Socialism As It Is Part 40

Unions composed exclusively of skilled workers, as many of the present ones, operate against the interests of the less skilled--often without actually intending to do so. Mr. Mitch.e.l.l, for instance, concedes that the trade unions bring about "the elimination of men who are below a certain fixed standard of efficiency." This argument will appeal strongly to employers and believers in the survival of the fittest doctrine. But it will scarcely appeal to the numerous unskilled workers eliminated, or the still more numerous workers whose employment is thus lessened at every slack season. Mr. Edmond Kelly shows how the principle acts--"Where there is a minimum wage of $4 a day the workman can no longer choose to do only $3 worth of work and be paid accordingly, but he must earn $4 or else cease from work, at least in that particular trade, locality, or establishment."[254] The result is that the highest skilled workmen obtain steady employment through the union, while the less skilled are penalized by underemployment. The unions have equalized daily wages, but the employer has replied by making employment and therefore annual wages all the more unequal, and many of the workers may have lost more than they gained. Whereas if each man could secure an equal share of work, he might be paid according to his efficiency and yet be far better off than now. But the only way to secure an equal amount of work for all is through a union where all have an equal voice and where the union is strong enough to have a say as to who is to be employed.

It is this tendency either automatically or intentionally actually to injure unskilled labor, that has led men like Mann and Debs and Haywood to their severe criticism of the present policies of the unions, and even affords some ground for Tolstoi's cla.s.sification of well-paid artisans, electricians, and mechanics among the exploiters of unskilled labor. In the days of serfdom, the great writer said, "Only one cla.s.s were slave owners; all cla.s.ses, except the most numerous one--consisting of peasants who have too little land, laborers, and workingmen--are slave-owners now." The master cla.s.s, Tolstoi says, to-day includes, not only "n.o.bles, merchants, officials, manufacturers, professors, teachers, authors, musicians, painters, rich peasants, and the rich men's servants," but also "well-paid artisans, electricians, mechanics," etc.

Mr. Mann thus defines the att.i.tude of this new unionism to the old:--

"It is well known that in Britain, as elsewhere, there is only a minority of the workers organized; of the ten millions of men eligible for industrial organization only one fourth are members of trade unions; naturally these are, in the main, the skilled workers, who have a.s.sociated together with a view to maintaining for themselves the advantage accruing to skilled workers, when definite restrictions are placed upon the numbers able to enter and remain in the trades.

"We have had experience enough to know that the difficulties of maintaining a ring fence around an occupation, which secures to those inside the fence special advantages, are rapidly increasing, and in a growing number of instances, the fence has been entirely broken down by changes in the methods of production. We know, further, that ... the majority of trade unionists still remain _sectionally isolated_, powerless to act except in single'

sectional bodies, and incapable of approaching each other and merging and amalgamating forces for common action. _This it is that is responsible for the modern practice of entering into lengthy agreements between employers and workers. Sectional trade unions being incapable of offensive action, and gradually giving way before the persistent power of the better organized capitalist cla.s.s, they fall back upon agreements for periods of from two to five years, during which time they undertake that no demands shall be made._" (My italics.)

The industrialists, therefore, advocate the termination of all wage agreements simultaneously and at short intervals or even at will (like tenancies at will, or call loans). They claim that employers are practically free to terminate _existing agreements_ whenever they please, as they can always find grounds for dismissing individuals or for temporarily shutting down their works or for otherwise discriminating against active unionists or varying the terms of a contract before its expiration. But it is in America that the policy of no agreements, or agreements at will is most advanced. In Great Britain it is thought that agreements for one year and all ending on the same day may lead to the same results. If there is a central organization with power to call strikes on the part of any combination of unions, and the large majority of the workers are organized, it is held that the new unionism will soon prove irresistible, even if agreements in this form are retained.

The recent strikes have not only been stimulated by this gospel and led by its chief representatives, Tom Mann, Ben Tillett, and others, but from the very first they have been an actual application of the new idea and have marked a long step towards the complete reorganization of the British unions. They were started with the seamen's strike in June, when the dockers in many places struck in sympathy, at the same time adding demands of their own. When the seamen won their strike, they refused to go back to work at several points, against the advice of their conservative officials, until the dockers received what they were striking for. With the dockers were involved teamsters, and these from the first had agreed to support one another, for _they were both connected with Mr. Mann's "National Transport Workers' Federation_." And the railway strike was largely due to the fact that the railway unions decided at least _to cooperate_ with this federation. The dockers had remained on strike at Liverpool in sympathy with the railway porters who had struck in the first instance to aid the dockers, and at the first strike conference of the railway union officials, forty-one being present, it was voted unanimously "that the union was determined not to settle the dispute with the companies unless the lockout imposed upon their co-workers because of their support of the railroad men at Liverpool and elsewhere is removed and all the men reinstated."

