- 206. What do we mean by an industrial union?
- All the workers, all over the world, have a common interest and are interdependent — the workers of one country upon the workers of all other countries. So, likewise, the workers in one industrial calling are dependent upon the workers in all the other callings and these other workers upon them. Yet, in industry, national and international, there are more or less clearly defined divisions which we know as industries, such as coal mining, railroading, lumbering, farming, steel, manufacturing, etc. When a man works in any one of these industries he comes into more intimate contact with his associated workers than he does with the balance of the working class. For instance, in or around a coal mine, whatever he does is done to assist in bringing the coal deposit to some convenient place from which it can be transported to where it is needed. Whether he be an engineer, machinist, blacksmith, miner, driver, loader, weighman, bookkeeper,—whatever he does—his labor fits in with that of all the other workers in and around the mine, and the objective of all their labors is to get the the coal in a convenient place. They could not fulfill this purpose without his labor classification, nor he without theirs. They are necessary to him and he to them; they are all the coal mine working force. The I. W. W. organizes all of them in one industrial union.
- Now, while each of these coal workers are in more or less personal contact with each other in the process of coal production, it is only through the industry as a whole, represented by the product—coal—that they come into contact with transportation and the transportation workers. The I. W. W. arranges for their contact, co-ordination, and co-operation in its general organization—the working class organization. By thus organizing the workers by industries and uniting them in one solid organization, you can see how the I. W. W. is forming the structure of the new society.
- 207. But are not the coal miners so organized now?
- No. "All is not gold that glitters," and every organization that appears to be is not an industrial union. Being an inclusive union in the industry is not by any
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