The American Labor Conflict Over Industrial Organization
The American Labor Conflict Over Industrial Organization By THE editor VI IMPORTANT STUDY OF TECHNOLOGY IU the third section oi this series attention was . called to the machine revolution...
...Although the fthks have held the permit for the past ten years, the renewal ^application was rejected after Comnpssionsr John Banscho-wics, international officer of the An^^e^^sjaraMesi of Hosiery furnished men to fight stoke* throughout the country...
...Marx, or to Germanv a reporter who has Qevgrlstsfd of Nietzsche.'' # ^ ^ %^T..i .' MEVER before has foreign news been so impiw'lall oar country...
...For the most part, our journalism does not regard such qqeap* as news...
...And next Armistice Day...
...Government priming of the industrial pump by contributing borrowed money to relief measures is about at aa end...
...The incompetent owners -of industry and finance were pulled east of the hole by this policy and they were expected to go ahead on their own resources, but two months ago they began to slip...
...In Pennsylvania the Amish people cannot be forced into public schools...
...The melodrama of the struggle for power infrpasy Latin American countries is amply recorded, except Jlet we have no inkling of the larger social forces c>peiiip|>-behind these groupings and maneuvering...
...PHE C.I.O...
...THE DUKE HEARS FROM LABOR AN ex-Icing, the Duke of Windsor, has changed his mind about visiting the United States or, it would be more accurate to say, the organized workers changed his mind...
...Two industrial unions, the Brewery Workers and the Jewelry Workers, who at one time were forced * out of the A. F. of L. because they refused to "surrender certain members to certain craft organizations, supported the program for industrial organization at the San Francisco convention of tfie A. F. of L. and yet they have preferred their old affiliation rather than go with the C.I.O...
...The jurisdiction struggles between unions in this early period are in large part accounted for by this mechanical revolution...
...It was a Utopian scheme that today appears grotesque in the background of the tremendous technological revolution that has since occurred...
...What are the realities under the * slogans the true motives under the official formulas I Censorship is not the only explanation alas >-aaajb^Bae* tions remain unanswered...
...No one dares to predict We can only hope—hope that the nightmare will...
...The cancellation of the ''slumming tour" rapidly "Whether the Duke of Windsor is the victim of unwise JMtfbest in visiting Hitler'* slave den when he could have chosen the free Scandinavian countries to investigate model housing programs is not known, but in doing so he made him-SlW'Ssaepactby the free Labor Movement of the whole world...
...Aad it is precisely in this latter respect that American journalism today is showing itself a sad failure...
...Moreover, he could, not have chosen a man more hated in this a^tntry than the ''expert" in intensified exploitation of men, wfiiup11 snci chilfiTfin...
...Governor Elmer E. Benson was...
...the factual report uncontaminated with "think stuff"—is the standacd of American journalism...
...seeen Starts Drive The Milwaukee fire sad patter commission has jurisdiction Over the private agencies in the city.' • Recent congressional investigation by Senator Robert f sf oWf resulted in a wave of feeliag agsinst the agencies which ease been supplying i»oa*pigrm*i eat scabs to the industrialists...
...tie first official to refuse the "finks" s permit sad so drive them IMS Minnesota...
...When he did this, hs expressed the hope that other garettffl-V-S...
...The standards ei AiiBegpae journalism, which rule out meanings, are to blame...
...Women are regarded as brood sows whose offspring, like those of swine, are intended for butchers...
...AH experience has shown that the "mores" cap...
...Moreover, instead of "making the world safe for democracy,"' democracy itself is facing a struggle against rut hi ass JtlyBliiistiips spawned/by the World Way...
...Each year since (he cables flashed the pews of the armistice throughout the world there has been continuous disillusionment, and today the old hopes of a peaceful world and the scrapping of arms are reduced to ashes...
...It is two-dimensional journalism, precise reporting.of surface facts and surface colors...
...Their seasons are man/ and arty candid student of the conflict must admit that most of these members are under the influence of what may be called "craft mores...
...A surface streaked with the lightning of flashes, bulletins, scoops, t r gger-quick, interviews, statements, surmises, denials...
...Facts' without meanings are like bodies without lifejand as feng as those standards prevail the American press will be more like a morgue than a living institution...
...although prohibition had the force of the Federal Constitution and Federal power to support it, popular "mores" defeated both...
...The decision is monstrous...
...It so appears to us...
