Trade union leader

“ But both Amalgamations and Federations, being definitely limited to similar or related and interdependent trades, are in idea essentially Trade Unions. The distinctive connotation of the term Trades Union was the ideal of complete solidarity of all wage-workers in “One Big Union”—that is to say, a single “universal” organisation. It is the attempt, on the part of the Trade Union leaders, to form not only national societies of particular trades, but also to include all manual workers in one comprehensive organisation, that constitutes the New Unionism of 1829-34. ”

“ But during this period, also, there were not lacking men, even among the prominent trade-union leaders, who characterized the trade union as exclusive, and warmly advocated the formation of broader organizations which would elevate the masses by other means than the strike and the regulation of apprenticeship. ”

“ In no respect, however, does the conversion of the Trade Union leaders to middle-class views stand out more clearly than in their attitude to the clamour from the workers in certain industries for the legal protection of their Standard of Life. From time immemorial one of the leading tenets of Trade Unionism has been the desirability of maintaining by law the minimum Standard of Life of the workers, and it was still steadfastly held by two important sections of the Trade Union world, the Cotton Operatives and the Coal-miners. ”

“ As the Trade Union movement develops in power and intelligence, it inevitably stretches out its hands towards the control of industry. The Trade Union, no doubt, begins as a mere bargaining body, “a continuous association of wage-earners for the purpose of maintaining or improving their conditions of employment”; but it cannot grow to its full stature without becoming far more than this, without claiming for itself and its members the right to control production. ”

“ So long as each section of workers believed in the intention of the governing class to protect their trade from the results of unrestricted competition no community of interest arose. It was a change of industrial policy on the part of the Government that brought all trades into line, and for the first time produced what can properly be called a Trade Union Movement. In order, therefore, to make this movement fully intelligible, we must now retrace our steps, and follow the political history of industry in the eighteenth century. ”

“ Without taking a vigorous part in promoting, enforcing, and resisting all sorts of legislation affecting education, sanitation, the Poor Law, the whole range of the Factories, Mines, Railways, and Merchant Shipping Acts, the Shop Hours, Truck, Industrial Arbitration and Conciliation, and now even the Trade Boards’ Act, the Trade Union cannot properly fulfil its function of looking after the regulation of the conditions of employment. ”

“ Just as democratic government cannot be condemned because of errors and even crimes committed by men democratically elected, so trade-unionism must not be condemned because of errors or crimes of occasional trade-union leaders. ”

“ In order to fulfill its important functions of protecting the workers, giving to them adequate control over their working conditions, and the power of bargaining for the disposal of their labor power through recognized representatives, trade-union organization must be world-wide. Organizations of capital are so, or are becoming so, and in order that the workers may bargain upon an equal footing, they must be in an equally strong position. ”

“ In 1899, arising out of the losses caused by the costly engineering dispute of 1897-98, the Trades Union Congress established a General Federation of Trade Unions, largely at the instance of Robert Knight, the able secretary of the Boilermakers, designed exclusively as a mutual reinsurance agency against the heavy financial burden to which, in the form of Strike Pay, or Dispute or Contingent Benefit, labour disputes subject every active trade society. ”

“ As we have explained, the Trade Union, being essentially an Association of Producers, has never quite lost the idea that, so far as industry is concerned, this form of association, and no other, is Democracy. But the new form in which the faith in Associations of Producers is now expressing itself is concerned less with the ownership of the instruments of production (it being to-day commonly taken for granted that this must be vested in the community as a whole) than with the management of industry. ”

“ To this constant falling short of the reasonably expected achievements is, we think, due the perpetual see-saw in Trade Union policy: the Trade Unionists of one decade relying principally on political action, to the neglect of the industrial weapon, whilst those of a succeeding decade, temporarily disillusioned with political action, rush wildly into strikes and neglect the ballot-box. ”

“ Responsible and cautious leadership of the Trade Union Movement was becoming increasingly necessary. The growth of the great national Unions, alike in wealth and in membership, and the manner in which they subscribed in aid of each other’s battles, had aroused the active enmity of the employers. To counteract the men’s renewed strength, the employers once more banded themselves into powerful associations, and made use of a new weapon. ”

“ Nothing but wisdom and prudence in the leaders and loyalty and devotion in the rank and file could enable the Trade Union Movement to come through a period of such unparalleled crisis with its essential unity unimpaired, its organisation fundamentally sound, and its future uncompromised. ”

“ The practice of “paying by results” is alleged to lead sometimes to reckless recruiting, to “in and out” Trade Unionism, and even to wholesale poaching among the membership of other Unions; and it produces in the Trade Union world a type of “business man” more concerned for numbers than for raising the Standard of Life of the members he has enrolled, or for co-operation with other Trade Unions for their common ends. ”

“ Whether or not we are to see all the rival and sectional Unions in each industry amalgamating into a single “Industrial Union,” as many Trade Unionists desire, it must be recognised that the development, during the past decade, of active negotiating federations for the several industries goes far to supply the most urgent need. In short, although financially distinct Trade Unions remain, on the whole, as numerous as ever, the number of separate negotiating [Pg 554] bodies, so far as concerns matters relating to an industry as a whole, becomes steadily smaller. ”

