their explanation: "Less pay, less shovel." A good translation of à mauvaise paie mauvais travail.
The advantages which are supposed to follow a shrewd use of sabotage are that it enables the men to hold their job, even while half ruining it. The risk and waste of long strikes have been learned. Sabotage, "if made an intellectual process," may strike at the employer a swifter and more deadly blow and lessen the chances of scabbing.
In order to show the easy resources of sabotage, Emile Pouget rather vauntingly puts down a list of rare accomplishments during only twenty days of July, 1910, when telegraph and telephone lines were cut to the number of 795. Instruction is given to show what can be done with "only two cents' worth of chemicals to spoil machine products."
The Technical World reports an I. W. W. strike in British Columbia that shows the strategy among highly paid labor. In the official statement of the general secretary, it is laid down as a principle of action that only by the exercise of power can the slightest concession be won from capital.[1] During strikes, he says:
"The works are closely picketed and every effort made to keep the employers from getting workers into the shops. All supplies are cut off from strike bound shops. All shipments are refused or missent, delayed and lost if possible. Strike breakers are also isolated to the full extent of the power of the organization. Interference by the government is resented by open violation of the government's orders, going to jail en
- ↑ I. W. W. History, p. 17.