...ARMISTICE DAY *J*HE nineteenth anniversary of Armistice Day chilled *tW enthusiasm of its celebrants compared with' celebrations in previous years...
...raanity...
...Economic and racial theories and phobias are ¦being tested in flesh-and-blood laboratories apt for one country but for all...
...The forms of holding and managing these industries have been modified in accord" with new conditions while organized workers have largely drifted on this problem of readjustment...
...Major events ibrqad are on the newsstands in Hackeneack end Kakv mazoo before they have spread to the public in the placet where they occur...
...RigbVnjfjP the hate, in this manner, we are privy to the facta...
...Similarly, the press gives us*the t laj Wlj| physical facts about Russia: the trials, the executions, the economic difficulties, the flamboyant celebrations...
...The gathering and transmission of the isolated facts are important functions, but their synthesis, their understanding in human rather than statistical terms, is surely 'far more important...
...MILWAUKEE BANS PINKERTONS BY REFUSING AGENCY PERMIT MILWAUKEE, Wis.—Following the lead of Minnesota's Farmer-Labor Governor Elmer E. Benson, the authorities in this dty outlawed the Pinkerton agency by rejecting the application of the detective agency lor renewal of its license to epsrsts . Milwaukee is ma by a Socialist administration which, led by Mayor Daniel W. Hoan, ha* been rs power for twenty-one years...
...I have changed my mind and yet I believe that a more effective unionism is possible, one that will reduce jurisdiction conflicts to a minimum and that will insure concert of action by the workers in a given industry, and these are the essentials desired by industrial, unionists...
...Having reported wars in Ethiopia and Spans, • executions in China and Russia, they are abashed and a little offended if you ask them what all the -hrnthjgyfcg Neither to them nor to their editors does it seeAgTel absurd to send to Soviet Russia a reporter who dMtkmft know the difference between Karl MarxwsnJtf|jl4P...
...Constitutional prohibition gave us bootleggers, gangsters and gang wars and fostered illicit drinking...
...The artist, scientist, poet, historian snd philosopher are exiled or shot or imprisoned by gangsters in these countries...
...Three of the powers then fi^Kriwg under the slogan of democracy—Italy, Russia and Japan—arc today dictatorships, and an innocent neutral in the World War—Spain—is being gutted by two dictatorships, Italy and Germany...
...What it lacks is depths Rarely is there a third-dimensional interpretation of the'surface excitements, never a foarth-dimensional*, intuition about the trend of events...
...they yield in time only to experience, education and the bare of example, * * * FORCE WILL NOT avail r\FTEN the use of force to destroy "mores" only makes a bad situation worse...
...The American Labor Conflict Over Industrial Organization By THE editor VI IMPORTANT STUDY OF TECHNOLOGY IU the third section oi this series attention was . called to the machine revolution that was wiping out the old handicrafts in the early years of the American Federation of Labor, a transformation that was surveyed in the report of the U. S. Commissioner of Labor, Carroll D. Wright, on "Hand and Machine Labor," published in 1898...
...We have seen that in the decade of 1925-1936 the A. F. of L. was trying to agree on a plan for organizing the automobile industry and failed...
...1 where the News ends By eugene lyons , IF all the World's • stage, we in America have the choices^ seats for watching the great show...
...in Europe and Asia are certain to affect ell a#?l|a...
...They:have acted on the assumption that fixed jurisdictions of a generation ago should be maintained, and this attitude is as arbitary as Jfajp...
...It is *T dtficoit to answer this question, but it is possible that another business decline is ahead...
...The industrial chieftains of capitalism have been so alert to new trends that today about 200 giant corporations are the absolute masters of economic life...
...embodied in the LW-W...
...The Labor array some thirty-odd years ago was disturbed by the I.W.W., which came to the fore with a "perfect" scheme of industrial organization...
...v • * * * COMETIMES I feel that in the American r.ewspaperi we are a little like Occidentals watching a TiiniV play...
...It is no accident that the best American "foreign correspondents use their first breathing space to write books and articles where they find at last more scope* I8r personal judgments and rprt-vate emotions...
...The New York Times business index since early in 1933 shows a general and continuous upward trend with occasional slumps to the middle of last August Since then there has been a sharp dpcine to the close of last week without a single upward spurt This trend is^pminous...
...Visibility and < acoustics are almost perfect...