There can be little doubt that the railway strike would neither have taken place at the critical time it did, nor have gone as far as it went, except for this new and concerted action which embraced even the least skilled and least organized cla.s.ses of labor.

Accompanying this movement toward common action, "solidarity" of labor, and more and more general strikes, was the closely related reaction against existing agreements--on the ground that they cripple the unions'

power of effective industrial warfare. For several years there had been a simultaneous movement on the part of the "State Socialist" government towards compulsory arbitration, and among the unions against any interference on the part of a government over which they have little or no control--the railway strike being directed, according to the unionists, as much against the government as against the railways. For many years the government, represented by Mr. Lloyd George or Mr.

Winston Churchill, had acted as arbitrator in every great industrial conflict, and had secured many minor concessions for the unions. As long as no critical conflict occurred that might materially weaken either the government or the capitalist or employing cla.s.ses as a whole, this policy worked well. It was only by a railway strike, or perhaps by a seamen's or miners' strike that it could be put to a real test. By the settlement of the threatened railway strike of 1907 the employees had gained very little, and had _voluntarily_ left the final power to decide disputes in the hands of government arbitrators. A conservative Labourite, Mr. J. R. MacDonald, writing late in 1910, said:--

"We held at the time that the agreement which Mr. Bell accepted on behalf of the Railway Servants would not work. It was a surrender.

The railway directors were consulted for days; they were allowed to alter the terms of agreement at their own sweet will, and when they agreed, the men's representatives were asked to go to the Board of Trade and were told that they could not alter a comma, could not sleep over the proposal, could not confer with any one about it, had to accept it there and then. In a moment of weakness they accepted. An agreement come to in such a way was not likely to be of any use to the men."[255]

Nevertheless, this extremely important settlement was accepted by the union. Mr. Churchill did not know how to restrain his enthusiasm for unions that were so good as to fall in so obediently with his political plans. "They are not mere visionaries or dreamers," says Churchill, "weaving airy Utopias out of tobacco smoke. They are not political adventurers who are eager to remodel the world by rule of thumb, who are proposing to make the infinite complexities of scientific civilization and the mult.i.tudinous phenomena of great cities conform to a few barbarous formulas which any moderately intelligent parrot could repeat in a fortnight. The fortunes of trade unions are interwoven with the industries they serve. The more highly organized trade unions are, the more clearly they recognize their responsibilities."[256]

By 1911 the whole situation was completely reversed. Over less important bodies of capitalists and employers than the railways, the government had power and a will to exercise its power. The railways, however, are practically a function of government--absolutely indispensable if it is to retain its other powers _undiminished_. It was for this reason that little if any governmental force was used against them, and the agreement of 1907 came to be of even less value to the men than agreements made in other industries. When the chorus of union complaints continued to swell, and the men asked the government to bring pressure on the railways, at least to meet their committee, it acknowledged itself either unable or unwilling to take any effective action unless to renew the offer to appoint another royal commission, essentially of the same character as that of 1907 except that it should be smaller and should act more speedily. This still meant that the third member of the board was to be appointed by a government, in which experience had taught the workers they could have no confidence--_at least in its dealings with the powerful railways_.

In view of this inherent weakness of the government, or its hostility to the new and aggressive unionism, or perhaps a combination of both, the unions had no recourse other than a direct agreement or a strike. But the refusal of the railways to meet the men left no alternative other than the strike, and at the same time showed that they did not much fear that the unions could strike with success. It was no longer a question of the justice or injustice, truth or untruth, of the unions' claims.

The railways, in a perfectly practical and businesslike spirit, questioned the power of the unions, by means of a strike, to cause them sufficient damage to make it profitable even to meet their representatives--without the presence of a government representative, who, they had learned by experience, would in all probability take a position with which they would be satisfied. Mr. Asquith's offer, then, to submit the "correctness" of the unions' statements and the "soundness" of their contentions to a tribunal, was entirely beside the point. The representatives of the railways were sure to give such a tribunal to understand, however diplomatically and insidiously, that the unions were without that power, which alone, in the minds of "practical"

men, can justify any considerable demand, such as the settlement of all questions through the representatives of the men (the recognition of the union).

Doubtless the railways had refused to meet the union representatives until they felt a.s.sured that the government's position would on the whole be satisfactory to them. The government's real att.i.tude was made plain when, after the refusal of the unions practically to leave their whole livelihood and future in its hands, as in 1907, it used this as a pretext for taking sides against them--not by prohibiting the strike, but by limiting more and more narrowly the scope it was to be allowed to take.

