The Threat to the Labor Movement/Section 32
Incomes of Labor Officials.
SALARIES in the American trade union movement run from $5,000 per year up. The "up" is twice the salary of a congressman, senator or cabinet officer. Warren Stone, late head of the locomotive engineers, held the record with $25,000 per year.
Even small fry in the labor movement get salaries which a small business man envies.
Fitzpatrick and Nockels, chairman and secretary respectively of the Chicago Federation of Labor, get $5,200 per year.
Walker and Olander, holding similar positions in the Illinois State Federation of Labor, get $6,500 a year.
Petrillo, head of the musicians' union in Chicago, gets $13,000 per year.
Jewell, head of the railway department of the A. F. of L., gets $7,500.
Daniel Tobin, president of the teamsters' union, one of the lowest paid group of workers in the country, gets $15,000 per year.
Mahon, head of the Amalgamated Association of Street and Electric Railway Employes' Union, gets $14,000 per year,
President Green of the A. F. of L. gets $12,000.
These salaries in most instances are accompanied by expense accounts ranging from $10 per day to $20, and labor leaders without a continual expense account are as scarce as Indian rajahs without harems.
When Farrington was president of District 12 (Illinois) United Mine Workers of America, he had his home in Indianapolis and had a perpetual expense account because he had to be in Springfield. John L. Lewis lives in Springfield and charges a continual expense account because he has to be in Indianapoiis, the headquarters of the union. The two cities are a few hours apart.
A witty coal miner once suggested that Farrington and Lewis exchange wives and save the union about $10,000 per year.
The needle trades unions are not stingy with their officials—especially those with some intellectual attainments. J. B. Salutsky (Hardman), on the staff of Advance, official organ of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers, was drawing $110 per week a few years ago, and probably gets around $125 per week now. Charles Erwin, socialist and former editor of the Call, gets less than Salutsky, but about twice the wages of the average member of the A.C. W.
A book can and should be written on the methods by which labor officials add to their incomes, but their salaries and expense accounts alone place them a long way above the needle workers whom they "serve."
Some of the methods by which labor officials add to their huge salaries can be listed as follows:
1. By receiving a commission on union printing contracts over which they have control.
2. By blackmailing employees. (New York Electrical Workers.)
3. By sharing in the campaign funds of the capitalist parties and receiving subsidies from individual candidates.
4. By uniting for the capitalist press. (Green, Woll).
5. By fees for delivering speeches before capitalist and middle class organizations.
6. By income from investments (hotels, banks, coal mines, etc.)
7. By organizing "testimonials" for themselves at which they are presented with sums of money, jewelry or other valuables for their "services." (Fitzpatrick of the Chicago Federation of Labor recently was given $300 in this manner.)
8. By receiving salaries for serving on committees and various other public and semi-public bodies other than the trade union.
The above by no means exhaust the possibilities for labor officialdom turning a few "honest" pennies but serves to give some idea of their opportunities.
As none of them ever go back to work at their trade we are justified in believing these opportunities are not neglected.
The needle trades unions, beginning as unions of sweated workers, have rapidly developed an aristocracy which differs little, except in social-democratic cleverness, from the typical A. F. of L. bureaucracy.
There has also developed in other unions of Jewish workers an aristocracy which shares its plunder in some small degree at least with the socialist party leadership.
With their economic status far superior to that of the masses of workers, the elements listed above, with the aid of the bosses and the government, make war upon the section of the membership which insists that union officials should belong to the working class.
It must not be thought that these elements do not have some mass support. They do. It consists of workers who, for one reason or another, enjoy better wages and working conditions than the majority of the working class, who are more backward politically for historical reasons than the rest of the union membership.