AMERICA'S WORKING PEOPLE BY CHARLES B. SPAHR English unions VIII. The Trades-Union Movement in Chicago Fortunately, the first trade-union leader I talked with in Chicago had been a union man in England, and was able to compare the English unions with the American. The contrast made was singularly sharp. "The tradesunion leaders in England," he said, "are, as a rule, superior to those in America, but the rank and file of union men in this country are superior to those in England." It was Douglas Wilson, of the International Machinists, who said this; and when he explained the situation, the sharp contrast, that seemed a paradox, was seen to be the inevitable summary. "Generally," said Mr. Wilson, “they have trained men at the head of the English unions. Many of them are Scotchmen, whose families have partly educated them for the ministry or the law, but who have been forced to go to work because funds have given out, or something of that sort." These men, he went on, can never hope to become professional men. The only field for their ambitions is in their union. They can rarely even go into business for themselves. "Business in England is all run in old grooves, and it is hard for a new firm to start." Political openings are also relatively rare. Therefore the brightest men remain in the ranks of labor, become leaders, and are "kept in office by their unions year after year. The contrast between these conditions and those in America hardly needs to be stated. The trades-unions in America are constantly losing at the top. Not only are the ablest members constantly going into business-as employing printers, cigarmakers, carpenters, and the like but the officials are constantly receiving political appointments or entering the professions. Only a day or two after my talk with Mr. Wilson I had the pleasure of meeting a brilliant young editor of the Chicago "Record," Mr. Sikes, who a few years ago graduated from the University of Minnesota, President of his class, and President of the Minneapolis printers' union. When Mr. Wilson spoke of the trades-union officials entering different professions in this country, I naturally recalled that two of my own acquaintance in New York had studied law while at the head of their unions. There are others," he remarked significantly, showing me a law book in his desk. manned Nothing further was needed to explain The American the often boasted superiority unions better of the English trades-union leaders, and a few more words made equally clear the general superiority of American trades-union membersamong whom hope and ambition are common possessions. "The trouble with American trades-unions," said Mr. Wilson, "is that nearly everybody thinks he is able to run a union, and therefore criticises and forms combinations against the men who are in." Pretty soon the present officials are ousted, and new ones are installed, who in turn give place to others. In this way the management of American trades-unions suffers from the constant changes of officials, just as the management of American district schools suffers from the constant changes of teachers; but the general intelligence of American unions gains by the rotation, just as the general intelligence of American school districts is increased by the fact that a third of the families may contain some member who has taught school. But the changes in the management of American unions is the smallest part of the ferment here that is lacking in the old country. "In England," said Mr. Wilson, "there are men who carry the same union card and number that their grandfathers carried." Here nobody belongs to the same union as his father, and few expect their sons to have even the same trade with themselves. "In England the union is a religion. Women will go to the groggeries on pay-day to get from their husbands money to keep up the dues to the union." This chance remark led up to another contrast made between English and American unionists. "Here," he said, nearly every man shows up the morning after pay-day, but there lots of the men used to have a blue' Tuesday as well as Monday. They say it is better now, but when I was there, the workman who didn't drink beer was laughed at. I remember that when one young fellow was converted, and stopped drinking, an old Yorkshire man said of him, He used to be a good workman, but he is naw workman now.' . . . There is enough drinking here, but it is hardly to be mentioned with the drinking there, where women as well as men go to the public and booze." Before he had finished on this theme he had made graphic the official statistics showing that English working people drink more than twice as much as American. When summed up, the whole contrast between English and American unions followed closely the lines of the contrast between English and American society. If the organization that is best adminis tered is best, the scorn of our English critics may be justified; but if the organi zation that has the best manhood is best, American unionists may smile at Sidney Webb. Trades-union selfishness What Mr. Wilson said about English and American unions was only a small part of our conversation. With a frankness that a weaker man or weaker trades-unionist would not have ventured, he went over with me nearly the whole field of trades-union policy. When I