The American Trade Unions.
By WM. Z. FOSTER.
THE trade union movement of the United States and Canada contains many well-defined species of unionism. These may be classified as follows: Petty bourgeois liberal, socialist, Communist, syndicalist, nationalist, and Catholic.
The petty-bourgeois liberal are the most typically American in character. They comprise the vast bulk of the whole movement, including almost all of the unions affiliated to the American Federation of Labor, as well as such important independent organizations as the four railroad brotherhoods. These unions have very little social outlook. They are engaged in a day-by-day struggle to improve conditions under the capitalist system. They not only have no new social system in mind, but they strongly repel all revolutionary ideas. When charged with actually aiming to perpetuate wage slavery, they reply hypocritically, in the words of Samuel Gompers that they seek the maximum improvement of the conditions of the workers, and that "there is nothing so lofty that the workers may not aspire to it," which means in practice the support of capitalism. Their inbred policy is the collaboration of classes, except that they refuse even to recognize that any real classes exist.
The socialist unions are located mostly in the needle trades. The five principal unions in that industry number about 300,000 members. They are made up overwhelmingly of foreign-born workers. They are officially dominated by the socialist party, and especially by the newspaper, the Jewish Daily Forward. They are of the usual Amsterdam type except that the officials of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers (men's clothing), for a time showed strong left tendencies which they are now abandoning. Except for these unions and an occasional local union or small national organization, few of the unions are even mildly socialistic. In the early days of the movement, being founded by radicals, many had <a revolutionary tinge. Likewise up until just before the war, when the socialist party was strong and vigorous, many unions were under the influence of the socialists including such important organizations as the coal miners, painters, metal miners, etc. But since then these unions have all gone over to Gompers' camp, even as the whole socialist party has practically done, so far as its labor union policies are concerned. At this time the socialists who formerly controlled one-third of the votes in the A. F. of L., have no nuclei in the trade unions, nor are they carrying on any war against the old bureaucracy
Those unions that are definitely Communist (apart from the Communist-led minorities in the lareg unions), are few in number, totalling at most 40,000 members. They are independent of the A. F. of L. and center chiefly around the United Labor Council of America, with headquarters in New York. The principal organization in this group is the Amalgamated Food Workers, with about 15,000 members. A couple of the many independent unions of shoe workers show Communist tendencies. The Communist movement follows the policy of organizing nuclei within the mass trade unions. Its expression is the Trade Union Educational League, which is described in another pamphlet of this series, and which has a large following in all the mass organizations.
The syndicalist union is the Industrial Workers of the World (I. W. W.). This organization, founded in 1905, has had a stormy history. It now has about 35,000 members. It follows a policy of dual or rival unionism, paralleling the old organizations wherever it can. It is independent of the A. F. of L. The I. W. W. condemns all political parties, and confines itself entirely to the struggle on the industrial field. Sharp differences between it and European syndicalist unions are that it advocates a centralized administration and the industrial form of organization. It speaks of the overthrowal of capitalism by direct action and the establishment of a new society organized and controlled by the labor unions. The "One Big Union," a small independent union claiming to be a general labor movement, is a mixture of socialist and syndicalist tendencies.
The nationalist unions are to be found in Canada. They exist in the railroad and in other industries. They are described elsewhere herein. Most of them have developed out of secession movements away from the American international unions. Patriotic demogogues, taking advantage of the discontent of the Canadian workers at the domination of American union officials, have been able to get considerable numbers of the Canadians to withdraw and to found independent national unions. These, of course, are of an ultra-conservative character.
The Catholic unions are also located in Canada, especially in the very backward province of Quebec. The Catholic church organizes no separate unions in the United States. This is because it finds effective expression through the trade union leaders, a large number of whom are Irish Catholics. For many years a feature of all A. F. of L. conventions has been the Catholic priests there lobbying for measures wanted by their church.
Membership of Unions.
The trade unions of the United States and Canada are numerically very weak. At present, out of an organizable working class of at least 20,000,000 workers, they comprise only 3,600,000. Of these 2,900,000 are in the American Federation of Labor, 600,000 are in independent conservative unions (railroad brotherhoods, clothing workers, etc.), and 100,000 in independent revolutionary organizations (I. W. W., U. L. C. of A., etc.). In the great prosperity immediately following the war the unions, all told, had at least 5,500,000, of which 4,078,740 were in the A. F. of L. in 1920. Since then the unions have lost almost 50 per cent of their effectives. Of the present membership, approximately 270,000 are in Canada.
