Page:Jay Fox - Amalgamation (1923).pdf/33

 Rh dustry is organized, and the trade union officialdom is helpless to do anything about it. In this crisis the rank and file are stirring. They have organized the Amalgamation Committee for the Tobacco Industry, and are advancing the program of consolidating the several unions in the industry into one. They propose to renovate and revivify the movement from top to bottom. Their program of reorganization is thorough-going and complete.

Although the coal miners have an industrial union which takes in all classes of workers employed in and around the mines, their experience of the past few years shows that they must seek to develop still greater combinations. They have organized a rank and file committee known as the Progressive International Committee of the United Mine Workers of America. In its general program occur the following statements regarding amalgamation:

The Progressive Miners heartily endorse the movement to amalgamate all the craft unions of the country into a series of industrial unions. In its early days the coal mining industry was afflicted with craft unionism, but the miners saw fit to combine all their unions into one organization to cover the whole industry. In the great fights that have since occurred the industrial form of our union has stood us in good stead, Had we been so organized that one part of the working force remained at work while the rest were striking, we would have been defeated and our organization broken up long ago. Speaking from experience, we heartily recommend industrial unionism to the labor movement as a whole, and we pledge ourselves to do whatever we can to bring it about.

There must be created a real fighting alliance between the men who dig the coal and those who haul it. This must not be a weak affiliation such as exists at present, which produces merely an exchange of friendly telegrams of sympathy when either group is on strike. The miners and railroad workers must actually join forces for united action and fight side by side in times of strikes.

The sentiment for amalgamation is rising rapidly in all the industries. As a result of the great "open shop" drive of the last few years the workers are coming to understand more and more that the old craft unions are helpless in the face of modern, highly-organized