criticised the union rules regarding apprentices, he shrewdly replied that lawyers and doctors will not allow men to practice who haven't served an apprenticeship," and urged that unions had the same right to protect their trades against "incompetent men." He did not, however, attempt to deny that the selfish motive was at the bottom of the regula tions. When I questioned him about the trades-union hostility toward machinery, he admitted not only the truth of President Schwab's charge that English unions sometimes struck against new machinery, but also admitted that he had known American unions to do the same. The coopers, he said, had a long strike against machines for making barrels, and it was finally compromised by allowing machines to be used in making certain barrels and not in making others. The cigar-makers had had similar strikes. These strikes he did not attempt to defend. He believed that opposition to machinery was shortsighted. "The more intelligent unions," he said, "especially in trades where a great deal of machinery is used, accept it as inevi table." He fully recognized, however, the fact that trades-unions were as likely as other organizations to put the employment of their own members above the public good Their hostility to machinery was on all fours with the manufacturers' hostility to foreign commerce with manufacturing countries. Mr. Wilson, in his advocacy of tradesunions, would only admit that Socialist they shared in the general selfish The ness of class organizations; but there were not wanting labor leaders who denounced unions as criminal. These labor allies of extreme capitalism were uniformly advocates of extreme Socialism. It was my fate while in Chicago to meet almost as many Socialists as trades-unionists, and the enmity shown between them would have been little short of a revelation to those who condemn in the same breath unionism and Socialism. Two days after my talk with Mr. Wilson I had a long talk with one of the Socialist leaders, who went over with me the feud between his party and the "pure and simple " unionists who exclude partisan political action from the trades-union's programme. Formerly he had been a trades-union leader. During the seventies, he said, he and his sympathizers obtained the control of the Chicago Trade and Labor Assembly, and by their influence in the unions organized a workingmen's party with a Socialist programme. In 1876 they polled 4,000 votes, and by 1879 had gradually increased their voting strength to 12.000. Then," he said, "the Knights of Labor were admitted to the Assembly with fifteen delegates, solidly Democratic. In a year we had to quit. but before quitting carried a motion using up all the funds in the treasury to help a local strike." The German unions seceded with them, and they organized the Central Labor Union. This body, he explained, remained the champion of Socialism until the Anarchists got control, when "we Socialists were driven out." During all these years there had been intense hatred between the Socialist and the conservative unions. "Members of German unions have come to me with their heads broken," said this Socialist (who is now a lawyer), "and asked me to prosecute their assailants, the entertainment committee' of the Building Trades Council. I have offered to stand the racket if they would, but they have always backed down for fear of further violence. . . . The 'entertainment committee' has a lot of thugs, and their favorite method of getting rid of nonunionists is by slugging. . . . The courts are quite right when they say that violence is a necessary part of a strike. Unless it is supported by violence a strike is of no use." An evening or two later I attended a Socialist meeting, and met several Extremes of the leaders of the Debs faction. meet Their attitude toward trades unionism was more moderate, and one of them spoke patronizingly of trades-unions as "kindergartens" in Socialism. But they were all contemptuous of trades union aims and methods. None of them saw in trades-unions the beginning of the democratic control of industry, and all regarded strikes as a futile weapon. In their speeches more attention was given to belittling the reforms advocated by conservative unionists than to attacking the aggressions of capitalism. Nothing but ridicule, for example, was accorded to the belief that falling prices were at the bottom of the business stagnation and the growth of "the army of the unemployed." It was 66 over-production," said the principal speaker, and he quoted at length the statistics of capitalistic writers exaggerating the recent economies due to machinery. Only when he came to his remedy did this extreme Socialist break with the extreme conservatives. He believed, with logical consistency, that unemployment must continue to increase until public ownership increased consumption to keep pace with the increase in production. It was not easy to see how any one who believed that overproduction caused hard times could have answered him. On the question of trusts, also, these Socialists were in remarkable accord with the extreme conservatives. The trust manipulators themselves could hardly paint in brighter colors the economies of consolidation, or express greater scorn of attempts to stay the natural course of business. Only on the remote question