Industrial unionism is essentially inimical to the craft unionism upon which the American Federation of Labor is built. The individual unions in the A. F. of L. could unite along industrial lines, and some have, but the results have not been sufficiently striking to remove from the I. W. W. further excuse for existence.
Not Essentially Revolutionary.
There is nothing essentially revolutionary in industrial unionism, though the I. W. W. tries to make it so, concluding its well known preamble with the sentence: “By organizing industrially we are forming the structure of the new society within the shell of the old.” But that is largely rhetoric. In the body of the preamble is written: “We find that the centring of the management of industries into fewer and fewer hands makes the trade unions unable to cope with the ever-growing power of the employing class.” All industrial unionists are of this point of view. Their position was well described to me by William A. Logan, President of the Automobile Workers, who is not a member of the I. W. W.
“Industrial unionism is no one’s invention,” he said. “It naturally follows the combination of manufacturers in an industry. Manufacturers absorb industries which furnish them, so labor does the same thing. The combinations of industries in large plants has so highly specialized the work that no one workman need be a rounded mechanic. Men can also be shifted easily from one machine to another. Common and semi-skilled labor has almost entirely taken the place of skilled labor in industry. I used to be an auto-fitter. There is now no such job. The manufacture of even such a finished article as an automobile has been specialized to a point where one man need know very little. He may have merely to start a nut. So all the men in the industry are on the same footing. There is no longer point in splitting them into crafts. The logical way to organize them is industrially.”
Merely New to United States.
That is all there is to industrial unionism. It is comparatively new to America, but it is an old story in Europe. To organize industrially is just as democratic as to organize by crafts. It all depends upon what is done with the organization once it is formed. Industrial unionism only becomes revolutionarily syndicalistic when a union of industrial unions announces it is going to take over the Government in the name of its syndicalist workers.
The I. W. W. says, “The army of production must be organized not only for the everyday struggle with capitalists but also to carry on production when capitalism shall have been overthrown.”
The less revolutionary automobile workers, whose correct title is United Automobile, Aircraft and Vehicle Workers of America, say more conservatively: “We know that the workers will never know how to manage the State if they should gain that responsibility through political action, until they learn how to act collectively in getting some of their immediate needs satisfied.”
Nothing to Fear.
The I. W. W. foresees the uniting of all the different industrial unions in one big union. It says, “One union—one label—one enemy.” The automobile workers say more modestly, “One union, one industry.”