...not be destroyed by systematic Martian ajd force, although experience and IdscsUsa may break them down...
...President Green, James O'Connell and John P. Frey in one year pleaded for organisation by industry, but the craft "mores" could not be broken down...
...They fan-not be forced to abandon, beliefs and policies formed by fifty years of organisation history and many years of personal experience...
...came into existence as a protest, * but its policy appeared to be to change the whole situation by one big concerted, drive...
...brought mutual raids and diversion of energy and funds into futile conflict...
...It approves the pimps, procurors, perjurers and other shady characters who testified against this innocent man and kicks Mooney and his friends in the face far having exposed the terrible miscarriage of justice...
...The learned •jurists declare that Mooney not only had a fair trial but that his efforts to prove that the trial was unfair were "corruptly inspired...
...The upward trend stopped as the government's aid tea* had the vanishing point and the ruling industrial barons are unable to prime their own pump...
...be over and ?it the Hitlers aad Muasolinis will be playing with toy soldiers padded cells, placed there by victorious Democracy...
...The newspaper customers are practically unaware" of the inner fight in the ranks of the Spanish Loyalists, for instance—a fight that in its uJtaesate ^Sreces anry he more decisive than the main boat wit^ Vrineo...
...might well study this large volume and answer whether there can be any enduring type of craft or even industrial unionism based upon some fixed formula...
...The best of the world's culture is outlawed by the dictatorships...
...There is little doubt that a big majority of the members of the A. F. of L.unions axe opposed to the C.I.O...
...New Yedf is by all odds the most satisfactory vantage point tor oh, serving <9fe ebo and flow of the world's news...
...earth...
...Photography—the camera, the newsreel...
...American Indians after generations of coercion and force still wear their blankets and observe their tribal customs...
...However, while one door has been closed another one has been opened by this decision...
...We sec every move .and hear every sounds, bet for the most part we don't know what it's all aaeat Our journalism has set up "objectivity," an exaggerated ami impossible objectivity which pretends that the cotre-sponderit fs an insentient and unthinking automatoajjp the ideafrrf news reporting...
...It is reported that a man died § natural death in Moscow...
...The servants were in constant contact with their masters aad mistresses, they dressed well, were better treated, and they considered themselves "above" the plodding field hand...
...It was even reduced to a circular diagram arbitrarily fixing the place of industrial unions in a variety of industrial departments under a supreme command...
...CONTRAST what has happened in the Amer-^ ican Labor Movement in this matter of readjustment to technological changes with what has happened in the region of ownership and direction of American industries...
...Meantime, China is being ravaged and machine-gunned into a heap of bloody pulp by J a pan...
...My emphasis, you will note, is on physical perfection Speed, accuracy, completeness, and more speed...
...It has done, a good job of organisation and it has won even the sympathy of many members of fthe A. F. of L. who, however, could not be induced to leave their own organizations...
...Just as important in the study of unionism in a changing industrial system in the modern period is the publication by the U. S. Govent-ment in 1937 of the remarkable study entitled "Technological Trends and National f Policy...
...Let us hope that this court will place the enemies of Mooney in the pillory and open the prison doors so that he can return to his family aad friofds, ~?^-J|f-.'- * I- hWV- - AN EXTRAORDINARY PHENOMENON...
...And yet in the intervening period many of the powerful craft organizations have carried over the ideas and policies of the pre-teehnological period...
...Well, gentlemen, your crutches are no longer needed and yet when they are removed yoiy do not go ahead...
...A total of nearly ten billion dollars have been Spent by the government for relief, rising from $1,646,000,000 in 1932 and reaching its peak last year with a total of $4,-025,000.000...
...Mores" cannot be destroyed by force...
...This policy began In 1932 while Hoover was still in office, although his program was largely one of feeding funds direct to corporations...
...Armistice j Day also brought news of the first fascist regime in the Western Hemisphere, the corporative state of Brazil...
...The first lesson a reporter learns is that he must reduce himself as far as possible to a pre* rise and high-powered camera...
...The children are taken at aa early age and trained for the slaughter the same as pigs are raked for the Chicago packing houses...
...But with that, unfortunately, the superiority of American joes, nelrsra eVSs...
...THE MOONEY CASE CO the Supreme Court of California has turned down Tom Mooney's application for a writ of habeas corpus and the last hope of his release by legal action in that state has turned to ashes...