Trade union organization is concentrated chiefly in those industries where skill still plays a large part. The unskilled industries, with but few exceptions, are almost entirely unorganized. The most strongly organized industry is the building trades. The unions control most of the big industrial centers and are able to insist upon strong union agreements with the employers. In the smaller towns the degree of organization is much lower in the building trades, as in all others. The largest union in the industry is the carpenters (United Brotherhood oi Carpenters and Joiners) numbering 350,000. Altogether the building trades have 800,000 members. The coal miners (United Mine Workers), are a powerful union with 400,000 members out of a total of 800,000 employed in the industry. The printing trades number 125,000, of whom about half are in the International Typographical Union, which, like all the printing unions, is affiliated to the A. F. of L. The clothing trades are strongly organized. During the war and for a year or two afterward, the railroad unions were very strong, about 1,500,000 out of a total of 1,800,000 workers being affiliated to them. But they lost heavily as a result of the economic depression and the ill-fated strike of the mechanics in 1922–23. At present all the organized railroad workers do not number more than 600,000, and these are contained mostly in the telegraphers and the four independent brotherhoods of train. service workers. The textile industry, with 1,000,000 workers, has only about 75,000 organized, and these arein several rival unions. The shoe and leather industry is only about 10 per cent unionized. The great oil, steel, meat packing, metal mining, automobile, and chemical industries are almost completely unorganized. Likewise the marine transport and lumber industries, save for small and weak A. F. of L. and I. W. W. unions. The millions of agricultural workers, municipal and state employes, clerical help, and general factory workers have no organization at all except in the rare instances of skilled workers and a small union of migratory agricultural workers in the I. W. W. In many of these industries, whwich are completely outside of trade union influence, the employers set up so-called "company unions," which are controlled by the bosses and which serve merely to delude and demoralize the workers.
Composition of the Working Class.
American industries contain millions of foreign-born workers of all nationalities. In the great Homestead steel mills, for example, 54 nations are represented. Comparitively few of these foreign-born workers are organized except in the clothing and mining industires. The American workers tend to monopolize the best jobs in industry hence they predominate in most of the skilled workers unions. The four railroad brotherhoods are almost entirely American in character, while the four largest clothing unions are made up almost altogether of foreign-born. One-seventh of the population of the United States are Negroes. These tend constantly to migrate from the agricultural south to the industrial north, from the farms into the industries. Already great numbers of them are engaged in the steel, packing, automobile, railroad and other industries. They are almost entirely unorganized. Many of the unions, notably the four brotherhoods, with the machinists, railway clerks, railway carmen, etc., openly refuse to accept them as members. This forces them to act as strikebreakers. The Negro question is a serious problem to the whole trade union movement. Women workers are also very weakly organized, except in the needle trades, where they play a very important part in the unions. Ordinarily the women workers join the same local unions as men in the same trades. In the A. F. of L. all the unions which contain considerable numbers of women are affiliated to the Women's Trade Union League This national body is typically conservative. Its alleged aim is to organize and educate women workers generally.
Structure of Unions.
The American Federation of Labor is the principal trade union center for the United States and Canada. It is a very loose federation of 111 national and jnternational unions and 523 directly affiliated local unions. It is administered by an executive council of 11 members. elected at the yearly general conventions. These conventions are composed almost solely of the higher officials. With the exception of one year, Samuel Gompers was president of the A. F. of L. continuously since 1886, until his death in December, 1924. The organization was founded in 1881.
The A. F. of L. is divided into four departments building, railroad, metal and union label. The function of these departments is to secure cooperation among their affiliated unions. They were formed a few years ago to forestall a strong movement for industrial unionism. Strong resistance is made by the Gompers' clique against forming departments in other industries and those that exist have very little power. At best they are only very weak federations. Only one, being peculiar, merits description. This is the union label department. In the A. F. of L. there are 61 national organizations using different labels, stamps, and cards, which serve to indicate that their products are made by union workers. All these union label organizations are combined in the union label department. They keep up a constant campaign to induce the workers to use nothing but union made goods. The scheme, being in essence an attempt to control the purchasing power of the workers, is a sort of substitute for the co-operative and boycott movement proper. Great abuses attach to this union label agitation, which serve to weaken the labor movement. Unions having labels tend to lose their militancy. They get agreements with the employers on the basis of the amount of trade they control. The interests of the workers are often completely lost sight of in such union label bargains. Sometimes a system of semi-espionage develops, in which the workers have no say whatever over the regulation of their wages, hours and working conditions. Often serious corruption results by the officials selling the union label to "unfair" employers.
