movements, amalgamation committees, educational leagues, labor colleges, etc. ”

“ Don't tell me, Susan Ketler. Afraid? What of? Could the Union kill them for it? Could the men be hung, drawn and quartered for leaving it? Who is the Union? Giants that were born with thunderbolts and power from the Creator to control people's wills?--or just simple men like themselves: workmen too, once, some of 'em, if reports are true. You'd better not try to come over me with your fallacies. Facts is facts. If these men chose to do it, they could send the Trades' Union to the right about this very day, and return, with one accord, to work and their senses tomorrow. ”

“ What is the condition there today? You have innumerable unions represented there, but no unity. You have this great body of workers parceled out among scores of petty and purposeless unions, which are in ceaseless conflict with each other, jealous to preserve their craft identity. As long as this great army of workers is scattered among so many craft unions, it will be impossible for them to unite and act in harmony together. ”

“ The guilds of the Middle Ages, with which the unions are often identified, were confederations of all engaged in the trade, masters as well as men, against outsiders. The Unions are confederations of the men against the masters. They are the offspring of an age of great capitalists, employing large bodies of hired workmen. The workmen, needy, and obliged to sell their labour without reserve, that they might eat bread, found themselves, in their isolation, very much at the mercy of their masters, and resorted to union as a source of strength. ”

“ Industrial unionism comes, not as a new system suddenly applied to the labor movement, but as the culmination of a long and elaborate evolution from the simple craft unions to the complex organizations necessary for the modern struggle. ”

“ This was the first step in a campaign to root out unionism in New Rome, to make the laboring-man a defenseless dependent upon the generosity of an ungenerous employer, to rob him of the bulwark of his rights, the sense of freedom, the feeling that instead of writhing naked and helpless in the clutch of a cormorant capitalist, he stood armed by the weight of thousands at his back to battle for a living. The union had given to the laboring-man this most priceless spirit, and the laboring-man must guard the union as he would guard his soul. ”

“ Thousands who once belonged to unions have become not only non-union men, but scabs and strike-breakers, and in their desperation have turned upon the union and become its most bitter enemies. If you will call the roll of the strike-breakers who gather here in Chicago and elsewhere when union workers are out on strike, you will find that nearly all of them are ex-union men; men who once wore the badge of union labor, believed in it, and marched proudly beneath the union banner. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In the second place, and more important, it is from the rank and file of labor that progressive union policy most often comes. One or two active members of the rank and file of a local union, expressing their opinions at meetings or as delegates debating on the floor of district or national conventions, can do an immense amount of good, unappreciated it is true, but still worth while. And who can be more influential in arousing interest in workers' education, cooperative stores, labor papers, than active men working at their trades? ”