...But it leaves us . in the dark as to the common denominator of these assortments of news items...
...What is is spared s> not the *s» a aHkw sf iitairtatiis ts Isflsslihil treads...
...IT is hoi accident, by the same token, that many of tfce^,-most successful correspondents, with world-wide rep*;, tations as great reporters, have not the slightest suspicion •of what's happening in the world they covers It dees, not occur to them that there -are common threads of meaning running through the thousands of separate facts they have reported...
...In this large volume of nearly 400 pages the whole field of technological changes in industry, agriculture, transportation, communication, power and the chemical industries are shown to be so extensive, so altering and modifying old occupations and industries, that it is a sheer impossibility to fit any one industry, trade or occupation into some ' rigid organization formfcla...
...THE POWER OF THE "MORES" DY "mores" is meant those beliefs, sentiments, feelings and attitudes of human beings that are rooted in the history of an organisation or human society...
...But we tie told little or nothing of the "why" and the "whither" of these conflicts...
...Does this mean that you are so incompetent that we must take over your great enterprises and operate them ourselves...
...The gargantuan social and political conflict...
...Even the Negro slaves of the Old South were* divided into two basic groups, each with its own "mores" and _minor groups also had then* respective "mores...
...ignorant of their motivating urges and their direction, *• short a lot of fireworks but scarcely any light...
...Let me emphasize that this applies to the advocates of both craft unionism sod industrial unionism, I began this series in the belief that some definite and enduring formula of union organization could be stated and acted upon...
...Leaders in the conflict between the A. F. of L. and the C.I.O...
...The Bolshevik dictatorship brought admitted chaos ih Russian industry and agriculture and a generally diseased economic life...
...It is well-nigh instantaneous...
...the United States Supreme Court and it will be carried to this highest judicial tribunal...
...The road is now clear to...
...Vast funds were contributed to the nation's purchasing power to enable the distressed to buy i Ognaimlilias and thus stimulate the revival of industry...
...The main distinction was between field workers snd house servants.' "There was," says one historian, "a caste system and caste feeling among the patrician house servants and the plebeian field hands...
...Recognizing, as he must ultimately do, that no camera has yet been invented for* photographing under-surface meanings, for digging out th'e significance of news, he becomes an inhibited and* sometimes unhappy creature...
...At the same time bankers end capitalists are shouting to the government, "Leave us alone...
...They become the basis for judging what is right or wrong, expedient or practical...
...It was sua inspiring demonstration of Labor solidarity for the organized workers of this country 'to force the cancellation of the Duke's tour...
...The resistance of the craft organizations to the C.I.O...
...Because we have the largest' 58 quscjgest-aidafcoet resourceful >4rtelJfc«iB 1* foreign canZ spondeots, the finest communications, and the most rapyf processes of translating events into newsprint...
...Our net results in trying to destroy American Indian "mores" are his poverty, the white man's diseases, and his consumption 'of "rot-gut" whiskey...
...But what art the genuine economic trends, how is the mind of the German people being molded, what are the undefjpiMF motives and pressures and desperations...
...HALTED RECOVERY j4RE we approaching another industrial depression...
...SIMULTANEOUSLY witfi the report this week from Moscow that nineteen more "fascist dogs," high in the service of the dictatorship, had been shot came the report of an extraordinary phenomenon in Russia...
...We are the first to know whet happens, but often the hut to know why it happens...
...Wheel of Fortune" Vree %eades ago...
...Technically without peer, it is for the meat part intellectually barren...
...The first protest came from the Baltimore Federation of Labor, followed by protests from other unions, including the C.I.O., end there was a united front against the Duke and JmsSBX...
...They are a frustrated race...
...I mean that American Best* reporting is technically the most advanced on the face of the...
...I *• * * I7ROM Germany we,are> informed of every posturing of the Fuhrer, every gesture of his regime...
...the Russian Bolsheviks, despite their ruthless dictatorship, were unable to crusIP the religious observances of the peasants or their individualist ways of life...
...We can follow fairly well the battles at the Spanish fronts aad the struggles behind the battle-fronts...
...The visit of the Duke and his wife to the unspeakable Hitler, followed by the Duke's selection of Charles E. Bedaux, notorious as the proponent of the infamous "stretch-out system," as his ro^fOlUliliii'i in this country, produced a profound aversion to the Duke's proposed visit to the United States...
Vol. 20 • November 1937 • No. 46