Although the A. F. of L. itself is decentralized, the 111 national and international unions composing it are highly centralized and autonomous bodies. These unions range in character from pure craft unions to pure industrial. The craft, or near craft, is the predominant structural type. In the railroad industry there are 16 "standard" organizations, one for each of the big craft divisions. The building trades are divided into 15 important organizations, and the printing trades into six. There are six unions in the clothing industry, and 25 in the metal industry. The food industry has several national craft organizations. During strikes these many unions in the various industries customarily scab on each other, save in the few cases where they have alliances among themselves. The usual method is for one or more unions to strike while the rest remain at work. In the national strike of railroad shopmen, 1922, nine unions struck while seven stayed at work. Such a lack of solidarity is of course ruinous to the workers' interests.
On the other hand there is only one union, the United Mine Workers, which includes workers of all classes employed in and around the mines. In the textile industry there is one A. F. of L. union, industrial in form, and half a dozen or more small independents. A similar condition prevails in the shoe and leather industry. In the general transport industry there are a dozen A. F. of L. national craft unions and several independents. The local type of unions that characterizes the British movement, is absent in America. The A. F. of L. unions stretch over the whole expanse of the United States and Canada. A big rank and file movement is being carried on by the Trade Union Educational League to amalgamate all these craft organizations into a dozen industrial unions.
In each of the states of the United States (and in some of the provinces of Canada) the A. F. of L. has state federations, comprising all the local unions in the respective territories involved. In all the industrial centers similar federations, on a local scale, are in existence. These state and city central bodies are purposely kept weak by the centralized national unions. They have insignificant representation at the A. F. of L. conventions. They have very little power either industrially of politically, the national unions watching them jealously as a dangerous, class type of organization. In Canada all the unions affiliated to the A. F. of L. are crystallized into the Canadian Trades and Labor Congress.
The conservative independent unions, including the four railroad brotherhoods, the Amalgamated Clothing Workers, etc., follow the general structural type prevailing in the A. F. of L. They are craft unions. On the other hand, most of the revolutionary independent unions take the industrial form. The I. W. W. particularly is a militant advocate of this type of organization. Operating under one general executive board, it sets up unions for each of the more important unions listed. Its strongholds are in the marine transport, metal mining, agriculture, lumber and general construction industries. The United Labor Council is a federation of revolutionary industrial unions. The Canadian O. B. U. organizes class unions with local autoonomy.
Miscellaneous Features.
The main body_of American organized labor is unaffiliated with the workers of the world. The A. F. of L was affiliated to the Amsterdam International, but withdrew because that reactionary organization wass "too revolutionary." Some of its affiliated national unions however, retain their connections with the corresponding Amsterdam organization. Among the unions retaining such affiliations are the Miners, Longshoremen, Machinists, and Ladies Garment Workers. The Canadian Trades and Labor Congress, although its constituent units are in the A. F. of L. remains affiliated to Amsterdam. In the A. F. of L. the movement for international affiliation is yet weak, both for Amsterdam and Moscow, but the growing strength of the Red International adherents within the unions, plus the desire to forestall the world unity movement of the R. I. L. U. is bringing the officialdom to consider reaffiliation to Amsterdam. The central labor councils of Minneapolis, Detroit and Seattle sent delegates to the R. I. L. U. Congresses, but could not affiliate directly. The Nova Scotia miners voted to affiliate, but had their charter taken from them by the head of the miners' union, John L. Lewis. The United Labor Council is affiliated to the Red International of Labor Unions. The I. W. W. has no international affiliation. At its 1923 convention it voted down propositions of affiliation both to the Moscow and Berlin Syndicalist Internationals. There is a strong element in the organization which holds that the I. W. W. is in itself the international.
The conservative trade unions have strongly developed insurance features, including benefits for strikes, death, sickness, unemployment, etc. This is especially true of the organizations of the most skilled workers, the unions of unskilled workers being unable to collect the high dues (which sometimes are as much as $10.00 per month) necessary to maintain such insurance. The four railroad brotherhoods have exceptionally highly developed insurance departments. Likewise the printers; in their recent great national strike the latter paid out $17,000,000 in strike benefits. On the other hand, all the revolutionary organizations are opposed to the insurance system. They charge low dues and depend upon their economic power, rather than upon their funds, to win strikes and to hold their membership together.
The trade union system of educating the membership in established schools is still in a very primitive state. The only industry which evidences any serious development of this nature is the needle trades. The unions in this branch all have regular educational departments. Within the last five years a number of trade union colleges were started in Boston, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Montreal and a few other cities, but the movement has not prospered. The only live institution of this character now existing is the Brookwood College just outside of New York. It is supported by radical and liberal sources. Two years ago the labor educational institutions, mostly of a radical character, combined into the Workers' Education Bureau. But the lieutenants of Gompers managed to seize control of it and to strangle it. The whole "workers' education" movement is taking on an ever more distinct class collaborationist character.
