Industrial union

“ The industrial union comprises only the permanent workers and employees of a given industry who are directly engaged in the process of production or serve to aid the same. All auxiliary branches serving not production but the producers and all the temporary and casual help remain members of their industrial union. ”

“ These industrial unions are grouped into Industrial Departments of connecting or kindred industries, while all are brought together in One Big union of all the workers of the world—the I.W.W. Workers, not officials, call strikes on or off. All power thereby remains in the hands of the man on the job. ”

“ The trade union, itself the product of industrial evolution, is subject to the laws of change, and the union that may have served some purpose a quarter of a century ago is now as completely out of date as the tools of industry that were then in use. ”

“ 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. ”

“ They are organizing for the battles of today, for better conditions, and for the final clash in the future when the general lock-out of the parasite class of non-producers will end the contest for industrial possession.
If you are one of the millions needed to accomplish the task, join the industrial union composed of workers in the shop or plant where you work. If none exists be the first to get busy. Get others, organize them. Learn to tackle the industrial problems, show others how the workers will be able to run the industries through agencies of their own creation the world over. ”

“ INDUSTRIAL UNION MANIFESTO
Social relations and groupings only reflect mechanical and industrial conditions. The great facts of present industry are the displacement of human skill by machines and the increase of capitalist power through concentration in the possession of the tools with which wealth is produced and distributed.
Because of these facts trade divisions among laborers and competition among capitalists are alike disappearing. Class divisions grow ever more fixed and class antagonism more sharp. ”

“ All the workers in any plant, factory, mine, mill or any given industry in a given locality organize in one Local Industrial Union. All the local industrial unions of a given general industry are banded together in the National Industrial Union. ”

“ In presenting this plan of organization of industries, as it exists today, we have in mind only the object before explained. The workers, forced by capitalist ownership of the means of production to do service in all these industries, must organize themselves in their proper places in the industries in which they are engaged. Every worker who studies this map will find where he will fit in when the industries are organized for the control of the workers through industrial organization. ”

“ 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 consistent policy of the National Government, so far as it has the power, is to hold in check the unscrupulous man, whether employer or employee; but to refuse to weaken individual initiative or to hamper or cramp the industrial development of the country. We recognize that this is an era of federation and combination, in which great capitalistic corporations and labor unions have become factors of tremendous importance in all industrial centers. ”

“ If we take the organizational structure of the trade unions we will see that the unions, from narrow craft organizations, are turning into wider units and later into industrial unities. This process is very slow. ”

“ Another factor in the growth of industrial unionism has been the necessity of acting together on the part of established craft unions themselves. If in a certain metal factory there are machinists, iron moulders, toolmakers, metal polishers, and numerous other crafts, each organized in a separate union, it is folly for the machinists to go on strike alone for their demands, and for all the other crafts to keep at work. ”

“ If his work is to assist railroading, no matter what the nature of his task, he is put in the Railroad Workers' Industrial Union No. 520. So with any worker in the textile mill; whether he be an engineer, loom fixer, or janitor, he takes his place in the Textile Workers' Industrial Union No. 410; and so on until the whole field of working class activity is covered. All the time the I. W. W. is organizing, it is educating the workers, giving them a new viewpoint, filling them with a new consciousness. ”

“ One day as I lay dreaming, this vision came to me:
I saw an army streaming singing of liberty;
I marked these toilers passing by, I listened to their cry,
It was a triumphant anthem—an anthem filled with joy;
It was a triumphant anthem—an anthem filled with joy.
CHORUS:
One union, industrial union;
Workers of the world unite,
To make us free from slavery
And gain each man his right. ”

“ You have got to go to the mill at 7 in the morning and work until 6 in the evening, producing, not for yourself, but for the capitalist who owns the tools you made and use, and without which you are almost as helpless as if you had no arms.
454This fundamental fact in modern industry you must recognize, and you must organize upon the basis of this fact; you must appeal to your class to join the union that is the true expression of your economic interests, and this union must be large enough to embrace you all, and such is the Industrial Workers of the World. ”

“ The Industrial Workers proposes to first unite all workers within one organization, classified in the various departments representing their several trades and occupation, to bring them all into harmonious economic relations with each other. The next thing is to coördinate them within their several industries with an eye to operating these industries when they secure control of them. That is the central function of the new union, and by far the most important one. ”

