all crafts into one general union, based on the shop or on 1

the output." In short, the backbone of industrial unionism is missing in the United Textile workers, and craft un

ionism, the seceders say, "is flagrantly exemplified."2

The United Garment Workers and the Amalgamated Clothing Workers are almost identical in outward form. But the power accorded the local Joint Board or District Council is radically different. The United Garment Workers make it the duty of the District Council "to prevent one union from striking without the consent of the said District Council; to adjust all local differences, if possible, before the same is

referred to the General Executive Board."3 Nevertheless,

the local union need have only the sanction of the General Executive Board in order to strike. In the Amalgamated

4

Clothing Workers, however, the Joint Board has authority to deal with employers, and the sanction of both the Joint Board and the General Executive Board must be secured before a

5

strike is called. Since both organizations permit of craft unions, this is essential if there is to be local industrial solidarity instead of craft divisions.

But the fundamental difference is in the spirit of these rival unions. The A. F. of L. unions (the United Garment Workers and the United Textile Workers) are not revolutionary in spirit, not class-conscious, not militant, and

1. The New Textile Worker, August 30, 1919.

2. Ibid.

3. Constitution of the United Garment Workers of America, Article XIII, Dec. 3.

4. Ibid. Article XI.

5. Constitution of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, Article XI.

they are less responsive to the general will. Their leaders were accused of being conservative, of being politicians, of being traitors to the interests of the rank and file.

It was dissatisfaction with officials, particularly with President Thomas A. Rickert and President John Golden, which bred

secession.

1

President Rickert himself, in giving his official report of the secession movement to the convention of the United Garment Workers, said: "They began attacks on officials to weaken the confidence and faith of our membership in the management of affairs of the United Garment Workers of America. The Amalgamated Textile Workers speak of their experience with "the A. F. of L. organization of which John Golden is president" as "disastrous in the highest degree. Time and again they had been betrayed by the conservative leaders of the U. T. W., with their business contracts with the manufacture ers, their craft union organization, and their professed adherence to the false principle of the brotherhood of capital and labor. Hardly a textile center where the U. T. W. had

any kind of a foothold where the workers had not been treacherously misled. The Amalgamated, they declare, is an

organization

..2

1. Proceedings of the Nineteenth Convention, United Garment Workers of America, Cleveland, 1918. p. 39.

2. The New Textile Worker, August 30, 1919.