of the ultimate remedy did the Socialists break with the capitalists, by declaring that the control of industry by the public was the only possible outcome of control by monopoly. As I listened to the speeches I realized as never before that on all the immediate economic issuestrades-unionism, bimetallism, monopoly— the extremes of Socialism and capitalism supported one another. Methods with non-unionists When I went to the headquarters of the building trades unions-one of the few places in Chicago where it was easy for me to meet working people-I naturally talked over the criticisms of the old leader in the Socialist unions. It was no surprise to find that the hatred expressed by the Socialists was returned by the unionists. "The Socialist unions," I was told, "aren't unions at all. They are just a lot of scabs that belong to the Socialist party. . . . All that they try to do is to break down real trades-unions." "But," I inquired, "how about the charge that your entertainment committee' breaks open the heads of nonunion workmen who attempt to take your jobs?" "Perfect nonsense," "All a lie," were the first answers, but when the conversation continued about the work of the "entertainment committee" it was admitted that when the committee waited on non-unionists it might sometimes "threaten to fix them, . . . just for a bluff,” and in case of a quarrel" somebody might get his head punched." By this time it was easy enough to see that the Socialist charges had not been made out of whole cloth, and that while the unions formally opposed terrorism because it made them unpopular with all classes, there were plenty of unionists who had more faith in violence than in kindliness. I afterwards learned from a former unionist, who was still in sympathy with unionism, that cases of "slugging "were frequent in the building trades a few years ago- the guilty unionists being uniformly pardoned by the Mayor. That such methods were formerly used was virtually admitted by the men at the building trades headquarters before the end of the first conversation "All that we have to do now to get rid of scabs," said one of the officials, is to call off all the trades at work on the building." All the building trades unions now stood together as one man in favor of the exclu sive employment of union labor, and the contractor who tried to fight one union found himself at war with them all. The official went on to tell me of one contractor who had seemed to win his fight on this issue, but it cost him so much that he soon made terms with the union and has since been a "model employer." At first I was inclined to discount their boasts of power. but when I read the" Articles of Agreement" between the Carpenters' Executive Council" and the contracting carpenters, and examined the list of over five hundred contractors who had signed them, I realized that the allied Chicago unions ruled the building trades with an iron hand. The main provisions of this contract were as follows: "ARTICLE I. Eight hours shall constitute What a day's work between the hours the unions of 8 A.M. and 5 P.M., except Sathave secured urday, when work shall cease at 12 o'clock noon from June 1st to September 1st. "ARTICLE II. The minimum rate of wages for journeymen carpenters shall be 371⁄2 cents an hour from April 1, 1898, to March 31, 1899. "ARTICLE III. Double time shall be allowed on all overtime, Sunday work, New Year's Day, Decoration Day. Fourth of July, Thanksgiving and Christmas Days, or the days celebrated for the foregoing. No work shall be allowed under any pretense on Labor Day. 66 ARTICLES IX. and X. The party of the first part agrees to hire none but union carpenters. . . . A sympathetic strike, when ordered to promote the principles here laid down, shall not be a violation of this agreement." The The great gain from unionism has been the shortening of hours. Only in short Anglo-Saxon countries where trades hours unions are strong have the hours of labor been materially shortened; and in Anglo-Saxon countries the trades-unions have not only led the way in establishing almost ideal hours for skilled workmen, but they have been the chief support of the legislation that has put an end to inhuman hours for the unskilled. To the tradesunions, therefore, Anglo-Saxon countries owe an inestimable debt, for the shorthour movement has been the greatest economic factor in securing the greater physical and intellectual vigor and the better home life that distinguish the working people in Anglo-Saxon countries. It must not be thought, however, that this shortening of hours has brought with it a proportionate lessening of work. When I was in Germany, Professor Roscher, of Leipsic, told me of German workmen who, after living in America, returned to Germany, preferring the longer hours at lower wages there rather than stand the strain at which they were required to work in America. When in Chicago, I found that some American workmen sympathized with this view. At the carpenters' union headquarters, when I spoke warmly of the union victory in securing the eight hours' day, I was surprised to have one of the carpenters remark, Yes; but if we won seven hours, half of us would be dead.” When I asked what he meant, he replied that every time the hours were shortened the bosses made them work just that much harder. He