“ Together with the part which the unions are playing in the matter of directing the industrial life along the channels fixed by the programs of production, based upon the subjugation of private interest to those of society as a whole, comes their activity in connection with the basic element of production—labor. Therefore, the decisions of the central trade union associations are obligatory insofar as they bear on the questions of wage scales, inspection of labor, internal regulations within the factories, standards of production and labor discipline. ”

“ That class, for its own protection and perpetuation in power, subjects all other institutions to their prevailing class interests. Conversely, there is a class that strives to change the foundation of the industrial arrangement. The workers realize that immediately following the change these social relations will also be shifted; institutions deriving their support and sustenance from the class in power will be made to conform to new conditions after the overthrow of the previously existing industrial system. ”

“ The industrial unionists propose to organize the workers for more militant action within present day society, so that, with every advance gained, the workers will gain an appetite for more and for all, and will find the means to get it. ”

“ Categorically defending the consistent introduction and application of the principle underlying production as regards all categories of workers, not accepting into its labor organizations those unions which are built on guild, corporation and narrow trade lines, for the purpose of better serving the economic interests of the most typical industrial groups and categories, the organization of sections on a local and national scale is allowed within each vocational union. ”

“ We find that the centering of the management of industries into fewer and fewer hands makes the trade unions unable to cope with the ever-growing power of the employing class. The trade unions foster a state of affairs which allows one set of workers to be pitted against another set of workers in the same industry, thereby helping to defeat one another in wage wars. ”

“ Since then the forms, methods and yield of production have rapidly developed in one direction, in every industrially advanced country. The means of production were centralized ever more in fewer and fewer hands. With the centralization of the means of production and distribution, the agencies protecting the interests in power also grew proportionately. Gradually all elements that obscured the lines of cleavage between the producers of wealth and the class that expropriated all economic resources of the world are eliminated. ”

“ It is composed of representatives of industrial commissions, factory committees, and similar institutions. On the one hand, the industrial unions embrace all industrial activity, they have ramifications in the various towns and are maintained by the masses of the organised workers. ”

“ Many industrialists treat an arrangement with a union as an easy way of buying industrial peace. In their view Union is a supplier of Industrial peace in the factory. Once you get along well with Shri Mehta, you do not have to bother about keeping scores of workers in your employment in discipline. Such owners find that a better option. Real problem comes before bigger units where the employer is a company. ”

“ Rise of Great Corporations.%—That mechanical progress so astonishing should powerfully affect the business and industrial world was inevitable. Trades, occupations, industries of all sorts, began to concentrate and combine, and corporations took the place of individuals and small companies. In place of the forty little telegraph companies of 1856, there was the great Western Union Company. In place of many petty railroads, there were a few trunk lines. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Meanwhile, the political organisation of the Trade Union Movement, and the enlargement of its ideas on Communal and Industrial Democracy, have been manifesting themselves also in the important sphere of Local Government. ”

“ Even the skilled mechanic saw himself exposed to panics, commercial crises, and violent industrial dislocations, over which neither he nor his Trade Union had any control, and by which he and his children were often reduced to destitution. ”

“ Laying aside all projects of Social Revolution, they set themselves resolutely to resist the worst of the legal and industrial oppressions from which they suffered, and slowly built up for this purpose organisa- tions which have become integral parts of the structure of a modern industrial state. This success we attribute mainly to the spread of education among the rank and file, and the more practical counsels which began, after 1842, to influenc the Trade Union world. ”

“ A trade union may be defined as a permanent organized society, the object of which is to obtain more favorable conditions of labor for its members. In order to retain its existence a certain amount of intelligence and self-control and a certain degree of regularity of contributions on the part of its members are necessary, and these powers were but slightly developed in the early years of this century. ”

“ If we look over into Europe we will see that our brother unionists have got quite a start on us in the matter of industrial unions, and in every case their method has been that of Amalgamation. The old craft unions are being lashed together, yea, rivited, never to be torn asunder. Over there industrialism is more clear to them than it is to us. ”

“ The pure and simple trade union, in seeking to preserve its 432autonomy, is forced into conflict with other trade unions by the unceasing operation of the laws of industrial evolution. How many of the skilled trades that were in operation half a century ago are still practiced? ”

“ The tremendous and highly complex industrial development which went on with ever accelerated rapidity during the latter half of the nineteenth century brings us face to face, at the beginning of the twentieth, with very serious social problems. The old laws, and the old customs which had almost the binding force of law, were once quite sufficient to regulate the accumulation and distribution of wealth. Since the industrial changes which have so enormously increased the productive power of mankind, they are no longer sufficient. ”