Whereas, Organized Labor wishes to manifest its sincere and fair desire to prove helpful in immediately adjusting this pending grave industrial conflict; therefore, be it,
Resolved, That each group comprising this conference select two of its number and these six so selected to constitute a committee to which shall be referred existing differences between the workers and employers in the steel industry for adjudication and settlement. Pending the findings of this committee, this conference requests the workers involved to return to work and the employers to re-instate them in their former positions.
This resolution provoked a storm of opposition from the reactionary employers, who, headed by Mr. Gary (ironically seated with John D. Rockefeller, Jr., as a representative of the Public) insisted that the Conference ignore the steel strike situation altogether, its purpose being, according to them, not the settlement of existing disputes, but the formulation of principles and plans which would provide for the prevention of such disputes in the future. Finally, seeing that if they insisted upon their resolution it would wreck the Conference, the workers held it in abeyance temporarily and submitted the following:
The right of wage earners to organize without discrimination, to bargain collectively, to be represented by representatives of their own choosing in negotiations and adjustments with employers in respect to wages, hours of labor and relations and conditions of employment, is recognized.
Such a mild proposition as this would hardly meet with serious opposition in a similar conference in any other important country than ours. All over Europe it would be far too conservative to fit the situation. In England, for example, the British Industrial Conference recently adopted the following:
The basis of negotiation between employers and work people should, as is presently the case in the chief industries of the country, be the full, frank acceptance of the employers' organizations on the one hand, and trade unions on the other as the recognized organizations to speak and act on behalf of their members.
And just across our border, in Canada, this advanced conception was formulated but a few months before:
On the whole we believe the day has passed when any employer should deny his employees the right to organize. Employers claim that right for themselves and it is not denied by the workers. There seems to be no reason why the employer should deny like rights to those who are employed by him. Not only should employees be accorded the right of organizing, but the prudent employer will recognize such organization and will deal with the duly accredited representatives thereof in all matters relating to the interests of the employees when it is fairly established to be representative of them all.
But Mr. Gary and his associates care nothing about the reputation of America as a progressive, liberty-loving country. They have their prerogatives, and they intend to exercise them, cost what it may. They organize as they see fit and pick out such representatives as they will; but by virtue of their economic strength they deny to their workers these same rights. So they voted down Labor's collective bargaining resolution, and at the same time the one providing for a settlement of the steel strike. The employers insisted upon absolute rule by themselves.
This action discredited the Conference, and sentenced it to dissolution. By its refusal to meet the great steel strike issue the Conference showed that it had neither the will nor the power to settle industrial disputes. Labor, openly denied the fundamental right of organization, could no longer sit with it. The workers' representatives, therefore, took the only honorable course left to them; they withdrew, allowing the whole worthless structure to collapse. Said Mr. Gompers in his final speech: