Page:Jay Fox - Amalgamation (1923).pdf/10

8

NIONS of workingmen have existed from the earliest times. Solomon's temple was a union job. Imperial Rome went down before the sword of the "barbarians" after its corrupt and greedy plutocracy, composing only 2% of the population, had gobbled up all wealth of the vast empire and reduced its workers to chattel slavery, a climax towards which our own empire builders are heading with hastening steps. During the middle ages the union workers lived and worked in their own homes, each craft occupying a separate section of the walled cities. The unions were known as guilds and included employers and workers. In those days employers were themselves workers and never employed more than a few men and apprentices.

The modern craft union, composed of workers only, is a product of capitalism. As the employers became rich and the number of their employers became large the clash of economic interests were intensified. Then the workers began to see that their interests were not identical with the interests of the employers. So they withdrew from the guilds and formed their own organizations, In our times ignorant and designing men in the labor movement have preached the false doctrine of the identity of interest between Labor and Capital. But the increase of wealth and power at the command of Capital and its ruthless grinding down of Labor has made it perfectly plain to the vast majority of workers that the assertion is a vicious lie designed to mislead the toilers and keep them in perpetual bondage to the employing class.

The craft union was the natural starting point for the organization of Labor. When unionism was young there were no industries as we have them today and the industrial trust wasn't even a dream. Shops were small and far between, and each shop employed one kind of tradesmen only. Men who worked at the same trade, having interests in common, were bound sooner or later to combine the conservation of those interests in a union. The craft union grew out of the need of the tradesmen to protect their economic interests against the aggressions of the employers.

The workers learned from observation that when a part of the crew quit, the boss was greatly hampered in the operation of the shop