Page:George Henry Soule - Recent Developments in Trade Unionism (1921).pdf/9

 the actual situation in the metal and many other industries as it was in England a few years ago and still exists to a large extent in the United States.

The natural result has been to bring about amalgamation and federation of various craft unions which had grown up in the same industry. In England, for instance, the Amalgamated Society of Engineers, which originally included only machinists, now has combined with so many other unions that it covers virtually the whole metal industry. Other less recent examples of industrial organization are the National Union of Railwaymen, the Transport Workers' Federation, and the Miners' Federation. Both Transport Workers and Miners, although they are called "federations", are now practically single unions. Not one of these bodies, however, sprang up in a night, but they were the result of years of growth, in which the organization of the unskilled and semi-skilled, and the processes of amalgamation and federation of separate unions, all helped.

Several years ago the National Union of Railwaymen, the Miners' Federation, and the Transport Workers' Federation formed what is popularly known as the Triple Alliance, for industrial action. This is an extension of the principle of industrial unionism to the inter-industrial field. Of