Page:Onward Sweep of the Machine Process (ca 1917).pdf/8

6 every line of work. "The machine of wood and iron is taking the place of the machine of flesh and blood."

When the machines first appeared, the workers began to organize in small bodies—just big enough to fight the small masters of those days. As these masters began to get bigger, it was a natural consequence that the workers' organizations had to get bigger also. And as the employers began to organize to get control, not only of one shop or a few shops, one town or a few towns, but of the industries from coast to coast, from one land to another, the workers saw that the only way to fight them would be by organizing on the same lines as they did. Therefore the workers' organization grew from the small one to the big body of men—with units in every part of the country and with similar organizations seeking to form an international.

In the beginning, when the masters were only partly organized, an organization of the workers by craft was apparently sufficient to safeguard their interests. Within the limits only of each separate trade or craft these unions organized (and still organize) the workers; each one of these unions pulled each in its own direction, and solidarity of labor was an impossibility.

Another thing was that the masters got together in big industrial organizations; it began to be hard for the craft unions to cope with the situation—and so the industrial union was born. In this union all the workers in any industry stand together side by side, and strike together so as to completely stop the production of the shop or of the entire industry, when strikes are necessary.

Unfortunately, we still have the craft organization, as well as the contract system. The workers are split up, so that when the miners, for instance, go on strike in one place or one part of the country other "organized" miners in other parts of the country are working overtime to fill the orders. They have signed a "contract" with the employers (a piece of paper which "binds" them together, though it never binds the employers), so they can't