The Opportunity and Duty We Face in Organizing Labor
By James Oneal The Opportunity and Duty We Face in Organizing Labor SocialUtf Have a Great Opportunity, but How About Form of Organization?—A Query from Pennsylvania anil Answer. QN'E of the...
...The union gained a foothold and a standing...
...They were ready to fight...
...1 "here is a dilTerence of opinion within hoth groups as to the best course to pursue, but meantime they organize...
...Finally wer.lthy suffrage leaders took an interest in the battle of i']0,000 girls against sweatshop slavery, and the Capitalist press at last noticed the strike...
...Industrial Unionism First, it should be remembered that there are two or three unions of the industrial type that are affd-iated with the A. F. of L. There are also about twenty of an intermediate type between the old craft and tho industrial form of organization...
...On the other hand there is the fact that jurisdiction claims of such unions have, for the present, been waived in the campaign to organize industries of mass production like rubber, automobiles and steel...
...They were young, they were idealistic, they were gallant, and they were beautiful...
...There was no opposition, as the central body staff recognized that they could not effect organization there by crafts...
...The local central body in charge of the organization drive is directed by Socialists except for three industries where the unions are progressive and have their own organizers on the ground...
...Now comes a new day...
...You must remcml)er several facts...
...different groupings of the union units...
...The Jewish Daily Forward and the New York Call published special editions that the thinly-clad girls sold on the wind-wept streets of the city...
...Now comes new activity...
...There has been great unemployment due to radical changes in women's clothing...
...Out on Fifth avenue and the other streets of the garment sections the strikers march...
...Splendid Work Socialists, progressive unionists and Yipsels are doing splendid work of organization in many cities...
...The whole Socialist movKmcnl threw itself into the struggle...
...So the dressmakers are lighting again...
...On the other hand there are still some lesser industries, plumbing establishments, etc., where the old type of-organization may still be adapted for organization purposes and where a union structure really fits into a given situation, whether it be the craft or intermediate type, comrades should cooperate in organizing them...
...The bosses yielded...
...It is doubtful whether a single union obtained one new member by following this course...
...Tammany Judges and police were particularly brutal...
...But through it all Ben Schfesinger, Abe BaroflT and Morris Sigman kept the banner aloft, the oaths they swore that gusty November day nearly a quarter of a century ago kept untarnished...
...There have * been dissentions due to Communist disruption...
...Without pretending to say the fmal word on this problem presented by the Pennsylvania comrade, the writer can only say that it is his conviction that our comrades should help in every way possible to organize workers in general by plants, especially in the mass production industries...
...What, a list of speakers for the launching of that battle I Samuel Gom pers, Max Pine, Meyer London, all gone to rest...
...The battle was won...
...They will also have spokesmen and defenders in many cities who helped to found these organizations...
...The tidings that the needle wallers are again on the march is music to the ear of the old Socialist...
...An accomplished fact on a large scale in many industrial centers will of itself be a compelling argument for more modern union organization, and in the meantime the best generalship should be applied to the job of promoting solidarity of opinion' and action among all organized workers in the transition period to a greater «nd more effective unionisv The Needle workers Are Again Fighting for a New and Brighter Day SIXTY thousand needU workers are on strike.' They have sworn to tight the tweaUhops and to rebuild the...
...Here organization should proceed by plants, taking all workers into the same union, because such plant and industrial organizations have more prospects of enduring than any other type, it should also be remembered that this is the course already decided upon by the A. F. of L. itself i.i such industries...
...College girls joined tho ranks, Inez Milholland and Carola Wocrischoffer among them...
...And since then...
...QN'E of the most active i)arty memliers in Pennsylvania writes me of a prohlem facing Socialists in helpinjj to organize workers in industry under NUA...
...Only those who are on the ground will be able to determine in each case which is the better course to pursue...
...Then came 1909...
...We have heard of one large city where Socialists have organized a large plant union in a mass production industry and kept the central labor body fully informed of what they were doing...
...They hoped to get married and change their jobs to homemnkers and mothers—and most of them did...
...Then a few months later came the Cloakmakers' strike, led by Meyer Ix>ndon...
...jjjj^ty Years Ago TTHE minds of Socialists go back thirty years, forty years * to the time that the waist and dress shops were the vilest and foulest industrial sores of New York and other big cities...
...Back of the differences is recognition by Socialists of the need for industrial unionism to cope with modern industrial development...
...They are inarching on the pifket line...
...different styles in women's clothing...
...Here is a problem of building effective organizations of workers without bringing in rancor due to differing opinions as to the best course to pursue...
...As the strikers march forth into the streeti< of New York, and crowd into the meeting halls there art three men no longer with them, hut for whose glorious wor1« they would not be where they are, whom they must thapk for the fact they have an organization to wage their struggle...
...Ben Schlesinger, Alie Baroff and Morris Sigman— three gallant and heroic soldiers of the army of labor whose life-work is the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union...
