Dual unionism

“ 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. ”

“ In order to appreciate the destructive effects of dual unionism it is necessary to understand the importance to Labor of the militant elements that have been practically cancelled by the dual union policy: Every experienced labor man knows that the vital activities of the labor movement are carried on by a small minority of live individuals, so few in number as to be almost insignificant in comparison to the organization as a whole. ”

“ Before indicating more directly the devastating effects of dual unionism it will be well for us to glance for a moment at the historical development of that tendency in this country: Dual unionism is essentially a product of utopianism; it is the result of a striving to reach the revolutionary goal by a shortcut of ready-made, perfectionist organizations. ”

“ For many years practically all the radical papers and revolutionary leaders in this country were deeply tinged with dual unionism, In their program the ideas of secessionism and progressive unionism were welded into one. The consequence was that as fast as the active workers in the trade unions became acquainted with the principles of revolutionary unionism they also absorbed the idea of dualism. ”

“ The real cause of the extraordinary condition must be sought elsewhere. And it is to be found in the fatal policy of dual unionism which has been practiced religiously for a generation by American radicals and progressives generally. ”

“ The traditional way of dual unionism and the very essence of its program, is for the handful of militants to devise ideal unions, set them up in competition with the old trade unions, and to engage with the latter in an open struggle for control of the industry, a process which almost always results in simply stripping the old unions of their militants and leaving those organizations in the hands of the reactionaries. ”

“ Dual unionism's steady drain upon the vitality of the trade unions by withdrawing and demoralizing the militants piecemeal has been ruinous enough, but the many great secession movements it has given birth to have made the situation much worse. ”

“ The parched Sahara of dual industrial unionism swallowed up their efforts and left hardly a trace behind. The numerically insignificant dual unions of today are a poor bargain indeed in return for the enormous price they have cost. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Communist Party, Workers' Party, and Proletarian Party, have been particularly influenced. Made up of elements to whom dual unionism was almost a religion for many years, they have now turned entirely against that policy and are working diligently within the old unions to revive and re-invigorate them. ”

“ Their very loyalty becomes treason, and the working class they seek to serve is warned against them, while the false leaders are loaded with fulsome adulation.
But, nevertheless, the clear voice of the awakened and dauntless few cannot be silenced. The new unionism is being heard. In trumpet tones it rings out its revolutionary shibboleth to all the workers of the earth: Our interests are identical—let us combine, industrially and politically, assert our united power, achieve our freedom, enjoy the fruit of our labor, rid society of parasitism, abolish poverty, and civilize the world! ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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.
Craft unionism is the negation of solidarity. The more unions you have, the less unity ”

“ 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. ”

“ Flushed with confidence at the sight of their serried phalanxes and extending lines, the unionists do like most people invested with unwonted power; they aim at more than is possible or just. They fancy that they can put the screw on the community, almost without limit. But they will soon find out their mistake. They will learn it from those very things which are filling the world with alarm—the extension of unionism, and the multiplication of strikes. ”

“ 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 sense of solidarity has, as we have seen, never been lacking among those active soldiers and non-commissioned officers who constitute the most vital element in the Trade Union army. The generous aid from trade to trade, the pathetic attempts to form General Unions, the constant aspirations after universal federation, all testify to the reality and force of this instinctive solidarity. The Collectivist faith of the ‘New Unionism’ is only another manifestation of the same deep-rooted belief in the essential Brotherhood of Labour. ”

“ 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. ”

“ You declare you are in favor of united action, but still you don't unite. You unite under certain conditions within [116] your union, you get together upon the economic field to a limited extent, but you have yet to learn that before you can really accomplish anything you have got to unite in fact as well as in name. The time is coming when workingmen will be forced into one general organization. The time is coming when they will be compelled to organize on the basis of industrial unionism. ”

“ What could be more fundamental than the freedom to associate with other men, or not to associate, as each man’s conscience and reason dictates? Yet compulsory unionism is the rule rather than the exception today in the ranks of organized labor. Millions of laboring men are required to join the union that is the recognized bargaining agent at the place they work. Union shop agreements deny to these laboring men the right to decide for themselves what union they will join, or indeed, whether they will join at all. The exercise of freedom for many of these citizens, means the loss of their jobs. ”

“ 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. ”

“ They have accordingly developed such a passion for "regularity," such an intense conviction that there must be but one union in a given trade that, on occasions, scheming labor officials have known how to checkmate a justifiable insurgent movement by a skillful play upon this curious hypertrophy of the feeling of solidarity. Not only will a rival union never be admitted into the Federation, but no subordinate body, state or city, may dare to extend any aid or comfort to a rival union. ”

“ That after the workers achieve unity in a Federal Union the capitalists take charge of it and divide it up to suit their own interests. You, as a worker, would desire such a union as is implied in the Federal Labor Union—all workers in one union. An employing group, or even an individual employer, would want them divided up, and bound by rules and agreements, so that they could not act together. The Federal Union and what becomes of it demonstrates the difference between a working class conception of a union and a capitalist conception. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ We do not intend that certain departments shall so attach themselves to the capitalist employers. We purpose that the workers shall all be organized, and if there is any agreement, it will embrace them all; and if there is any violation of the agreement, in the case of a single employe, 455it at once becomes the concern of all. (Applause.) That is unionism, industrial unionism, in which all of the workers, totally regardless of occupation, are united compactly within the one organization, so that at all times they can act together in the interests of all. ”

“ There is nothing more calculated to remove class prejudice and antagonism than the co-operation of men of different classes on the same body for the same public end. And there is this about the aims of Unionism, that they are best calculated to teach the value of such co-operation; to bring home to men of all classes their essential inter-dependence on one another, as well as to bring home to each individual the pettiness and meanness of personal vanity and ambition in the presence of anything so great, so stately, as the common heritage and traditions of the British race. ”

“ 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." ”

“ With the defection of the New Unionists, revolutionary Socialism ceased to grow; and the rival propaganda of constitutional action became the characteristic feature of the British Socialist Movement. Far from abusing or deprecating Trade Unionism or Co-operation, the constitutional Collectivists urged it as a primary duty upon [Pg 413] every working-class Socialist to become a member of his Trade Union, to belong to the local Co-operative Society, and generally to take as active a part as possible in all organisations. ”

“ This opportunist unionism, now at last triumphant over the idealistic unionism induced by America's spiritual tradition, soon was obliged to fight against a revolutionary unionism which, like itself, was an offshoot of the socialism of the seventies. ”