required to maintain communication between the district and general headquarters. National Industrial Unions "of closely kindred in dustries" cies,l are united in a Department of Industry, as, for example, the Department of Mining or the Department of Transportation and Communication. On paper there are six of these The six departments are organized to form the Departments. Workers' International Industrial Union. Authority over the whole organization is centralized, at the same time that there are elaborate provisions for making the executives responsive to the will of the general membership. The annual convention "is the supreme legislative body of the organization, and its actions and enactments are of legal force unless reversed upon a referendum vote by the „,2 whole membership. Between conventions the supreme authority is the General Executive Board (G. E. B.), which is elected annually by referendum vote from a list of candidates nominated by the convention. "The decisions of the General Executive Board on all matters pertaining to the organization or any subordinate part thereof shall be binding, subject to an appeal to the next convention or to the entire 3 membership." The G. E. B. has full power to call out any other union or unions in support of a strike regularly 1. Constitution of W. I. I. U. 2. Ibid. 3. Ibid. ordered by the Organization or G. E. B., or in case of a lockout. "Any agreement entered into between the members of any Local Union, or organization, and their employers, as a final settlement of any difficulty or trouble which may occur between them, shall not be considered valid or binding until the agreement shall have the approval of the General Executive Board of The Workers' International Industrial Union. A local union shall be entitled to assistance from the general organization in case of strike only when the general organization has allowed or endorsed the strike question. Such is the authority of the General Executive Board, the embryo Economic Council of the United States. ion."l In the Industrial Republic there will be not territorial representation but industrial representation, regardless of geographic lines. Take Congress, for instance. The unit of Congressional representation is politically geographic, either a state or a geographic area within the state. Senators are elected from Wisconsin, Representatives from the Third and Fifth Congressional Districts, etc. But under a purely industrial representation, arbitrary geographic boundaries will be wiped out. no Maine or Mississippi. There will be no state of Wisconsin, appear. "Like the flimsy cardhouses that children raise," 1. Ibid. 2. De Leon, "Socialist Reconstruction of Society," 38-39. |