The government loudly protested its impartiality, and gave very powerful and plausible arguments for interference. But the laborers feel that the right not to work is as essential as life itself, and all that distinguishes them essentially from slaves, and that no argument whatever is valid against it. Let us look at a few of the government statements:--

The government, said the Premier, was perfectly impartial in regard to the merits of the various points of dispute. The government had regard exclusively for _the interests of the public_, and having regard for those interests they could not allow the paralysis of the railway systems throughout the country, and would have to take the necessary steps to prevent such paralysis.

The representatives of the unions replied by a public statement, in which they declared that this was an "unwarrantable threat" and an attempt to put the responsibility for the suspension of work on the unions:--

"We consider the statement made in behalf of his Majesty's government, _an unwarrantable threat_ uttered against the railroad workers who for years have made repeated applications to the Board of Trade and also to Parliament to consider the advisability of amending the conciliation board scheme of 1907.... And further it shows a failure of the Board of Trade to amend its own scheme, and also of the railroad companies to give an impartial and fair interpretation of such schemes.... And inasmuch as this joint meeting has already urged the employers to meet us with a view to discussing the whole position and which, if agreed to by them, would in our opinion have settled the matter, _we therefore refuse to accept the responsibility the government has attempted to throw upon us_, and further respectfully but firmly ask his Majesty's government whether the responsibility of the railroad companies is in any degree less than that of other employers of labor."

In other words, there is and can be no law compelling men to labor, and no matter what the consequences of their refusal to work, it is a matter that concerns the workers themselves more than all other persons.

Mr. Winston Churchill made a more detailed statement. He said that "the government was taking all necessary steps to make sure that the _food supply as well as fuel and other essentials_ should not be interrupted on the railways or at the ports."

"All services vital to the community should be maintained, and the government would see to that, not because they were on the side either of the employers or the workmen, but because they were bound to protect the public from the danger that a general arrest of industry would entail." He continued:--

"The means whereby the people of this land live are highly artificial, and a serious breakdown would lead to starvation among a great number of poorer people. Not the well-to-do would suffer, but the poor of the great cities and those dependent upon them, who would be quite helpless if the machinery by which they are fed--_on which they are dependent for wages_--was thrown out of gear.

"The government believes that the arrangements made for working the lines of communication, and for the maintenance of order, will prove effective; but, if not, other measures of even larger scope will be taken promptly. It must be clearly understood that there is no escape from these facts, and, as they affect the supply of food for the people, and _the safety of the country, they are far more important than anything else_."

To this the railway workers answered that it is to protect their own food that they strike, and that food is as important to them as to others, that practically all those who are dependent on wages are willing to undergo the last degree of suffering to preserve the right to strike, that the means of livelihood of this majority are no whit less important than the "safety" of the rest of the country. Moreover, if the government is allowed to use military or other means to aid the railways to transport food, fuel, and other things, more or less essential, it prevents that very "paralysis" which is the necessary object of every strike. Industrial warfare of this critical kind must indeed be costly to the whole community, often endangering health and even life itself, but the workers are almost unanimous in believing that a few days or weeks of this, repeated only after years of interval, costs far less in life and health than the low wages paid to labor year after year and generation after generation. _They demand the right to strike unhampered by any government in which capitalistic or other than wage-earning cla.s.ses predominate._ Only when the government falls into the hands of a group of wholly non-capitalist cla.s.ses--of which wage earners form the majority--will they expect it to grant such rights and conditions as are sufficient to compensate them for parting with any element of the right to strike.

The great British strike, then, had a double significance. It showed the tremendously increased strength of labor when every cla.s.s of workers is organized and all are united together, and it showed an increasing unwillingness to allow separate agreements to stand in the way of general strikes.

The strength of the strikers in the British upheaval of 1911, however, has been grossly exaggerated on both sides. There is no doubt that the aggressive action came from the ma.s.ses of the workers, as their leaders held them back in nearly every instance.

There is no question that the various unions cooperated more than usual, that vast ma.s.ses of the unskilled were for the first time organized, and that these features won the strikes. The advance was remarkable--but we can only measure the level reached if we realize the point from which the start was made. As a matter of fact, the unskilled labor of Great Britain until 1911 was probably worse paid and less organized than that of any great manufacturing country--and the advance made by no means brings it to the level of the United States.

