The Great Steel Strike and its LessonsFoster, William Z.
History
The Great Steel Strike and its Lessons
Foster, William Z.
Steel Strike, U.S., 1919-1920; United States Steel Corporation
To facilitate the work, district offices were established in Chicago
and Youngstown. Organizers and secretaries held district meetings
weekly. Local secretaries at points contiguous to these centers reported
to their respective district secretaries. All others dealt directly with
the general office of the National Committee.
It will be recalled that the co-operating unions, at the August 1-2
conference, agreed that the sum of one dollar should be deducted from
each initiation fee for organization purposes. The collection of this
money devolved upon the National Committee and presented considerable
difficulty. It was solved by a system. The local secretaries, in turning
over to the trades the applications signed up in their offices or at the
mass meetings, held out one dollar apiece on them. For the applications
secured at the meetings of the local unions they collected the dollars
due with the assistance of blank forms sent to the unions. Each week the
local secretaries sent reports to the general office of the National
Committee, specifying in detail the number of members enrolled and
turned over to the various trades, and enclosing checks to cover the
amounts on hand after local expenses were met. These reports were duly
certified by the representatives of the organizations involved, who
signed their names on them at the points where the reports referred to
the number of members turned over to their respective bodies. The whole
system worked well.
Practical labor officials who have handled mass movements understand the
great difficulties attendant upon the organization of large bodies of
workingmen. In the steel campaign these were more serious than ever
before. The tremendous number of men involved; their unfamiliarity with
the English language and total lack of union experience; the wide scope
of the operations; the complications created by a score of international
unions, each with its own corps of organizers, directly mainly from
far-distant headquarters; the chronic lack of resources; and the need
for quick action in the face of incessant attacks from the Steel
Trust--all together produced technical difficulties without precedent.
But the foregoing systems went far to solve them. And into these systems
the organizers and secretaries entered whole-heartedly. They realized
that modern labor organizations cannot depend wholly upon idealism. They
bore in mind that they were dealing with human beings and had to adopt
sound principles of responsibility, standardization and general
efficiency.
But another factor in the success of the campaign possibly even more
important than the systems employed was the splendid morale of the
organizers. A better, more loyal body of men was never gathered together
upon this continent. They knew no such word as defeat. They pressed on
with an irresistible assurance of victory born of their faith in the
practicability of the theory upon which the campaign was worked out.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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