“ The trade union of to-day is far less exclusive, far less monopolistic than it was before the appearance of the Knights of Labor and the new unions of England. Most important of all, the trade union now realizes the truth of that fundamental thesis of the Knights of Labor—that machinery is fast obliterating the line between the skilled and unskilled trades—and devotes a large share of its strength and funds to the organization of the lower classes of labor. ”

“ Whether we study the elaborate collection of Trade Union rules and other documents made by the Commission, or the personal evidence given by the leaders or advocates of Trade Unionism, we find from beginning to end absolutely no claim, and even no suggestion, that the Trade Union should participate in the direction of industry, otherwise than in arranging with the employers the conditions of the wage-earner's working life. ”

“ But it has been equally apparent in the incapacity of the Trade Union Movement as a whole to establish any central authority to prevent overlapping organisations and demarcation disputes, and to co-ordinate the efforts of the various sections of workers towards a higher standard of life and greater control over the conditions of their working lives. ”

“ What the future has in store for the trade union movement in the United States is merely a matter of conjecture, but many believe that a crisis is at hand in which it may see rapid changes. The open-shop campaign of the employers, combined with the reactionary national administration, may bring to a head tendencies which have been gathering force now for some years. ”

“ These exceptional statutory privileges for the protection of Trade Union officials in the exercise of their lawful vocation, and of “pickets” in the performance of their lawful function—in themselves a triumph for Trade Unionism—have ever since excited great resentment in most of those who are not wage-earners. Some friends of the Trade Unions expressed at the time the doubt whether the policy thus forced upon Parliament would prove, in the long run, entirely in the interest of the Movement ”

“ Many labor unions suffered a considerable decline in members. The Typographical Union lost about ten per cent. of its membership, the Brotherhood of Carpenters about fifty per cent., while the Cigar Makers with a highly developed system of benefits lost only one and one half per cent. The trade unionists naturally regard it as peculiarly desirable that the members should not abandon the organization when the difficulty of maintaining wages and conditions is greatest. To hold in hard times what has been gained in good times is a vital point in trade-union policy. ”

“ The annual Trades Union Congress, the Parliamentary Committee, and the political proceedings of these years constitute practically the only common bond between the isolated and often hostile sections. In all industrial matters the Trade Union world was broken up into struggling groups, destitute of any common purpose, each, indeed, mainly preoccupied with its separate concerns, and frequently running counter to the policy or aims of the rest. The cleavages of interest and opinion among working men proved to be deeper and more numerous than any one suspected. ”

“ To the idealistic and active-minded Trade Union official in particular, weary of the perpetual haggling with employers over fractional changes in wages and hours, the prospect of becoming the representative of his fellow-workers in a self-governing industry, with all the initiative and responsibility that such a position would involve, was decidedly attractive. ”

“ XIII TRADE UNION IDEALS AND POLICIES Trade unionism does not embrace the whole of industrial democracy, even for organized labor and even were the whole of labor organized, as we hope one of these days it will be, but it does form one of the elements in any form of industrial democracy as well as affording one of the pathways thither. ”

“ Repeated attempts have been made to arrive at some “line of demarcation” or other compromise, by which this rivalry between Unions could be brought to an end; but hitherto without success. The quarrel is inflamed by a conflict of Trade Union doctrine. The engineers, boilermakers, carpenters, and other trades assert that organisation should be by craft, whatever may be the industry in which the craftsman is working. ”

“ As a matter of fact, the getting and enforcing of legislation is, historically, as much a part of Trade Union function as maintaining a strike. [668] One Trade Union at least, which no one ever dreamt to be illegal, the United Textile Factory Workers’ Association, has existed exclusively for political action, and had no other functions. [669] This kind of Trade Union action is even antecedent in date to any corporate dealing with employers. ”

“ At other times the Trade Union appears to the bulk of its members either as a political organisation whose dictates they are ready to obey at Parliamentary and other elections, or as a mere benefit club in the management of which they do not desire to take part. In the long intervals of peace during which the constitution of the Society is being slowly elaborated, the financial basis strengthened, the political and trade policy determined, less than a half or perhaps even a tenth of the members will actively participate in the administrative and legislative work. ”

“ The new ideas which are to-day taking root in the Trade Union world centre round the aspiration of the organisations of manual workers to take part—some would urge the predominant part, a few might say the sole part—in the control and direction of the industries in which they gain their livelihood. ”

“ The growth of governmental interference with industry and of trade unionism are part of the same movement to control the working of economic relations with a view to maintaining the conditions of the good life. Trade unions have grown and are still steadily growing in size and importance. For a large portion of the nation loyalty to a trade union has become the most obvious form of collective loyalty or general will. ”

“ The ideal of taking over the instruments of production appealed to all intelligent workmen as workmen. To them it seemed merely Co-operative Production writ large, the ownership of the instruments and of the product of labour by the workers themselves. But the ownership and management was now to be carried out, not by small competing establishments doomed to failure, but in the industry as a whole by a “blackleg-proof” Trade Union. ”