Industrial organization

“ The constant development and concentration of the ownership and control of industry will be met by a like concentration of the number of industrial unions and industrial departments. It is meant that the organization at all times shall conform to the needs of the hour and eventually furnish the medium through which and by which the organized workers will be able to determine the amount of food, clothing, shelter, education, and amusement necessary to satisfy the wants of the workers. ”

“ Nothing in modern times has exerted a more profound or far-reaching influence upon the general course of civilization. The factory is the symbol of a new economic order. It has been said, and rightly, that three things,—steam, steel, and credit,—have revolutionized industry during the past hundred years.
Industrial Organization of Today.—In the days of hand-industry men needed no large amounts of capital in order to engage in the production of goods. ”

“ The organization of society in terms of economic activity, building up through intimate local units, through district and divisional units to world organization within the major industrial groups does not provide any basis for effective co-operation between the individual groups. The metal workers of the world might produce machinery and the farmers wheat, but by what means are they to exchange their product and regulate their output in a way to secure the maximum of advantage on both sides? ”

“ In the place of a half dozen or dozen who were employed, each a skilled artisan, employed to do the work, you have a machine process to do that work and it resulted in the organization of the industry on an industrial basis. You have the oil industry, controlled by the Standard Oil; you have the lumber industry, controlled by the Lumbermen's Association of the South and West, and you have the steel and copper industry, all organized on an industrial basis resulting in a fusing, or corporation, or trust of a lot of former owners. ”

“ During the past thirty years the work of organization has made enormous strides; and it has been much accelerated by the increasing industrial power of huge corporations. The mechanic and the laborer have come to believe that they must meet organization with organization, and discipline with discipline. Their object in forming trade associations has been militant. Their purpose has been to conquer a larger share of the economic product by aggressive associated action. ”

“ That is to say, the workers of any one plant or industry must be members of one and the same organization—no craft division lines. The capitalist institutions are today organized on exactly the same lines. The industries as they are grouped today, dovetailing into each other, furnish to the workers the basis for the construction of their organization for the struggles of today for better living conditions, and for the supervision and the management of industries in an industrial commonwealth of workers and producers. ”

“ Almost all other forms of economic occupation have subsequently taken on the main characteristics of the factory system, in utilizing improved machinery, in the extensive scale on which they are administered, in the use of large capital, and in the organization of employees in large bodies. ”

“ Owing to the advance that has been made both in invention of implements and methods and in the organization of workers, there is now a marked difference in the value of the product of a day's work. A study of this situation shows the supreme need of action that will direct our energies as individuals and as a state in a way that will bring the largest value for a day's work.
We must choose with care our work, our equipment and our methods of combining our efforts. There must be team work within each industrial plant and each plant must be in tune with the whole competing world. ”

“ The process of production does not cease until the finished product reaches the consumer. All workers engaged in the process of distribution are members of the same industrial union, or Department Organization in which the makers of the commodity are organized. ”

“ The machine—aye, industry itself—must be the basis of organization.
The structure of the Industrial Workers of the World provides that all who labor in a given industrial plant or in an industry, of which there are one or more plants in the same locality, shall be gathered into one Industrial Branch, without reference to the tools they may use and without prejudice as to skill, race, color, sex, age or creed. The combined Industrial Branches from the Industrial Union. Wage earning is the "open sesame" to membership. ”

“ It is impossible, at this stage, to eliminate entirely the terms now used to designate certain functions that sets of workers perform in each industry. But it should be distinctly understood that this is not to imply that these craft-groups in industries will organize, as has been the case heretofore, in separate craft-unions, or according to the tools that each set of workers use. That would mean dividing-up under another name. A worker in an industry will be assigned to the organization representing the product or products of that industry. ”

“ In the same sense the existence of the industry is of greater value to many others in the organization and in the community than it is to the stockholders.
Hence, anything that interferes with the success of the organization injures many people.
WHAT IS NOT AN INDUSTRY.
Perhaps it will be well to state first what does not constitute an industry. Power, transportation facilities, fine buildings, fine machinery and a group of skilled workmen, a complete office staff and an elaborate system of fad management do not constitute an industry. ”

“ It would embrace all workers in piano factories, planing mills, furniture factories, hotel and bar fixture factories; all workers in cooperage shops, in reed and rattan factories, box factories, etc. Of course, the workers of each of these industries would form a branch organization, embracing all the workers of one or more plants in which a given article is manufactured, for instance, in an industrial union of piano workers would be organized not only the wood workers, but also the metal workers, tuners, polishers, piano movers, etc., employed in that industry. ”

“ Some may ask why should we consider other industries when we can find many good opportunities in our present enterprises. The answer is that our people drift away to other states to get into these industries for there they have discovered that the best chance to produce a large value for a day's work is where best implements are used and where there is the best organization of workers. ”

“ John Graham Brooks, takes up and discusses through nearly four hundred pages the economic significance of the social questions of the hour, the master passions at work among us, men versus machinery, and the solution of our present ills in a better concurrence than at present exists—an organization whereby every advantage of cheaper service and cheaper product shall go direct to the whole body of the people.... ”