was older than the rest of the group, and it was evident that he found it difficult to keep the pace now demanded. When the trades-unions increased their demands of the contractors, the contractors increased theirs of the men, and there was no power to make any contractor keep any man who did not turn out a remunerative quantity of work. Were it not that the shorter hours enabled most of the men to work with greater in. tensity and without greater exhaustion during them, the increase of leisure must have been paid for in a cut of wages. As it was, there had been no cut in wages except that which was inevitable during the hard times. Even here the loss was slight. Between '92 and '97 carpenters' wages in Chicago fell only from 40 cents an hour to 35 cents. In '98 they were raised to 371⁄2 cents, and this year they are again 40 cents. Even in '97 these union carpenters in Chicago were getting The high wages $2.80 for eight hours, while many of the non-union Southern carpenters were getting but $1.25 for ten hours. The cut in Chicago due to the hard times was only 121⁄2 per cent., while in Atlanta it had been nearly 40 per cent. Only in one way did the building trades unions in Chicago suffer keenly from the depression, and this was through the want of employment. This evil bore hardest, of course. on the less efficient workmen, many of whom could get so little work at union rates as carpenters that they fell back to be machine-tenders in factories. In this way, it was admitted, a good many of the old union carpenters had suffered a heavy cut in wages. At the bench they used to get nearly $3 a day. In the factories where building materials were made by machinery, they were now getting $2 or $2.25. Every year, in good times as well as bad, the proportion of carpenters' work done in the factories was increasing, and thus carpenters' wages are really suffering reductions that do not appear in the union scale. Hostility to machinery The way in which machinery was affecting their own wages may have accounted for the intensity of the feeling against it which these carpenters displayed. Not long before my visit they had sustained the stonecutters in a barbarous strike against the use of a machine for sawing stone. When I tried, in a bungling way, to show that such strikes lessened the use of stone as a building material, and weakened the unions by arraying the interests of the community against them, I made little impression. The stone-cutters, they said, were skilled workmen who got high wages. The machine-tenders needed no skill at all, and were paid wretched wages. "We believe," said one of them, "that public sentiment sustains us in trying to keep work for well-paid labor.” the belief that some machinery was all right. Nevertheless, the belief seemed ineradicable that machinery threw workmen out of employment, as well as concentrated wealth. These men, with possibly two exceptions, were all silver Democrats, yet not one of them seemed to know that the twenty-five years preceding 1873 witnessed at the same time the greatest extension in the use of machinery and the fullest employment of labor that the century had known. All of them, without exception, believed with the Socialists that the increase of the unemployed since 1893 had been due chiefly to machinery. As I listened to them, President Schwab's arraignment of English trades-unions for their hostility to machinery recurred to me, and I felt that the omnipotence of trades-unions would mean industrial stagnation, as surely as the omnipotence of trusts. It is only because competition forces the workmen and capitalists in different trades to accept improvements that industrial progress goes on. in restraint of trade" Of minor importance now, but not less "A new combination threatening for the future, was the willingness of the Chicago tradesunions to combine against the use of outof-town materials. When the Chicago materials were made by union workmen with wholesome hours and wages, and the out-of-town materials were made by overworked and underpaid hands, there was moral justification for the discrimination. But this was not the controlling consideration. The Chicago unionists were ready to use the boycott in favor of Chicago union labor to the detriment of out-of-town union labor. It was protectionism pure and simple, involving not only the restriction of trade but the forcing of industries out of favorable into unfavorable localities. Every interest except that of the Chicago producers was adversely affected, yet in this peculiarly anti-social struggle the Chicago unions have the support instead of the hostility of their employers. This is a feature of trades-unionism that in the future must be reckoned with. When I asked them whether they themselves were not glad to buy machine-made goods-like the chairs and desk in their office they answered rather doggedly that they were not. The hand-made things, they said after the fashion of aristocratic disciples of Ruskin and Morris-lasted so much longer that they were cheaper in the end. When I instanced machine-made cloth, they were not so ready with an answer, and even expressed of the unions seemed to me that which The discussions of the union rules about overtime and Sunday work went much more agreeably. Here again the position Overtime and Sunday work |