Page:The Evolution of Industrial Democracy (Woodruff).pdf/27

This page has been validated.
INDUSTRIAL DEMOCRACY
25

is too apparent—and the machine attendants, developing under new and different conditions, have a new and different viewpoint—to them, the old craft notions of property, mutual interests, contract and defense are just so much ancient and useless "junk."

THE MACHINE PROLETARIAT

With the development of the machines there also developed the grooms of the machines—the machine proletariat (workers possessing no specialized skill). These workers have always been denied recognition by the craftsmen, because the craft attitude was one of contempt for the unskilled; and further, the craftsmen have always had an instinctive knowledge of the difference of the proletarian outlook upon industry and life, and feared that the machine men would refuse to accept the "God-given" leaders and would rule the labor organizations by reason of their superior numbers. However, these workers are now organizing on their own account and, since they are now the most numerous and most militant class in production, with the most urgent need to be served, they must in the end become the dominant force within the working class and their form of organization become the prevailing form.

The machine proletariat recognizes itself as the product of the machine, and, just as the craftsmen organized into craft unions on the basis of the hand tool, because it was the source of their living, so do the proletarians organize into industrial unions, on the basis of the machine—that being the source of life. They do not recognize skill as a property, giving anyone an aristocratic standing in labor, for the conquering machine rapidly destroys such skill as yet survives. Manual training, industrial schools and shop experience quickly fit the worker for his place at the machine, so the industrial union practices no exclusion, but accepts all who enter at only a nominal fee. It regards the wages system as