The I. W. W.: A Study of American SyndicalismBrissenden, Paul F. (Paul Frederick)
History
The I. W. W.: A Study of American Syndicalism
Brissenden, Paul F. (Paul Frederick)
Industrial Workers of the World; Syndicalism
some 30,000 textile mill employees in Lawrence secured
an increase in wages of from 5 to 20 per cent; increased
compensation for overtime; and the reduction of the premium
period from four weeks to two weeks. Also, as an indirect
result of the Lawrence strike, material increases in wages
were granted to thousands of employees in other textile mills
throughout New England.[577]
It is a significant fact that the highest percentages of increases in
wages were given to the unskilled employees. The General Executive
Board of the I. W. W. reported the range of wage increases as being
"from 5 per cent for the highly paid workers to 25 per cent for the
lowest paid workers."[578] Moreover, there were other effects, no
less important. This strike demonstrated that it was possible for
the unskilled and unorganized workers (preponderantly immigrants of
various nationalities) to carry on a successful struggle with their
employers. It showed what latent power there is in the great masses
of semi-skilled and unskilled workers. Moreover, it demonstrated the
power of a new type of labor leaders over the ignorant and unskilled
immigrant workers. A writer who has little sympathy for revolutionary
unionism says concerning Joseph J. Ettor:
This man ... steeped in the literature of revolutionary
socialism and anarchism, swayed the undisciplined mob as
completely as any general ever controlled the disciplined
troops ... [and was able] to organize these thousands
of heterogeneous, heretofore unsympathetic and jealous
nationalities, into a militant body of class-conscious workers.
His followers firmly believed, as they were told, that success
meant that they were about to enter a new era of brotherhood,
in which there would be no more union of trades and no more
departmental distinctions, but all workers would become the
real bosses in the mills.[579]
The Lawrence Citizens' Association reports that Ettor
avowed himself an advocate of the doctrine of "direct action,"
of violence, as a believer in the philosophy of force, for he
proclaimed time and again ... that "he who has force on his
side has the law on his side." He also advocated destroying the
machinery of employers who did not grant all the demands of the
strikers.[580]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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