Rebel Voices
Page 6
You see, this is a carriage factory, and it’s only the Amalgamated Association of Brim Stone and Emery Polishers that are striking, the Brotherhood of Oil Rag Wipers, the Fraternal Society of White Lead Daubers, the Undivided Sons of Varnish Spreaders, the Benevolent Compilation of Wood Work Gluers, the Iron Benders’ Sick and Death Benefit Union, the Oakdale Lodge of Coal Shovelers, the Martha Washington Lodge of Ash Wheelers, the Amalgamated Brotherhood of Oilers, the Engineers’ Protective Lodge, the Stationary Firemen, the Portable Firemen, the F. O. O. L., the A. S. S. E. S. Societies have nothing to do with the Amalgamated Association of Brimstone and Emery Polishers.
At the next regular meeting of those societies, ringing resolutions endorsing the strike of the Amalgamated Association of Brimstone and Emery Polishers will be passed. Moral support is pledged and five dollars’ worth of tickets are purchased for the dance given by the Ladies’ Volunteer and Auxiliary Chore for the Benefit of the Amalgamated Association of Brimstone and Emery Polishers.
The whole thing is like beating a man’s brains out and then handing him a headache tablet.
During a very bitterly fought molders’ strike in a northern city the writer noticed one of the prettiest illustrations of the workings of plain scabbing and union scabbing.
A dense mass of strikers and sympathizers had assembled in front of the factory awaiting the exit of the strikebreakers. Out they came, scabs and unionists in one dark mass. Stones, rotten eggs and other missiles began to fly, when one of the strikebreakers leaped on a store box and shouted frantically: “Stop it, stop it, for C-----’s sake, stop it; you are hitting more unionists than scabs; you can’t tell the difference.”
That’s it. Wherever scabs and union men work harmoniously in the strike-breaking industry all hell can’t tell the difference.
To the murky conception of a union scab, scabbing is only wrong when practiced by a non-union man. To him the union card is a kind of scab permit that guarantees him immunity from insults, brickbats and rotten eggs.
After having instructed a green bunch of amateur scabs in the art of brimstone and emery polishing all day, he meets a striking brother in the evening and forthwith demonstrates his unionism by setting up the drinks for the latter.
Union scabbing is the legitimate offspring of craft organization. It is begotten by ignorance, born of imbecility and nourished by infamy.
My dear brother, I am sorry to be under contract to hang you, but I know it will please you to hear that the scaffold is built by union carpenters, the rope bears the label, and here is my card.
This is union scabbing.
8
In The Call (May 6, 1920), a British Socialist Party weekly, Jim Connell (?–1929) recalled how he had written “The Red Flag in 1889. He said that he had been inspired by the London Dock Strike of 1889, the work of the Irish Land League, the Russian Nihilist movement, and the hanging of the Chicago anarchists following the Haymarket bombing of 1887. He wrote most of “The Red Flag” on a fifteen-minute train ride between Charing Cross and New Cross. It was first published in the 1889 Christmas issue of Justice, a British socialist publication. Connell, who was secretary of the Workmen’s Legal Friendly Society, described himself in Who’s Who as “sheep-farmer, dock labourer, navvy, railwayman, draper, lawyer (of a sort), and all the time a poacher.”
“The Red Flag” became the official anthem of the British Labour Party and has continued to be popular in England until the present time. On August 1, 1945, it was sung in the British House of Commons following the Labour Party victory in the Parliamentary elections.
Connell composed the verses to the tune of “The White Cockade,” a Jacobite song. It was later sung to the tune of “Maryland” (“Tannenbaum”) which, Connell wrote, is really an old German Roman Catholic hymn. “The Red Flag was first published in the I.W.W. press in the Industrial Union Bulletin (July 25,1908) and was included in the first edition of the I.W.W. songbook. It is one of the most popular and well-known radical songs in this country.
THE RED FLAG*
By JIM CONNELL
The People’s flag is deepest red,
It shrouded oft our martyred dead;
And ere their limbs grew stiff and cold
Their life-blood dyed its every fold.
Chorus:
Then raise the scarlet standard high
Beneath its folds, we’ll live and die,
Though cowards flinch and traitors sneer,
We’ll keep the red flag flying here.
Look ’round! the Frenchman loves its blaze,
The sturdy German chants its praise;
In Moscow’s vaults, its hymns are sung,
Chicago swells its surging song.
It waved above our infant might
When all ahead seemed dark as night;
It witnessed many a deed and vow,
We will not change its color now.
It suits today the meek and base
Whose minds are fixed on pelf and place;
To cringe beneath the rich man’s frown,
And haul that sacred emblem down.
With heads uncovered, swear we all,
To bear it onward till we fall;
Come dungeons dark, or gallows grim,
This song shall be our parting hymn!
