Trade unionism

“ The history of trade unionism in America has not as yet resulted in any such definite climax as this; but what foreign competition has compelled English employers to do a combination of employers in the Steel Trust has done for the steel workers in America. In other words, the trade union has to face one of two alternatives: either foreign competition is bound ultimately to compel the employer to destroy the union ”

“ Industrial Unionism is essentially no different from Trade Unionism in so far as it, like the Trade Unions breeds its own scabs and, on occasion hands out definitely reactionary advice to the workers. ”

“ Trade Unionism in theory, and as it may be consistently and intelligently carried out, can be a most useful aid to all concerned; but, as at present managed, clinging fast as it does to the cardinal principle of the right to prevent any and every [Pg 107] man from working who does not happen to belong to the order, it is a bane to society and a curse to its members. ”

“ He was one of those products of trade unionism who are always ready to create dissatisfaction where labour's contentment is most nourishing to capital—that is, at a price. He is not necessarily a part of trade unionism, but exists because trade unionism has created a market for his wares, and made him possible. ”

“ That is the trial which trade unionism faces in the United States to-day; it is the example trade unionism must set before it can expect willing acceptance as a fundamental industrial institution. Unless the union movement proves itself intelligent, disciplined, and aware of ethical considerations, a continuance of industrial conflict will be inevitable; for any practicable policy of wage settlement for industrial peace will require union participation. ”

“ If this presentation of trade unionism is made in even half-decent fashion the workers can hardly fail to respond. It is largely a mechanical proposition. In view of its great wealth and latent power, it may be truthfully said that there isn't an industry in the country which the trade-union movement cannot organize any time it sees fit. ”

“ Under trade unionism we understand such a form of the labor and trade union movement which has for its purpose only the narrow economic problems of bettering conditions of labor, higher wages, etc.
Trade unionism is a theory which has grown out of the practical Anglo-Saxon labor movement, which in fact does not have in its program, in theory or in practice, the overthrowal of capitalism, but only the betterment of conditions within the capitalist system. ”

“ The effectiveness acquired by trade unionism needs no better proof than the remarkable success with which these four organizations, with the full support of the whole labor movement at their back and aided by a not unfriendly attitude on the part of the national Administration, brought to bay the greatest single industry of the country and overcame the opposition of the entire business class. ”

“ If we turn from the history to the nature of trade unions it will be seen that what has happened must have happened. As has been stated, all agree that the ideal of trade unionism is to unite all the workers in one trade so as to substitute collective bargaining for [150] individual bargaining. Unfortunately by the very nature of things such a combination is impossible. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ We shall refer incidentally to half-a-dozen of the more important strikes of the generation; but nowadays it is not so much industrial disputes that constitute landmarks of Trade Union history as the steps, often statutory or political in character, by which the Movement advances in public influence and in a recognised participation in the government of industry. During the present century, at any rate, the action of Trade Unionism on legislation, and of legislation on Trade Unionism, has been incessant and reciprocal. ”

“ The immediate result was very largely to paralyse the Executive Committees and responsible officials of all Trade Unions, and greatly to cripple their action, either in securing improvements in their members’ conditions of employment or in resisting the employers’ demands for reductions. In particular, the general advances for which the railway workers were asking were delayed. The capitalists did not fail to use the opportunity to break down the workmen’s defences. Trade Unionism had to a great extent lost its sting. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The almost instantaneous conversion to Trade Unionism after the dock strike of tens of thousands of the unskilled labourers of the towns recalls, indeed, nothing so much as the rapid enrolment of recruits among the poorest wage-earners by the emissaries of the Grand National Consolidated Trades Union. ”

“ The case for the Industrial Union in such an industry as mining, for example, merely from the standpoint of Collective Bargaining, and for the sake of getting effective Common Rules, has always been a strong one; but the movement for the substitution of “Industrial” for “Craft” Unionism has been strengthened since about 1911 by the aspirations of those who saw in Trade Unionism something more than an organisation for raising wages and shortening the working day. ”

“ It has taken over a century of organization on the part of the employer and employee, of conflict between the two, of bankruptcy for the employer and of misery for the employee, to demonstrate that the ideal of trade unionism has not been and can never, so long as the competitive system persists, be attained. The trade unionist will answer that even though it be impossible to attain the ideal, trade unions have accomplished much and can accomplish more for the wage-earning class. ”