“ This form of organization precludes the idea of the workers in one industry 'owning and operating that industry for themselves.' That proposal is found to be impossible of realization in view of the social character of production. ”

“ If the head or one of the heads of a proposed organization knows the market condition and knows what can be done in the sale of a new article, then the question of invention and manufacture can be safely left to those who have been well grounded in such principles. ”

“ This will make it easier to understand that each of these industrial subdivisions constitutes for itself a sub-organization of workers, in which they will be able to govern affairs that appertain to that industry alone. ”

“ But all of these products have more social value when they are transported to places of manufacture and commerce, where they are transformed and converted into commodities for exchange.
The life of human beings will not consist of common drudgery alone when all the good things created are enjoyed by the workers.
For all purposes, present and the future, the functions of the public service institutions have to be defined, and people engaged in their maintenance must be given a place in the industrial organization; the same as those who take care of the sick and disabled. ”

“ In its onward course to a further advanced system, society is going to utilize all that present day society has evolved and constructed. This the workers must know, and then they will also learn the intricate, interdependent arrangements of the component parts of the whole industrial system. Equipped with this knowledge, they will be able to construct and form their own industrial organizations, the frame-structure of the new society, accordingly. ”

“ I believe that under modern industrial conditions it is often necessary, and even where not necessary it is yet often wise, that there should be organization of labor in order better to secure the rights of the individual wage-worker. ”

“ Mines have been opened, factories established, railroads built, electric plants constructed, by some individual or [Pg 67] corporation interested in making a profit on the investment, and with little or no relation to the well-being of the community. There has been no recognized intelligent guidance behind the development of the industrial system. ”

“ This leads us to the third branch of industrial administration the settlement of the conditions under which the human beings are to be employed. The adoption of one material rather than another, the choice between alternative processes or alternative ways of organising the factory, the selection of particular grades of workers, or even of a particular foreman, may affect, for the worse, the Standard of Life of the operatives concerned. ”

“ The union of the Factory-Shop Committees of different concerns must be accomplished on the basis of the different trades, in order to facilitate control over the whole branch of industry, so as to come within the general industrial plan; and so as to create an effective plan of distribution among the different factories of orders, raw materials, fuel, technical and labour power; and also to facilitate cooperation with the Trade Unions, which are organised by trades. ”

“ Factories containing machinery operated by steam power could produce cloth, shoes, implements, and almost every other sort of manufactured commodity more cheaply than they could be made by hand-industry in the homes or in small shops. So the factory system spread over the length and breadth of the land, drawing large investments of capital into its vortex, giving rise to great industrial corporations, creating a new labor class, fostering the growth of great cities, and compelling the government to take a hand in the regulation of industry. ”

“ I will set up factories and form industrial associations, governing them myself. I will establish them on the principle of mutual assistance in forming and promoting a wide-spread intelligence: my factories shall contain schools, reading-rooms, museums, observatories, everything that can assist the onward progression of the race. ”

“ Machinery revolutionized the methods of production and, to keep pace with the possibilities, changed the mode of ownership. The old time partnership became a corporation; thus permitting the conduct of business on a broader scale and placing the management of large enterprises in the hands of men specially gifted or trained for the task. Ownership and control were separated and today we find many of the great industrial institutions directed and managed by men, who have no other interest in them than their splendid salaries. ”

“ In centralizing manufacturing plants in cities, certain industrial economies are secured, such as: (1) economy in motor power, whether it be water or coal; (2) economy in machinery—it is not necessary to duplicate machines ”

“ Under a producers' society, the relation between the various groups of producers will be maintained through a system of book-keeping that will charge against each economic group what it uses in the form of raw materials, machinery and the like, and will credit each group with the value of its product. Such a system is in vogue in any large industrial plant, where each department keeps its own accounts, charges the other departments with what they get from it and credits them with what they receive. ”

“ To ensure a smooth running of the wheels of industry it is indispensable, as we have already explained, to have one general plan. It is not enough for every large factory to have its own board of management consisting of workers. There are many factories and many branches of production ”

“ These are made up of representatives of trade unions, factory committees, and productive co-operatives, and aim at regulating the economic life of industrial plants using hired labor, the control in each enterprise being effected through the elective bodies of the workmen, together with the representatives of the salaried employes. ”

“ But very many of our big factories are nothing else but agglomerations under a common management, of several distinct industries; while others are mere agglomerations of hundreds of copies of the very same machine; such are most of our gigantic spinning and weaving establishments. ”

“ It was not until the invention of machinery, the advent of the factory system, the use of steam, and the application of new processes that the question of the relationship of employer and employed grew so complex and impersonal that new methods became necessary in the proper adjustment of industrial affairs. As step by step industry developed from the stage of the privately owned factory to the firm and corporation, to the combination and the trust, the real employer was removed further and ever further from personal contact with his employes. ”