Since the great dock strike of 1886, led by John Burns and Tom Mann, unskilled labor has tried in vain to organize effectively unions like those of the seamen and railway servants, the majority of whose members were neither of the least skilled nor of the most skilled cla.s.ses, had an uphill fight, and were only able to organize a part of the workers. Five dollars a week was considered such a high and satisfactory wage by the wholly unskilled (dockers, etc.) that it was often made the basis of their demands. The Board of Trade Report shows that 400,000 railwaymen, including the most skilled, had from 1899 to 1909 an average weekly wage varying from $6.35 to $6.60 per week. The railway union found that of a quarter of a million men 39 per cent got less than $5 a week, and 89 per cent less than $7.50. Seamen at Liverpool received from $20 to $32.50 a month.

If then the Liverpool sailors received an increase of $2.50 a month, while the wages of other strikers were raised on the average about 20 per cent, what must we conclude? Undoubtedly the gain was worth all the labor and sacrifice it cost. But it must be remembered, first, that these wages are still markedly inferior to those of this country in spite of its hordes of foreign labor; and second, that the increase is little if any above the rise in the cost of living in recent years, and will undoubtedly soon be overtaken by a further rise. The great steamship lines increased their rates on account of the strike almost the same week that it was concluded, and the railway companies gave in only when the government consented that they should raise their rates. But the larger part of the consumers are workingmen, and their cost of living is thus rising more rapidly than ever _on account of the strikes_. Finally, the unions of the unskilled are as a rule not yet recognized by their employers, while the railway union is probably as completely at the mercy of the government as ever.

In a word, _the point reached_ is by no means very advanced; on the other hand, _the material gain made_ in view of the former backwardness of the railwaymen, seamen, and dockers is highly important for England, while the methods employed, the movement having originated from below, and having been sustained against conservative leaders (only a few radicals like Tom Mann and Ben Tillett being trusted), is of world-wide significance. The unions as well as their common organizations, the Trade Union Congress, the Labour Party, and the General Federation of Trade Unions are drawing closer together, while the Socialists and revolutionary unionists are everywhere taking the lead--as evidenced, for example, by the election of the most radical Socialist member of Parliament, Mr. Will Thorne, to be President of the 1912 Trade Union Congress.

The success of the new movement as against the older Labour Party and trade union tactics may also be seen from the disturbed state of mind of the older leaders. Take, for example, the attack of the Chairman of the Labour Party, Mr. J. R. MacDonald:--

"The new revolution which Syndicalism and its advocates of the Industrial Workers of the World contemplate has avoided none of the errors or the pitfalls of the old, but it has added to them a whole series of its own. It has never considered the problems which it has to meet. It is, as expressed in the _Outlook_ of this month, a mere escapade of the nursery mind. It is the product of the creative intelligence of the man who is impatient because it takes the earth twenty-four hours to wheel around the sun (sic).... The hospitality which the Socialist movement has offered so generously to all kinds of cranks and scoundrels because they professed to be in revolt against the existing order has already done our movement much harm. Let it not add Syndicalism to the already too numerous vipers which, in the kindness of its heart, it is warming on its hearthstones."[257] [258]

The new revolutionary unionism takes different forms in Great Britain, France, and America. In France it has expressed itself through agitation for the general strike and against the army, the only thing that a general strike movement has to fear. The agitation has completely captured the national federation of unions, has a well-developed literature, a daily paper (_La Bataille Syndicaliste_--The Union Battle,--established in 1911), and has put its principles into effect in many ways, especially by more numerous and widespread strikes and by attacks on military discipline. But there has been no strike so nearly general as the recent British one, and both the efforts in this direction and those directed against the army have a future rather than a present importance and will be considered in succeeding chapters (Part III, Chapters VI and VII).

In America the new movement first appeared several years ago in the very radical proposal indorsed at the time by Debs, Haywood, and many prominent Socialists, to replace the older unions by a new set built on entirely different principles, including organizations of the least skilled, and the solid union of all unions for fighting purposes. This movement took concrete form in a new organization, the Industrial Workers of the World, which was launched with some promise, but soon divided into factions and was abandoned by Debs and others of its organizers. It has grown in strength in some localities, having conducted the remarkable struggles at McKees Rocks (Pa.) and Lawrence (Ma.s.s.), but is not at present a national factor--which is in part due, perhaps, to the fact that the older unions are tending, though gradually, towards somewhat similar principles.

Not only is Socialism spreading rapidly in all the unions, but along with it is spreading this new unionism. For many years the Western Federation of Miners, famous as the central figure in all the labor wars in the Rocky Mountain States, was the most powerful union in this country that was representative both of revolutionary Socialism and of revolutionary unionism. But it was not a part of the American Federation of Labor. When it became closely united with the Coal Miners, and the latter union forced its admission into the American Federation of Labor (in 1911), it at once began a campaign for its principles inside this organization. It now stands for two proposals, the first of which would solidly unite all the unions, and the second of which would cut all bonds between labor and capital. Neither is likely to be adopted this year, but both seem sure of a growing popularity and will in all probability result in some radical and effective action within a very few years.

