StrikeWorking Class

THE REVOLUTIONARY AGE Saturday, January 11, 1919 What is a Strike? VERY worker knows that there is no such thing By Facts attack, simply does not know what is happening in as a strike by one man. If one man goes on The writer of this article touches on a point upon the industrial world.
strike he simply loses his job. Nor is there which the American workers have long been divided There are many leaders who will tell you that the such a thing as a strike by two or three men. the atility of the present craft form of unions as unskilled workers may have to form one general union And in a large plant a strike by fifty, or a hundred, opposed to the One Big Union. The attitude he takes, for their protection, but that the skilled are adethat the present craft unions are necessary and can be quately protected through their craft organizations.
or five hundred men is just as futile as a strike by made to suit the needs of the workers. is one side of They will tell you that the skilled workers are limited two or three. It does not cripple the plant. It only this important question. We invite discussion by our cripples the strikers.
readers on the matter. Editor.
ir number and have a monopoly value on their skill, If the workers know this, then common horse sense that when they rike they cannot be replaced.
ought to tell them that a strike by one craft union is the boss has all the skilled crafts tied up with signed If this ever was wholly true, it is rapidly becoming not a strike, either. It may look like a strike, but it contracts, the unskilled workers can strike all they untrue. The skilled craftsman no longer has a monopisn strike occurs when all the workers quit tolike. There are strikers to take their places.
oly of his skill. Efficiency methods and the war gether for a common purpose. Anything less than (6) The boss may buy out the strike. This is liave changed that fast.
this is not a strike, but only part of a strike. It is often done, for there are always some union leaders Four years ago the machinists were among the most usually worse than no strike at all. In principle it is who are more anxious about money than about the highly skilled workers in the country. Their work was the same thing as a strike by one man.
working class. The workers can never be sure that absolutely essential to their nployers. They were So long as the workers are content with half strikes there isn some union leader who will sell out.
well organized in many places. They spent four years and quarter strikes and one tenth strikes they will These are only some of the ways in which the em.
of apprenticeship learning their trade. They limited have to be content wih half meals, and quarter cloth ployer can break the strike of a small craft union, or the number of apprentices. If they went on strike ing, and one tenth bedrooms.
turn it to the disadvantage of the other workers. Of they could not be replaced. They were geting good Whenever one craft union in a shop goes on strike course, the workers are familiar with these methods. wages. They were a part of the aristocracy of laand leaves the others at work, there is no real strike But they forget.
bor.
in the shop There is only part o a strike. For a few The employers are clever. They have studied strike The war came. With it came an enormous indays it may look like the real thing. The striking men problems for years. They know all the ways of break crease in the product to the making of which they may be highly skilled. They may not be replaceable ing little strikes or using them for their own advan aione had the necessary skill. Profits became enorby ordinary strike breakers. They may, by their strike, tage. They have made a science of it. The working mous. The cost of living almost doubled. One slow up work all through the shop, or even stop it man cannot possibly be familiar with all the ways would think that the machinists could get anything altogether. This may look bad for the boss. But of beating the boss at these crafty games. If the they asked for under those circumstances. That their nine times out of ten it only looks bad.
working class fights with pop guns it is sure in the end skill would absolutely protect them.
There are at least ten different ways of breaking to be beaten.
But just the contrary happened. The demand for such a strike as this, and every of them hurts The strength of the workir class does not lie in increased production brought thousands of unskilled the workers worse than it hurts the boss. These are the accuracy with which it can aim a pop gun. It lies workers, including women, into the trade. The some of the ways: in the strength of its heavy artillery and the mass at unions were obliged to cancel their apprenticeship (1) If orders are slack, the boss may shut down tack on the economic field. The strength of the em rules. Efficiency men got on the job and taught the plant entirely. Then all the workers who stayed ployer is his cleverness. The strength of the workers the unskilled to do parts of the machinists work.
at their jobs starve, and get nothing for it. The own is their numbers. The working class should conduct Then they put the tinskilled workers on piece rates ers have saved more money up than the workers and its struggles with its own best weapons. It should that enabled them to earn more than he regular macan stand it longer. Often the owners actually make fight where it is strong; not where it is weak. chinists. Soon, nearly all the machinist trade was money by strikes such as these and hire agents prova It used to be said that the employer does not like being carried on by unskilled workers, with a few cateur to provoke them. When the strike fails the unions. This is no longer true. The employer likes skilled machinists to oversee them. And usually, the unions always come back weaker than before. unions, and the more there are the better he likes them. skilled overseer was getting less than the unskilled (2) The boss may transfer his orders to other He would like twenty or thirty or fifty unions in his worker. The unions were obliged, for self protecplants doing the same kind of work. This enables shop. For he knows how to manage them.