9
B. L. Weber, the author of this song which first was printed in the Industrial Worker (December 29, 1910) may have been Bertram Lester Weber, who was a member of the artistic Bohemian group of radicals and writers active in Chicago in the 1920’s. Former I.W.W. acting secretary-treasurer, Peter Stone wrote: “He was a habitue of the ‘Dill Pickle Club’ and a friend of Dr. Ben Reitman under whose supervision he worked as a clerk in the Chicago Health Department. He had some local reputation for debates in Newberry Square and poetry in praise of the Walt Whitman philosophy’ (letter to J. L. K., February 3, 1964).
Solidarity, May 19, 1917.
A. F. OF L. SYMPATHY
By B. L. WEBER
(Tune: “All I Got Was Sympathy”)
Bill Brown was a worker in a great big shop,
Where there worked two thousand others;
They all belonged to the A. F. of L.,
And they called each other “brothers.”
One day Bill Brown’s union went out on strike,
And they went out for higher pay;
All the other crafts remained on the job,
And Bill Brown did sadly say:
Chorus:
All we got was sympathy;
So we were bound to lose, you see;
All the others had craft autonomy,
Or else they would have struck with glee
But I got good and hungry,
And no craft unions go for me.
Gee! Ain’t it hell, in the A. F. of L.
All you get is sympathy.
Bill Brown was a thinker, and he was not a fool,
And fools there are many, we know.
So he decided the A. F. of L.
And its craft divisions must go.
Industrial Unions are just the thing,
Where the workers can all join the fight;
So now on the soap box boldly he stands,
A singing with all of his might:
Chorus:
All we got was sympathy;
So we were bound to lose, you see;
All the others had craft autonomy,
Or else they would have struck with glee
But I got good and hungry,
And no craft unions go for me.
Gee! Ain’t it hell, in the A. F. of L.
All you get is sympathy.
10
The first edition of the I.W.W. songbook included a “Song for 1910.” This version, “A Song for 1912” appeared in the third edition. It was unsigned.
A SONG FOR 1912
Long in their bondage the people have waited,
Lulled to inaction by pulpit and press;
Hoping their wrongs woul
d in time be abated,
Trusting the ballot to give them redress.
Vainly they trusted; a high court’s decision
Swept the last bulwark of freedom away;
The voice of the people is met with derision,
But a people in action no court will gainsay.
Chorus:
Then up with the masses and down with the classes,
Death to the traitor who money can buy.
Co-operation’s the hope of the nation,
Strike for it now or your liberties die.
Hark to the cries of the hungry and idle,
Borne on the breezes from prairie to sea;
Patience their fury no longer can bridle,
Onward they’re coming to die or be free.
Hear and grow pale, ye despoilers of virtue,
Corporate managers, masters of slaves.
Fools, did ye fancy they never could hurt you?
Ye were the cowards and they the braves.
Hail to the birth of the new constitution—
Laws that are equal in justice to all.
Hail to the age of man’s true evolution,
Order unfolding at Liberty’s call.
Buried forever be selfish ambition,
Cruel fomenter of discord and strife;
Long live the commonwealths, Hope’s glad fruition,
Humanity rises to news of life.
11
William Trautmann, former editor of the German language newspaper of the United Brewery Workers, was one of the six men who laid plans in 1904 for the organization of the I.W.W. At the 1906 and 1908 I.W.W. conventions he was a key figure in the expulsion of I.W.W. President Charles Sherman and in the factional fight with Daniel De Leon. At the 1908 convention, Trautmann was elected general organizer. In 1912 he withdrew from the Chicago I.W.W. to join De Leon’s Detroit-based group, the Workers International Industrial Union. By 1923, according to historian Mark Perlman (Labor Union Theories in America, Evanston, 1958), he seemed to advocate works council and workers’ education movements, endorsed Walter Rathenau’s New Society, and Woodrow Wilson’s concept of democracy in the shop. Trautmann was the author of several important I.W.W. pamphlets, including, Why Strikes Are Lost, published in Chicago about 1911.
WHY STRIKES ARE LOST
By WILLIAM TRAUTMANN
After a tremendous epidemic of strikes a few years ago, conflicts expressive of a general discontent finding its outlet in vehement eruptions, but ending only with a pitiful exhaustion of vitality, there seems to be at present a relapse all around. “The workers have gone to sleep” thinks the superficial observer and the uninformed outside world.
This seems, indeed, to be the truth. However, a relapse in numerical strength would amount to little: economic depression could be attributed as the cause.
But deplorable would it be if there were in reality a relapse in the aggressive attitude, in the revolutionary feelings of the workers.
This spirit of revolt manifesting itself a few years ago in somewhat rough actions and expressions seemed to mark the beginning of a general awakening of large masses of workers, and yet there seems to be nothing left of the spontaneous, widespread tendency of revolt.
For this there must be reasons. Such powerfully exploding forces cannot be destroyed altogether, or be dammed in by repressive measures.
