Because it is a war without truce, all "time contracts" are anathema. When a trade union journal twits the I. W. W. with entering into such agreements, the eastern organ, Solidarity admits that in a single instance this was done by a Montana local. When this "violation of the principle and practice of the I. W. W." was discovered, the local was punished by the withdrawal of its charter.
There is little significance in a war policy so extreme, unless our business system is believed to be so near its end that it can be disabled and overcome by guerilla tactics such as these.
When a leader like Tom Mann in England warns his followers against making any agreement except of the most temporary nature with the managers of capital; when he tells them that every provision for peace between the two parties is a perpetrated wrong on labor, we see the whole relation set squarely on a war footing, and its chosen weapons are those of war. Old-fashioned strikes are to go on, but with a new purpose. They are to be quick and sharp in order to save ammunition. The men, even when striking, are "to keep at work, but spoil the product." They are "suddenly to return to their jobs before strikebreakers appear, but to drop work again until the boss is tired out." The short strike is not only to pester the employer; it is, like army drill, to become the school of practice in preparation for the coming general or universal strike. French syndicalists actually use the word grèviculture (strike culture) as if strikes could be nursed and grown like plants in a garden.[1]
- ↑ Griffuehles in L'Action Syndicaliste uses another figure, that of the gymnasium in which all practice is like that of army manœuvers.