For many years American trade unions have tried to establish a real co-operative movement. The miners, clothing workers, the railway trackmen and various central labor councils have been especially active in this direction. But such efforts have almost universally failed. Either the men managing the co-operatives were incompetent or corrupt and wrecked them outright, or the enterprises became capitalistic by one means or an other. Within the past four years this movement has taken a new turn in the formation of labor banks. The Machinists launched the first bank; then followed one by the Locomotive Engineers; and after that came many more in rapid succession. At present there are about 25 of such institutions in various big industrial centers. Their total capitalization is about thirty millions of dollars. With the corruption and incompetence now prevailing among labor officials, it will be a marvel if a number of these banks do not go the way of similar labor enterprises by failing ignobly. When financially successful they are being used as instruments to boster up the failing power of reactionary trade union officials and to reinforce their policies of class collaboration.
Many American unions of skilled workers show tendencies towards becoming "job trusts." They restrict apprenticeship and charge exhorbitant initiation fees. Often they refuse entirely to accept members. This exclusive tendency prevails especially in the building trades. Sometimes these unions charge as high as $300 initiation fee. A common practice among them is to close their books and to refuse to accept into their ranks even members of their own national unions coming from other cities. If work is plentiful these newcomers are granted "working permits," for which they pay the union $1,00 or more per day. When work gets scarce the members of the union refuse to give out working permits, with the result that they have a monopoly of whatever work is to be had. Such practices are disastrous to the morale and solidarity of the workers.
A striking feature of American trade unionism is the graft and corruption prevailing among the officialdom. The officials, by playing politics within the organizations, manage to hoist their remuneration to fantastic heights. Salaries of $5,000 per year are common for officials of lower grades, while those in the higher executive positions receive $10,000, $15,000 or even $25,000 per year, together with the most extravagant expense accounts. In order to pay such huge amounts, the rank and file of the unions are taxed to a degree that is disastrous for the life of the unions. Not satisfied with even these salaries, many leaders descend to outright thievery. They rob the workers, the employers, and the "public" indiscriminately. They call strikes arbitrarily and then sell them out for cash payments. At the present time, Robert Brindell, formerly President of the Building Trades Council of New York, is in Sing-Sing prison serving a sentence of five years for having stolen great sums of money from the employers. Sometimes these officials, notably in the large cities, are professional criminals with jail records, who use their labor connections to cover up the most nefarious activities. At this time "Big Tim" Murphy, a prominent Chicago trade unionist, is sojourning three years in Leavenworth penitentiary for having robbed the United States mails of $100,000. Often labor officials in the building trades are criminals, who maintain their control over the organizations virtually at the point of the gun. The worker who tries to oppose them actually does so at the risk of his life. Constant feuds rage between these gunmen officials, marked by frequent killings. Many of these dishonest officials have grown wealthy, becoming even real capitalists and living in luxury. John Mitchell, former President of the United Mine Workers, died worth $500.000. Often after an official has held an important position in his union for many years, he will go right over to the employers and become an official in their companies and take charge of organizing their fight against his own union. Many leaders of the Miners and Steel Workers have gone this route. The European labor movement has much corruption and betrayal among the officials of the trade unions, but the situation in this respect in the American labor movement is incomparably the worst in the world.
The trade union movement of the United States and Canada have an extensive system of journalism. But for the most part it is contemptible in quality. Each of the national and international unions has its own journal, usually a monthly. Besides, there are many labor papers in the various industrial centers, some owned by the unions and others by individuals. There is a general news collecting agency, the Federated Press, which serves about 100 papers. It is supported by the liberal and radical elements and fought by the reactionaries. The A. F. of L, publishes a monthly magazine, a weekly news service, and it has the International Labor News Service, which is mostly a propaganda instrument for the Gompers machine. The various independent unions, revolutionary and conservative, also have their own journals. The I. W. W. has a press in several languages. A feature of American labor journalism is the extreme corruption afflicting it. Often this passes belief. The worst affected are those published weekly in the larger cities. These live by catering to the employers for donations and advertisements. In return they carry on a ceaseless war against all progress in the unions and they often betray the workers' strikes, In Pittsburgh, for example, there are three of such fraud labor papers. In 1919 they all openly fought against the great steel strike, one of the most crucial struggles in labor history in this country. The corruption of the labor press is one of the most striking characteristics of the unparallelled backwardness of the American labor movement.