Time flies quickly; here and there one hears again of rapid flaring up, of a volcanic eruption of accumulated discontent, but in most of the cases it is only a last flicker of a light before it goes out altogether.
If occasionally larger bodies of workers become involved in these demonstrations of revolt, politicians and labor (mis)leaders are quickly on hand to suggest termination of the conflict, with the promise of speedy arbitration. These leaders of labor often even threaten to engage union strikebreakers if the workers refuse to obey their mandates. In some cases the places of striking workers have been filled by other members of these so-called unions so as to suppress any rebellion against the leaders and the capitalist class whom they serve. But seldom is anything more heard of the results of such conciliatory tactics, or of any determined stand on the part of the workers to enforce the terms of such settlements. Their power once crushed after having been exercised with the most effective precision, also destroys their confidence; and the organization through which they were able to rally the forces of their fellow workers for concerted action disappears.
After an apparent awakening of three or four years’ duration (1901 to 1905), during which some of the largest conflicts were fought on American soil, a general indifference superseded the previous activity. A lethargy prevails now, even to the extent that many workers with eyes still shut are marching into the pitfalls laid for them. Blindfolded by false theories they are being prevented from coming together into organization in which the workers would be able to profit from the lessons of the past, and prepare for the conflicts with the capitalist class with better knowledge of facts and more thoroughly equipped to give them better battle.
In the period mentioned the general clamor for an advance in wages, and the shortening of the workday, had to find its expression. Prices of the necessities of life had been soaring up, as a rule, before the workers instinctively felt that they, too, had to make efforts to overcome the increased poverty attendant upon increased prices for life’s necessities. Powerless as individuals, as they well knew, they were inclined to come together for more collective and concerted action. With great displays and much oratory the beauties and the achievements of such action on craft union lines, as exemplified by the American Federation of Labor and the eight independent national Brotherhoods of Railway Workers, were presented to them.
Not knowing better, seeing before their eyes immediate improvement of their conditions, or at least a chance to advance the price of their labor power in proportion to the increased cost of living, the workers flocked into the trades unions in large numbers. At the same time the relative scarcity of available workers in the open market, at a period of relative good times, forced the employers of labor to forestall any effort to cripple production. Consequently, in the epidemic of strikes following one another, the workers gained concessions. Such concessions, however, were as much the combined result of a decreased supply of labor to an increasing demand, as to the spontaneously developed onrush into the trade unions.
One thing, also, contributed largely to the success of these quickly developed strikes. The workers would come together shortly before walking out of the shops. In the primary stage of organization thus formed they knew nothing of craft distinctions. Unaware of what later would be used as a barrier against staying together, they would usually strike in a body and win in most cases. Anxious to preserve the instrument by which alone they could obtain any results, they found in most cases that certain rules were laid down by a few wise men in bygone years, which were to govern the organizations and force them to admit to, or reject from membership, anyone who did not strictly fit into the measure of “craft autonomy.”
What Is Craft Autonomy?
It is a term used to lay down restrictive rules for each organization which adheres to the policy of allowing only a certain portion of workers in a given industry to become members of a given trade union. Formerly, as a rule, a craft was determined by the tool which a group of workers used in the manufacturing process. But as the simple tool of yore gave way to the large machine, the distinction was changed to designate the part of a manufacturing process on a given article by a part of the workers engaged in the making of the same.
For instance, in the building of a machine the following crafts are designated as performing certain functions, namely:
The workers preparing the pattern are patternmakers.
The workers making cores are core makers.
The workers making molds and castings are molders.
The workers molding the brass bearings are brass molders.
The helpers working in the foundry are fou
ndry helpers.
The workers preparing and finishing the parts of machines are machinists.
The workers polishing up the parts of machines are metal polishers.
The workers assembling the parts of machines are assemblers.
The workers putting on copper parts are coppersmiths.
The workers putting on the insulation parts are steamfitters.
This line of demarkation could thus be drawn in almost every industry.
Now these various crafts, each contributing its share in the production of an article, are not linked together in one body, although members of these crafts work in one plant or industry.
They are separated in craft groups. Each craft union zealously guards its own craft interests. The rule is strictly adhered to that even if the protection of the interests of a craft organization is detrimental to the general interests of all others no interference is permitted. This doctrine of noninterference in the affairs of a craft union is what is called “craft or trade autonomy.”
Evil Effects of Craft Autonomy
Now, as observed in the beginning, a body of workers, only recently brought together, may walk out on strike, before they have learned to know what craft autonomy implies. In such cases they usually win. As soon as they begin to settle down to do some constructive or educational work, to keep the members interested in the affairs of the organization and prepare for future conflicts with the employers, they learn to their chagrin that they have done wrong in allowing all to be together.
They are told that they had no right to organize all working at one place into one organization. The splitting-up process is enforced, trade autonomy rules are applied, and what was once a united body of workers without knowledge of the intricate meaning of “autonomy” is finally divided into a number of craft organizations.