IN policy and organizational forms the American Federation of Labor is one of the most backward trade union movements in the world. Samuel Gompers during his long reign as president moulded its policies to suit the needs of the American capitalists. This policy is being continued by his successor William Green.
The estimation of Gompers by Green given in the following statement in his speech at the Atlantic City convention of the federation throws a flood of light on the entire outlook of the bureaucracy:
He first attracted my attention in particular because he set his face against the efforts that were being made to bring about a general strike of all the trades in sympathy with the American Railway Union strike in 1894.
The A. F. of L. has 107 International Unions affiliated to it composed of 31,261 local unions with a total membership of 2,878,297, according to the 1925 report.
The bitterest sort of craft prejudices are systematically inculcated into the membership of the various unions. The officials look upon “their” union membership as something to be carefully guarded against the poaching of other union officials. Jurisdictional quarrels break out periodically and the spectacle of officials fighting over as to which shall “possess” a certain category of workers is always present.
Not only regarding membership do jurisdictional quarrels break out, but also regarding the work to be done by certain unions. The Carpenters’ Union and the Sheetmetal Workers’ Union are continually at each others’ throats over the question of which shall work on metal trim doors and windows. These quarrels keep the unions in perpetual turmoil and breed in the workers the idea that they must fight each other to preserve their interests.
As a matter of fact the A. F. of L. unions have merely organized the fringe of the workers of America. The really successful A. F. of L. unions are those which cater to the highly skilled workers, such as the various branches of the printing and building industries, certain trades in the metal industry, and so on.
According to the census there are 41,614,284 persons over ten years of age gainfully employed in the United States. Of these 32,710,495 are wage workers. Of this huge number of wage workers about 4,000,000 only are organized. The A. F. of L. unions have nearly 3,000,000 members, and the Railroad Brotherhoods, not affiliated with the A. F. of L., have about three-quarters of a million members. Other independent unions in the food, leather and metal industries have very few members and are not influential. The Industrial Workers of the World has shrunk to a mere shadow of its former self and has less than 20, 000 members. Thus one-eighth of the wage earners in this country are organized today.
Of the basic industries only the building, coal mining and railroads are organized to any extent. About a half-million coal miners are organized. A quarter-million are outside of the union. At the end of the world war the sixteen unions in the railroad industry had about 1,300,000 members; today they have altogether about 700,000. In 1922 the railroad shop craft unions had 400,000 members; today they have 100,000.
In the food packing industry only a few thousand workers are organized out of the half-million employed. In the steel industry there are about thirteen thousand workers organized out of more than half a million employed in the industry. In the automobile industry out of the half-million workers employed a few thousand are organized in several craft unions and the independent Auto Workers’ Union. In the lumber industry a few thousand are organized in the I. W. W., and the same applies to agriculture. Out of the three-quarters of a million workers in the textile industry about 30,000 are organized in all the competing unions.
During the world war hundreds of thousands of workers flocked to the unions. For instance, 150,000 textile workers were organized; today about 30,000. Up until 1922 there were 1,300,000 organized in the railroad unions; today there are about 700,000. The Machinists’ Union had over 300,000 members at the end of the war; today it has about 100,000. The packing house workers were organized strong enough at the end of the war to force the packers to grant increases in wages and the 8-hour day in the large centers such as Chicago; today open shop conditions prevail in the packing houses. The membership of the A. F. of L. unions in 1920 numbered over 5,000,000; today it is less than 3,000,000. In 1920 the independent unions had 1,000,000 members; today they have much less than that.
The factors responsible for the decrease in union membership were:
1. The severe economic crisis of 1920-21 which threw millions of workers out of work.
2. The capitalists and their government, and all its agencies: courts, troops, police, newspapers, etc., taking advantage of the economic crisis launched a great offensive on the workers. In this offensive the capitalists reduced wages, lengthened hours of labor and smashed unions.
3. The unions having a policy of class co-operation instead of class struggle, led by ten, fifteen and twenty-five thousand dollar a year agents of the capitalists, and divided into over a hundred craft divisions, were unable to lead the workers in the struggle.
4. The great mass of workers absolutely unorganized were used as a weapon against the organized workers.
5. The 6,000,000 unemployed workers being unorganized were a reservoir of strike breakers used by the capitalists in the struggle.
This offensive of the capitalists was well organized and planned and carried out with military precision. The railroad shopmen’s strike of 1922 is an example. Seven out of the sixteen unions were picked out by the capitalists and defeated. The unions of the running trades remained at work as the bosses knew they would. A sweeping injunction was secured by Atty. Gen. Daugherty against the shopmen which practically prohibited them striking. Hundreds of strikers were arrested for violations of the injunction; others were framed up. Scabs were employed to break the strike. The result was a terrific defeat for the shopmen from which they have not yet recovered.
A factor that assured the victory of the capitalists in this struggle was the trade union officialdom. The officialdom of the running trades unions prevented the workers striking along with the other workers. The Lewis officialdom of the United Mine Workers safeguarded the mines of the operators by keeping the maintenance men at work while the miners were striking. The officialdom as a whole was opposed to fighting back the capitalist offensive and aided in the defeat of the workers by preaching class cooperation thru negotiation, arbitration and acceptance of wage cuts, etc.
The disunity in the ranks of the workers coupled with the existence of millions of unorganized workers aided the capitalists. Craft after craft was defeated by the bosses while the other craft unions in the same industry continued at work and aided the bosses to smash their fellow workers.
