craft union movement has been marked by a succession of personal treacheries on the part of labor leaders. The inherent brutality implied in the craft union point of view has caused its exponents to neglect the weaker elements of society and to ignore the claims of that suffering portion of the proletariat whose needs are paramount. The very term, industrial unionism, implies the opposite of all this. The industrial structure comprises all the factors; the woman worker, the unskilled, the migratory, the roustabout, are all part and parcel of the industry at which, for the time being, they happen to be employed. They are not derelict, they are component and necessary factors in the composition of the working class, specific and indestructible elements in the particular industry in which they take part. No matter if the form of the industry changes, they change with it. An unskilled laborer of today may be one week engaged in labor work at a foundry and during the next week may be laboring in the building trade. Such a man is impossible in the craft organization. It is true that some steps have been made to incorporate him in the American Federation of Labor, under the charter of the United Laborers, but, as we have seen elsewhere, the existence of an unskilled labor union is incompatible with the structure of the A. F. of L. To the industrial unionist such a person presents no problem at all. He falls into his category spontaneously, being at one time under the metal trades jurisdiction and at another under that of the building trades, and all the time under the great combined industrial organization. So simple is the idea, so obviously practical. Yet, a few years ago the very thought would have been impossible. Its practicability has resulted from the development of industry itself from that operation of industrial processes which have rendered the industrial form of organization at once the most obvious and the most essential. It is thus that in Industrial Unionism we get the first real attempt at a realization of that class war which has been so vehemently and so vainly proclaimed for so long. The gathering together of a band of small bourgeois and craft unionists into a group, denominating that group a political party, singing the Marseillaise, indifferently, badly, and declaring a class war has almost reached its limit of entertainment. With this sort of revolution goes, too, the touching faith in the state as an employer. Municipal ownership and State ownership, translated into the dulcet expressions. "Municipal Socialism" and "State Socialism" are being found out. The sweating exposed in government industries, the failure of the government to be even a "good employer," a failure equally conspicuous in Europe as in the United States has given the government ownership advocates pause. The most striking and illuminative occurrence, however, was the French Railroad Strike of 1910, when the government did not hesitate to call the striking workmen to the colors as reservists and to exercise its military functions in support of its tyrannical behavior as an employer of labor. Under such conditions there is little wonder that the Municipal and State ownership political campaigns cease to excite notable interest on the part of the working class. The conflict is to be converted into a class war beginning at the point of production. The industrial Unionist favors the ever widening development of that conflict until overwhelming forces are brought into the field. Thus W. F. Hay (Industrial Syndicalist, Vol I, No. 5) says: "We must prepare for action; while we shall still find possibly that conciliation has its uses for us, just as diplomacy has for a nation, yet behind that diplomacy there must be force!force strongly organized, conscious of its mission and its strength-force so applied and driven home by constantly increasing pressure that the masters will have to give to force what they deny to justice. We must organize in such a way that no matter how few men are involved at first, if a principle is at stake we must make the area of the struggle rapidly larger and larger, until such vast interests are involved as to compel a settlement in our favor." So that the industrial unionism terminates as it began in the general strike idea. Its culmination is the general strike and the successful general strike is the means of the social revolution, in fact, the successful general strike may be called the social revolution itself. Perhaps the American organization, the In- ̈ dustrial Workers of the World has the most complete recognition of the functions and aims. of industrial unionism. This naturally arises. from the fact that the craft unions are in possession of the field in the United States and in order to make its position sufficiently clear the I. W. W. must state it accurately and concisely. The Preamble to the Constitution of the I. W. W. reads as follows: The working class and the employing class have nothing in common. There can be no peace so long as hunger and want are found among millions of working people and the few, who make up the employing class, have all the good things of life. Between these two classes a struggle must go on until the workers of the world organize as a class, take possession of the earth and the machinery of production, and abolish the wage system. We find that the centering of the management of industries into fewer and fewer hands makes the trades 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. These conditions can be changed and the interest of the working class upheld only by an organization formed in such a way that all its members in any industry, or in all industries, if necessary, cease work whenever a strike or lockout is on in any department thereof, thus making an injury to one an injury to all. Instead of the conservative motto, "A fair day's wages for a fair day's work, we must inscribe on our banner the revolutionary watchword, "Abolition of the wage system." It is the historic mission of the working class to do away with capitalism. The army of production must be organized, not only for the every-day struggle with capitalists, but also to carry on production when capitalism shall have been overthrown. By organizing industrially we are forming the structure of the new society within the shell of the old. Knowing, therefore, that such an organization is absolutely necessary for our emacipation, we unite under the following constitution. The constitution provides for an organization composed of actual wage workers. The real basis of the organization is the Local Industrial Union to be composed of "All the actual wage workers in a given industry in a given locality welded together in trade or shop branches, or as the particular requirements of the said industry may render necessary." A further development of this fundamental unit consists in the National Industrial Unions, whose functions are thus described; "Whenever there are more than five local industrial unions in any one industry having a joint membership of three thousand or more National Industrial Unions shall maintain all communications between Local Industrial Unions and General Headquarters until such time as the Department to which the National Industrial Union belongs is organized." The Industrial Department consists of "Two or more National Industrial Unions aggregating a membership of not less than 10,000 members. The Departments shall have general supervision over the affairs of the National Industrial Unions composing same, provided the general Executive Board shall have power to control these departments in matters concerning the welfare of the general organization." The Departments are designated as follows: Department of the Transportation Industry. |