is: "Unite the Employers. Divide the Workers."
The more furious of the manufacturers' organs, such as the New York Commercial, hail these company unions as the death knell of "so-called collective bargaining" and "widespread organization of labor" which, with the growth of the employee representation plans, is now "unneeded."
Mr. Noel Sargent, manager of the Industrial Relations Department of the National Association of Manufacturers, and a most sedulous mouthpiece of the open shop interests, in a report on labor in England in 1925, contrasts the more favorable condition in which the American capitalists find themselves in view of the weakness of labor here and the growth of the company union. He says:
"The growth of various forms of 'employee representation' in American plants, providing for collective agreement between the management and workers of the individual plant … provides true collective bargaining instead of the form which exists under closed shop agreements in both America and England."
And such outspoken union-baiters as Henry Harrison Lewis, agent of President Barr of the National Founders' Association, and editor of many journals fighting for the non-union shop, have been lavish in their praise of the company union, particularly the highly advertised Pennsylvania committee plan. Like the League for Industrial Rights, Lewis and his organizations and organs are keen for the "new type of intra-factory organization of employees" and believe it will "produce greater loyalty and solidarity between the management and the employees and thereby make the men less susceptible to the appeal of militancy."
It need not be explained to the reader of this pamphlet that to the open shop, company union advocate, "militancy" means any form of bona fide labor union activity.
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