As a whole the capitalists succeeded in defeating the workers. Skilled workers were treated more gently than others, in keeping with the capitalist policy of bribing certain sections of the workers and using them against the other workers. For instance, workers in the printing industry received no wage cuts; the running trades on the railroads were cut only 12 per cent, while the unskilled workers received cuts two and three times that amount.
During this period the capitalist government openly acted as the executive of the capitalist class against the workers. The Daugherty injunction against the shopmen, Harding’s order to the state governors to use troops to secure the operation of the coal mines in 1922, are examples the workers cannot forget.
The post-war offensive of the capitalists of the U. S. on the standard of living of the workers in this country show in a nutshell the effects of the policy pursued by the trade union movement of this country. That policy is summed up in a single phrase: Class co-operation. This policy is based upon the idea that there is an identity of interests between capital and labor; that the workers and capitalists are partners in industry; that they both share in the wealth produced, and they must co-operate with each other for their mutual benefit.
The facts of everyday life prove this to be false. The bosses seek to increase their profits by wage cutting, lengthening the hours of labor, or speeding up the workers. The workers, on the other hand, seek to better their conditions by raising wages, shortening the hours of labor, and resisting the introduction of speed-up systems. On every point the interests of the workers and capitalists are opposed. One can only gain at the expense of the other. All talk of co-operation between them is false.
Yet this is the official policy of the A. F. of L. This is preached by thousands of union officials in all the trade unions in the country. Out of this policy comes the idea of compulsory arbitration, as in the International Typographical Union; because of this policy trade union leaders compromise with the bosses and refuse to use the maximum strength of the organized workers to secure their demands as is shown in the refusal of the United Mine Workers’ officialdom to call a strike of the bituminous miners while the anthracite miners are on strike, or even pull out the maintenance men who are protecting the mine owners’ property while the strike is on.
This policy of class co-operation is responsible for the weakness of the trade unions and the defeats of the workers. The only successful policy for the workers is that of class struggle. The interests of the workers and capitalists are opposed at every point. They are enemies, and the class war is as much a war as any war between capitalist nations. In this country the class war has been bloody. From Homestead to West Virginia the capitalists have used violence against the workers. Even tho the capitalists use every method to get the workers to believe in class co-operation, and support those labor leaders who practice it, they do not believe in it but use all methods to subdue the workers as the history of the labor movement shows.
The A. F. of L. officialdom does not merely content itself with preaching class co-operation. They practice it. Not only that; they are rapidly turning the unions into adjuncts of the capitalists. The unions are being turned into instruments to keep the workers in subjection to the bosses thru the “Baltimore and Ohio Plan,” labor banks and life insurance schemes, “group production,” etc.
While the A. F. of L. officially condemns company unions it favors such thinly veiled company union schemes as the “B. & O. Plan.” Under this plan the capitalist does not need to organize the workers in a union—the A. F. of L. union performs that task. The union becomes responsible for speeding up the workers, and maintaining discipline in the shops. In return the company “recognizes” the union, and the management meets along with representatives of the different departments to devise ways of “eliminating waste.” Wm. H. Johnston, president of the Int. Assn. of Machinists, brazenly laid the whole scheme bare when he stated that the union will sell labor power to the companies just as manufacturers of materials used in production do.
This whole trend toward making the unions part of the productive machinery of the capitalists is shown by the following quotation from the report of the A. F. of L. executive council at the Atlantic City convention.
Production is a group undertaking. It involves finding the best ways for the group to work together. This is the field of personnel relations research. It is of the utmost importance that the trade union should be adequately represented in this field in order that technicians and research workers may at all stages have their attention called to the functions of the trade union and that this necessary agency may be taken into consideration in the development of policies and not have to contest for a place after conclusions are formulated. Trade unions which represent the cumulated experience of many years have a most important contribution to make to this developing field.
In other words, the bosses should recognize that if they give “recognition” to the trade union officialdom production could be greatly increased. No clearer declaration of a complete abdication of any fight against the capitalists was ever made than this.
The only request made upon the capitalists in return for the trade unions aiding in the increase of production is as follows:
Efforts to improve production methods and eliminate waste must be accompanied by reasonable assurance of regularity of employment.
That “regularity of employment” is non-existent in this country today and a further speeding up of the workers will make it impossible is shown by the figures of employment and production for the past few years. While production increased between 20 to 30 per cent since 1914 the number of workers employed is below that of 1914. Taking average employment in 1923 as 100 per cent, September, 1925, has fallen to 90.9 per cent. On the same basis September, 1914, was at a 94.9 per cent. Turning the unions into efficiency departments for the capitalists, and giving up all struggle for the interests of the workers, will further increase the mass of commodities produced and displace still more workers.
The whole tendency of capitalist production is toward the displacement of workers as the following shows: In 1916 it took 1 hour 42 minutes of 1 man’s time to make one pair of shoes; today it takes 54 minutes. In 1850, production per man employed was 25 tons of pig iron; today it is 1,179 tons. In 1891 it took 14 to 16 hours of one man’s time to produce one long ton of steel; today in Pittsburgh and Chicago it takes 1 hour and 54 minutes. In other industries the development has been the same: More production with less workers.
Under these conditions it is a direct betrayal of the workers’ interests for the A. F. of L. officialdom to speak of using the trade unions to aid in production methods and at the same time expect steady employment for the workers.
The policy of class co-operation, combined with craft unionism and the existence of millions of unorganized workers leads to defeats for the workers of this country. Those who wish to perpetuate this suicidal state of affairs in the trade union movement are aiding the capitalists against the workers.
Next: Chapter VII. The American Federation of Labor and World Trade Union Unity