“ The working man found no more comfort in Trade Unionism than in party politics. The mason, carpenter, or ironfounder saw, for instance, his old and powerful Trade Society reduced to little more than a sick and burial club, refusing all support to strikes even against reductions of wages and increase of hours, and only maintaining its out-of-work benefit by running heavily into debt to its more prosperous members. ”

“ We must, therefore, look for a survival of trade unionism in the Socialist state. Those engaged in the different sections of production will have their voluntary organisations, which will very likely be international in their scope. ”

“ Trade unionism seeks to utilise private ownership, in order to obtain good wages, short hours, and favourable conditions for the men; socialism would withdraw capital from individuals. The socialists would regulate the whole State; the trade unionists would only look after their own people. Socialism is universal collectivism; trade unionism is corporate individualism. For instance, a great trade union declares, "The object of this Society shall be to improve the condition and protect the interests of its members." ”

“ They exhibit more tendency to “stand in” with their masters against the community, or to back them against rivals or interlopers, than to join their fellow-workers of other trades in an attack upon the capitalist class. In short, we have industrial society still divided vertically trade by trade, instead of horizontally between employers and wage-earners. This latter cleavage it is which has transformed the Trade Unionism of petty groups of skilled workmen into the modern Trade Union Movement. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The puzzling fact about the American labor movement is, after all, its limited objective. As we saw before, the social order which the typical American trade unionist considers ideal is one in which organized labor and organized capital possess equal bargaining power. The American trade unionist wants, first, an equal voice with the employer in fixing wages and, second, a big enough control over the productive processes to protect job, health, and organization. Yet he does not appear to wish to saddle himself and fellow wage earners with the trouble of running industry without the employer. ”

“ One would indeed be narrow to withhold praise from organizations and leaders who in spite of a most chaotic situation in their industry have succeeded so brilliantly where many looked only for failure. Looking at the matter, however, from the wider standpoint of labor history, the contribution of this so-called "new unionism" resides chiefly, first, in that it has rationalized and developed industrial government by collective bargaining and trade agreements as no other unionism, and second, in that it has applied a spirit of broadminded all-inclusiveness to all workers in the industry. ”

“ Trade Unionism: a New Model, by R. Page Arnot, 1919; and Is Trade Unionism played out? 1919, by the same. Some “extremist” thinkers among workmen have put their hopes of achieving the “Industrial Democracy” that they desire upon a development of the Shop Stewards’ Movement, which should become, together with a “Works Committee,” the instrument of transferring the management of each undertaking from its present capitalist owners and directors to the elected representatives of the persons employed. ”

“ From groping for a cooperative economic order or self-employment, labor turned with the American Federation of Labor to developing bargaining power for use against employers. This trade unionism stood for a strengthened group consciousness. While it continued to avow sympathy with the "anti-monopoly" aspirations of the "producers," who fought for the opportunity of self-employment, it also declared that the interests of democracy will be best served if the wage earners organized by themselves. ”

“ Great peers and Conservative statesmen were always blessing “Co-operative Production,” and always trying to stimulate the workers to undertake business on their own account. When the invariable failure of self-governing workshops became too obvious, the advocates of Co-operative Production fell back on “Labour Co-partnership”—partnership in business with the capitalist class! This was so obviously, and almost avowedly, an attack on, or at least a proposal for the supersession of Trade Unionism, that it aroused the fiercest opposition; and the very idea became anathema in the Trade Union world. ”

“ But after the collapse, in 1848, of Chartism as an organised movement British Trade Unionism settled down to the attainment of a strictly limited end—the maintenance and progressive improvement, within each separate occupation or craft, of the terms of the bargain made by the wage-earner with the employers, including alike all the conditions of service and complete freedom from personal oppression. ”

“ But the influence of Trade Unionism on working-class life cannot be measured by the numbers actually contributing to the Union funds at any one time. Among the non-Unionists in the skilled trades a large proportion have at one time or another belonged to their societies. Though they have let their membership lapse for one reason or another, they follow the lead of the Union, and are mostly ready, on the slightest encouragement from its members, or improvement in their own position, to rejoin an organisation to which in spirit they still belong. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Out of that double contact emerged the trade unionism of the American Federation of Labor.
The Internationale is generally reputed to have been organized by Karl Marx for the propaganda of international socialism. As a matter of fact, its starting point was the practical effort of British trade union leaders to organize the workingmen of the Continent and to prevent the importation of Continental strike-breakers. ”

“ We find that the centering of management of the 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 defeat one another in wage wars. Moreover, the trade unions aid the employing class to mislead the workers into the belief that the working class have interests in common with their employers. ”