In its Convention of July, 1911, the Western Federation of Miners decided to demand of the Federation of Labor the free exchange of membership cards among all its const.i.tuent unions. Thus the unions would preserve their autonomy, but every member would be free, when he changed his employer, to pa.s.s from one to the other without cost. The result would be that quarrels between the unions over members would lessen automatically, and also admission fees, dues, and benefits would tend towards a level. Thus all the things that keep the unions apart and prevent common action against the employer would be gradually removed, and the tendency of certain unions to ignore the interests of others reduced to a minimum. The plan is practical, because it has already been in successful operation for many years in France.

Another new policy--which should be regarded as a supplementary means for bringing about the same result--would be to so strengthen and democratize the general Federation as to allow great power to be placed in the hands of the executive, and at the same time subject it to the direct control of the combined rank and file of all the unions. If, for example, national Federation officials were elected, instructed, and recalled by a vote of all the unionists in the country, the latter would probably be willing to place in the hands of such an executive power to call out the unions in strike in such combinations as would make the resistance of employers most difficult, and power to control national strike funds collected from all the unions for these contests. Unions with a specially strong strategic situation in industry and a favored situation in the Federation are not yet ready to forego their privileges for this form of direct democracy, but the tendency is in this direction. (Since these lines were first written the Federation has taken steps towards the adoption of this plan of direct election of its officials by national referendum.)

Indeed, when the Western Miners' second proposal, the refusal to sign agreements for any fixed period, is adopted, this simultaneous centralization and democratization of the Federation may proceed apace.

As long as the various unions are bound to the employers by an entirely separate and independent agreement terminable at different dates, it is impossible to arrange strikes in common, especially when the more fortunate unions adopt an entirely different plan of organization and an entirely different policy from the rest. The Western Miners now propose that all agreements be done away with, a practice they had followed long and successfully themselves--with the single tacit exception of the employees of the Smelter Trust (Guggenheim's). This exception they have now done away with. Their fundamental idea is that as long as the capitalist reserves his right to close down his works whenever he believes his interests or those of capital require it, every union should reserve its right to stop work at any moment when the interests of the union or of labor require it. Temporary arrangements are entered into which are binding as to all other matters except the cessation of work. That this cessation would not occur in any well-organized union over trifles goes without saying--strikes are tremendously costly to labor. The agreement binds in a way perfectly familiar to the business world in the call loan or the tenancy at will.

President Moyer of the Western Federation (one of those Mr. Roosevelt called an "undesirable citizen" at the time when he was on trial in Idaho, accused of being an accomplice in the murder of Governor Steunenburg) explained that his union knew that agreements might bring certain momentary advantages which it would otherwise lose, that it had often been in a position to win higher wages through an agreement, and in three cases even to gain a seven-hour day. But by such action, he declared the union would have surrendered its freedom. It would have been tied hand and foot, whereas now it was free to fight whenever it wanted to. If working people want to be united and effective, he concluded, they must have the fullest freedom of action. This would always pay in the end.

In view of the great advance in the organization and fighting spirit of labor secured by this new kind of industrial warfare, some revolutionary unionists even expect it to do more to bring about Socialism than the Socialist parties themselves. Indeed, a few have gone so far as to regard these parties as almost superfluous. Many of the new revolutionary unionists, though Socialists by conviction, attach so little importance to political action that they have formed no connection with the Socialist parties, and do not propose to do so.

Others feel the necessity of some political support, and contend that any kind of an exclusively labor union party, even if it represents anti-revolutionary unions like most of those of the Federation of Labor, would serve this purpose better than the Socialist Party, which belongs less exclusively to the unionists.

An American revolutionary unionist and Socialist, the late Louis d.u.c.h.ez, like many of his school, not only placed his faith chiefly in the unskilled workers, either excluding the skilled manual laborers and the brain workers, or relegating them to a secondary position, but wanted the new organizations to rely almost entirely on their economic efforts and entirely to subordinate political action. The hours of labor are to be reduced, child labor is to be abolished, and everything is to be done that will tend to diminish compet.i.tion between one workingman and another, he argued, with the idea of securing early control of the labor market. Through labor's restriction of output, production is to be cut down and the unemployed are to be absorbed. Thus, he declared, "_a partial expropriation of capital is taking place_" and "_this constructive program is followed until the workers get all they produce_."[259]