Craft unionism

“ But the issue with which the League has scored its greatest success is that of industrial unionism through amalgamation. This movement to combine all the craft unions into a series of industrial organizations it as present sweeping the country like a prairie fire. The workers realize that the death knell of craft unionism has sounded and that the way to a higher form of organization lies through amalgamation. ”

“ But here we are still floundering in the mud of craft unionism, and progressing at only a snail's pace. Disregarding the rapid consolidation of the employers and their wonderful increase in strength, American Labor plods along with the 19th century condition of from 10 to 15 autonomous craft unions in each industry, [5] and considers such a primitive state of unorganization as the acme of trade union accomplishment. There is hardly a breath of progress anywhere. ”

“ It is also true that in this capacity they have from time to time asserted such power as this form of organization has conferred upon them. It is equally true that mere craft unionism, no matter how well it may be organized, is in the present highly developed capitalist system utterly unable to successfully cope with the 428capitalist class. The old craft union has done its work and belongs to the past. Labor unionism, like everything else, must recognize and bow to the inexorable law of evolution. ”

“ They believed trade unionism wrong in principle. They discarded the principle of trade autonomy for the principle of laboring class solidarity, for, as one of their spokesmen said, “The industrial union, in contradistinction to the craft union, is that organization through which all its members in one industry, or in all industries if necessary, can act as a unit.” ”

“ The Failure of Craft Unionism
Now let us see if this is not literally true. Apart from the railroads there is not a large corporation in the country that has a union agreement, and not so many of the small ones for that matter. All the big corporations have turned the unions down cold, and the unions have never been able to work enough men in under cover to make even a dent in the operation of the plants by a walkout. ”

“ Especially the new movement, as represented by the Trade Union Educational League, repudiates the conception, long a dogma of the dual unionists, that the trade unions are anchored to the principle of craft unionism and cannot develop into industrial organizations. As against the old idea that the inevitable industrial unions have to be created out of the whole cloth, by fiat as it were, the new movement holds that they are coming as a result of an evolutionary process, by a constant building-up, re-organization, and consolidation of the primitive craft unions. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Again unionism may indirectly through its wage policy cause a slowing up of recruiting of new men into the craft or industry. In short, by every means at its command, a union strives to assert the importance of its group as against other interests. Thus, in respect to the activities just described, unionism must be included among the influences which lead to the formation and maintenance of relatively separate groups of wage earners. ”

“ When the greater capitalist finds approval for the craft union it is obvious that the latter can no longer be regarded as a very serious protagonist of labor.
It has ceased to have fighting capacity because that for which it seeks to fight is already doomed.
A new form of organization is taking its place. This new form, called Industrial Unionism, implies more than the possession of a more effective weapon by the working class. ”

“ So long as industry was, relatively, in an undeveloped state and great areas of land were available for settlement, the craft unions met the requirements of the organized portion of the working class; but, when the development of inventions brought on the "machine age" and the desirable lands were occupied, craft unionism ceased to function advantageously. ”

“ There are the typewriters, the bookkeepers, the teamsters, and all other classes of labor that are involved in the making and delivering of the barrels. We insist that all the workers in the whole of any given plant shall belong to one and the same union.
This is the very thing the workers need and the capitalist who owns the establishment does not want. He believes in labor unionism if it is the “right kind.” And if it is the right kind for him it is the wrong kind for you. He is more than willing that his employes shall join the craft union. ”

“ If, however, with the aid of the craft system, they could destroy these unions, the idea of unionism would receive a body blow from which it would take it some time to recover. These capitalists have started out to destroy existing unions, regardless of the past services the system has rendered, not because of any impediment they offer as unions, but because they are the breeding ground from which may spring that menacing thing—one union of the working class. 181. Are the large capitalists behind the open shop drive? ”

“ The settlement of such disputes between unions affords employment for Executive Councils that never give satisfaction. Autonomy is the great God of union division. In the interest of autonomy millions of dollars have been wasted and thousands of opportunities lost to the organized workers. 178. How are opportunities lost? If even the comparatively small fraction of the workers at present organized into the craft union system would act as an economic unit, they would exert a power that legislatures would heed and courts not treat contemptuously. ”

“ It is clear, I think, that the adoption of industrial rather than craft
unionism is absolutely necessary if Trade Unionism is to succeed in playing that part in altering the economic structure of society which its advocates claim for it rather than for the political parties. ”

“ Craft union experience told the companies that it was perfectly safe for them to let the shopmen strike if they wished, that the other unions would stand at their posts, and they did. Nine union stayed on their jobs and helped the companies lick the other seven. That's the sort of unionism we have on the railroads; it's the sort we have all along the line throughout all the industries, and it is the sort we will continue to have till we put over the amalgamation project. ”

“ Take the leading strikes in their order, and you will find that, without a single exception, the organized workers have been defeated, and thousands upon thousands of them have lost their jobs, and many of them have become “scabs.” Is there not something wrong with a unionism in which the workers are always worsted? Let me review hurriedly some of this history of the past few years.
I have seen the conductors on the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad, organized in a craft union, take the place of the striking union locomotive engineers on the same system. ”

“ Even group struggles—the isolated wars waged by craft unions against their employers—bear fruitful lessons in class solidarity. For craft wars are becoming more uniformly failures, and they show the vital need for revolutionary industrial unionism. ”

“ Craft " Unionism has been strengthene< since about 1911 by the aspirations of those who saw ii Trade Unionism something more than an organisation fo raising wages and shortening the working day. If thi wage-earners were ever to obtain, through their own volun tary associations, the control of their own working lives and to obtain a steadily increasing participation in th direction of industry ; if a Vocational Democracy were t< be superimposed on a Democracy based on geographica constituencies ”

“ The unions deserve frank and loyal support; and until they obtain it, they will remain, as they are at present, merely a class organization for the purpose of extorting from the political and economic authorities the maximum of their special interests.
The labor unions should be granted their justifiable demand for recognition, partly because only by means of recognition can an effective fight be made against their unjustifiable demands. The large American employer of labor, and the whole official politico-economic system, is placed upon the defensive by a refusal frankly to prefer unionism. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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." ”

“ 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. ”

“ Amalgamation has now become, because of the League's efforts, the principal issue before the labor movement. Great numbers of organizations have endorsed its program, including 14 State Federations of Labor, 7 International Unions, scores of central labor councils, and thousands of local unions. The establishment of industrial unionism in America is a project for the very near future. As a first step, the League is advocating the consolidation of the crafts in the various industries into single unions, each of which shall cover an industry. But the evolution will not stop there. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Rising out of conditions that have long become unsupportable, that were never intended should benefit but the few, conditions that are a living outrage on the lives of the working class of the nation; Industrial Unionism, the One Big Union, of all the workers of all trades and all industries; striving energetically and with devoted enthusiasm for the once burning ideal and hope of the world's toilers Solidarity to the end of accomplishing final and complete industrial emancipation, is no longer a mere plan or scheme to foist upon the wage workers of the land. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The aggressive unions of the thirties practically disappeared. With industry disorganized, trade unionism, or the effort to protect the standard of living by means of strikes, was out of question. As the prospect for immediate amelioration became dimmed by circumstances, an opportunity arrived for theories and philosophies of radical social reform. Once the sun with its life-giving heat has set, one begins to see the cold and distant stars. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Likewise typical of the ruin wrought by dual unionism was the movement that gave birth to the Canadian One Big Union in 1918. Freeing themselves for the moment from the dual union obsession, the rebels had raised the banner of industrial unionism in the old trade unions, and the workers, seeing at last an escape from reactionary policies and leadership, responded en masse. ”