Page:George Henry Soule - Recent Developments in Trade Unionism (1921).pdf/7

 workers who had always considered themselves part of the middle-class rather than of the working class, found that in the matter of wages and salaries they were as badly off as the unorganized workman, and that in fact their entire economic situation ranged them with labor rather than with their employers. They therefore adopted the same means· to improve their position that had been successful with miners and machinists. They organized unions and joined the labor movement.

With the increased organization of the unskilled, the character of the unions themselves began to change. A union of highly skilled operatives is naturally confined to a· given craft, but there are not hard and fast boundaries between the jobs of the various unskilled and semi-skilled workers. They are likely to shift about from day to day and from month to month. Furthermore, the supply of the unskilled and semi-skilled is not limited in the same way as the supply of the highly skilled craftsman. Therefore the new unions had to cover entire industries rather than special occupations. When they struck, it did no good to call out a few men here and there; they had to call out all the transport workers or all the miners, as the case might be. The organization of the unskilled therefore led to the growth of industrial unionism as opposed to craft unionism.