...They were helpless...
...Then came the most heroic labor struggle in the history of the great city...
...Then came the strikes in the men's garment industry...
...Under the inspiration of our Socialists 30,000 of them signed up in a union...
...U) the time thai Socialist agitators sought to organize unions among the cloakmakers and other garment workern, and who called strike after strike, only to be thrown back for a loss after the strikes were won...
...hut some think these workers, organized as mill and factory groups, should remain so organized while others think that they .should afhliate with the trade union organizations...
...But, alas...
...The chartering of unions direct by the A. F. of L. and taking in members by mills and factories regardless of occupation and skill practically concedes that workers cannot be organized in the greater industries in any other way...
...the other argues in favor of affiliation with the recognized labor movement...
...Another is that while men working on the heavier material utilized in women's skirts, coats and suits had permanent jobs, the girls who worked on the thmsler material of shirtwaists and light dresses did not consider their places in the labor market permanent...
...25th, from 4:Z0 to 4:45 p. m. Wm...
...They had no recourse...
...M. Feigenhaum speaks on Friday, August 18, at the same time...
...Then came the beginnings of strong and permanent organization in the needle trades...
...Organization by plant and industry is not inconsistent with A. F. of L. methods, although most of the unions affiliated with it are of the old trade and craft type and it is the executives and meml)ers of the.se unions who generally fail to agree upon a program for organizing industries along more modern lines...
...Then came the great growth of the Amalgamate...
...One group argues that it opposes organizing the workers and then splitting them up into various craft organizations...
...Now comes a great new strike...
...One of them is the frequent changes in women's clothing and the fact that in 1909 millions of women wore shirtwaists and skirts...
...the danger lies in a purely local application of the principle of industrial unionism...
...With tears in his oyei thft chairman repeated a solemi oath of the old Jewish fighters: "// / turn traitor to thi cause I yiow pledge may thii hand wither from the arm I raise," and every girl raised her hand, and the few men among them, and not one was false to that oathl „ What a battle that was...
...and Jacob Panken, Frank Morrison, Mary Dreier, and B. Weinstein The chairman was that great Socialist teacher, scholar and orator, the unforgettable Benjamin Fcigenbaum, who left U;^ so sadly only last year after ten years of agonized illness...
...They are coming back...
...And it will again be victory for the men and women who go out to wage war upon sweatshops and exploitation and to lay the foundations for the New Day of SociiHismt Out at Mount Carmel the old heroes of Socialism an') labor lie at rest...
...To be sure, wherever .such plant and industrial organia/.lions are formed they will immediately present a problem of local offiliaLion and cooperation, to say nothing of their future when their status in relation to the national and international unions will have to be determined, Will tho national and international organizations present claims to various members of these plant and industrial organizatio i, insisting on jurisdiction claims and eventually wiping them out...
...But it was only the beginning...
...great union...
...The object of all is to organize workers as'quickly as possible...
...And like their sisters yes, and their mothers!—of 1909 they will keep the sacred oath administered to them In that gallant day la long ago WEVD NEW LEADER SPEAKER Miss Goldine Hillsnn of The New Leader will be the speaker of The New I^eader period of Station WEVD on Friday, Aug...
...But it is the same old cause, the same gtorlous battle, the same shining ideal...
...DilTerent times...
...And so sweatshops and indecent exploitation flourished foi years, and the girls were subjected to the hazards of disease in evil tenement shops, as well as grave moral hazards...
...No one can give an answer to this question, but the trade union chiefs have the history of the attempt to organize tho steel industry in 1919 as a warning against this course The scramble to gather the'workers under a dozen or more union jurisdictions resulted in failure...
...Where plants are organized they are given federal charters by the A. F. of L. Fourteen such charters were issued from July 1 to July 26...
...Party members, both in and out of A. l'\ of L, unions are assisting' in this work...
...Gcod...
...and of the I.L.G.W.U...
...If a large number «f plant and industrial organizations are formed in the more modern industries, if several hundred thousand members are thus recruited, they will have a prestige and a potential future that are likely .o restrain the more conservative heads of unions who might be inclined to follow the course that wrecked the attempt to organize the steel industry in 1919...
...The time to strike camu at last...
...DilTerent workers, a different spirit...
...The Oath of the 30,000 November 22, 1909, tho waistmakers met in Cooper Union—as many of them as could crowd in...
...The Big Job The big job, however, is organization of the industries of mass production where modern methods have largely, and in many cases wholy, wiped out old craft and trade lines...
...The Years Pass HTHERE have been heartbreaks and setbacks...
...Out of that strike came collective bargaining in that industry for the first time...
...Then came the beginnings of decency in a vilely sweated industry...
...there are some who cannbt be with gallant women who today carry aloft the banner of the I.L.G.W.U., three men whose wearied bodies rest at'last in Mount Carmel Cemetery but whose work will endure while the battle for justice goes on...
Vol. 16 • August 1933 • No. 8