tion, to take the unskilled into the unions. New rates him to keep his contracts, at little more than ordinary Jolin Rockefeller likes unions. Charlie Schwal were set up. The classifications for which the macost, and helps him to starve out the strikers, which likes unions. They have said so in public. Nearly all chinists had struggled all these vears, and which they is an advantage to him in itself. Employers are al progressive employers nowadays like good unions regarded as their protection, were discarded. Piece ways ready to help each other in these little ways. conducted on sensible, conservative lines. They like rates were established which nobody but the bosses Whn their interests are the same they know enough craft unions and shop unions, and any sort of could understand. And when the war came to an to act together for each other benefit, which is more unions which divide the working class. The only end the machinist trade zas no longer a trade.
than can be said of some workers.
thing, nowadays, which makes them wild with rage is The men were laid off. Which men? Why, of (3) The boss may import skilled strike breakers. the idea of one big union.
course, the high priced skilled workmen who were the Some union leaders will tell you that skilled men can The worker will readily understand why this is so.
old and loyal members of the craft union, those who be replaced, but it is not so. The boss can get skilled When a general is fighting in the field, the first thing had spent four years at learning their trade. They men loaned from another factory, enough to keep he tries to do is to divide the forces of the enemy. The were laid off exactly because they were skilled craftsorders going and starve out the strikers. This has world knows how badly the Allies fared when their men and members of a strong craft union. If they often happened. Any employer is glad to spare few armies were commanded by three generals, fighting strike, it will do thein no good. The newcomers, skilled workers to help break a strike in another plant. against a unified command. Think what it would have bossed by a few skilled machinists and efficiency men, Employers know where their interests lie.
been like if the Allied army had been split up into can carry on the work at much less than union rates. 4) The boss may hire smooth tongued scabs to three hundred independent regiments, each with a What has happened to the machinist trade is hapjoin the union, go on strike and then urge the men gereral at its head.
pening to most of the trades, to some gradually, to to go back to work. In some unions the man with the The progressive American employer does not try others rapidly. The worker skill is no longer a loud mouth can persuade the others. So all the boss to crush the unions. He tries to divide them. Divide protection to him. The bosses have learned how to needs to do is to hire a man with a loud mouth and and conquer is the first maxim of the general in the break the unskilled into the skilled man job. That see that he takes out a union card and goes on strike field and the general in industry. Whenever the em is part of their new strategy, with the craft. For the first few days he damns the floyer succeeds in creating a rivalry between two The only defense the workers have against this boss louder than anybody else; then he changes his unions, or in persuading them to act separately and strategy is the solidarity of the masses. If a few tune and says it hopeless, and that all must go back for their own separate interests, he wins a victory. workers strike the bosses will know how to manage to work The workers must understand this modern strategy the situation. If all strike, the bosses are helpless. 5) The boss may give the increase asked for. on the part of the boss. They must realize what kind The workers of the General Electric Company have Often this is the best way of all. If the craft is small oí a fight they are up against. It is not the old fight learned their lesson. Many of them are highly skilled, the increase does not cost him much. He can usually of local skirmishes. It has become a general fight, but that will not help them always. They have make it up by speeding up the less skilled workers, by scientific and highly organized. The employers dur. learned that to strike successfully you must strike the revising the piece rate, or by introducing a fancying the war have learned to act together. They hold whole plant. So when the machinists tried to orbonus system, where the more you work the less you regular conferences at which all the employers, the ganize the Lynn plant last summer, they did not simpmake. Or he may simply raise the price of the prod country over, decide on labor policies, and pledge mu ly work with the machinists. They marched through uct which the workers must buy. But what he is most tual aid in carrying them out. The employers are fastithe plant with an American flag and called upon evlikely to do, when he gives the strikers what they ask coining to adopt a Unified Command and a Unified (rybody to quit. As a result there are unions in the for, is to tie them upto an agreement of a year, or Strategy. And their Unified Strategy is this: Lynn plant today for the first time in its history.
two years or five years. Then, later, when the other To welcome unions to encourage them, even to But then the General Electric workers went on strike craft unions come to strike, this union can quit with organize them, and then to make them weak, jeal and learned another lesson. They found that it was not ther because it has a contract. It promised the ous and tame.
enough to strike the whole plant. For the General boss it would scab and it must keep its promise. If The union leader who urges merely the old line of Continued on page