Women labor union members; Women labor union members -- United States
Wherever syndicalists have actively taken part in labor struggles,
there has been the bitterest antagonism between them and the regular
labor bodies. The latter ever bear in mind the risks of a divided
front, and they have just reason to dread the "dual" organization
as the most completely disruptive influence that can weaken labor's
forces, and play into the employers' hands. Of this experience there
have been too many instances in the United States.
Syndicalists condemn agreements as a device of the enemy. It is true
that agreements may be so managed as to prove a very weak reed for the
workers to depend on in time of trouble. We have had many instances
within the last few years of the disintegrating effect on the labor
movement of agreements made between the employers and sections of
their employés, which while protecting these particular sections leave
other employés of the same firms out in the cold, either because the
latter have no agreement at all, or because it is worded differently,
or, most common defect of all, because it terminates upon a different
date, three months, say, or a year later. It was on this rock that the
printing pressmen struck during the huge newspaper fight in Chicago
which lasted the whole summer of 1912, ending in a defeat costly to
the conqueror, as well as to the conquered and whose echoes are
still to be heard in discussions between representatives of the
organizations and the sub-organizations involved. Though the fight was
lost by the pressmen, the dispute between the unions involved is not
settled yet, and the two principles at stake, loyalty to the interest
of their fellow-workers and the duty of keeping a pledge made to
employers, are as far as ever from being reconciled. The solution
ahead is surely the strengthening of organizations so that failing
a common agreement one branch or one craft will be in a position to
refuse to sign one of these non-concurrent agreements, or any sort of
agreement, which will leave other workers at a palpable disadvantage.
The demand for the speedy taking over of the direct control of
industries by the workers appears to me to ignore alike human
limitations and what we know of the evolution of society. But great
hope is to be placed in the coöperative movement, with the gradual
establishment of factories and stores by organizations of the workers
themselves.
The condemnation of political activity, too, is, as I see it, out
of line with the tendencies of social evolution, which demands
organization and specialized skill in managing the affairs of the
largest community as of the smallest factory.
The strength and value of syndicalism is rather in criticism than in
constructive results. In almost every paragraph in the platform we
can detect a criticism of some weak point in the labor movement,
in political socialism, or in the existing social framework we are
consenting to accept and live under.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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