Page:Proletarian and Petit-Bourgeois (1912?).pdf/19

Rh Hence each industry has and now consists of a core of organized mechanics and operatives, surrounded by a rind of unorganized, and in the last resort the juice is squeezed out of the organized core through the unorganized rind.

It must be remembered also that even this organized portion is not a homogeneous body, and that even the crafts are not organized in terms of the industry in which they operate, but are separate entities. None can be brought to the assistance of its neighbor without much delay and the solution of involved jurisdictional questions. Consequently, we see the craft, even the highly skilled craft, engaged in a protracted struggle, expending money which it can ill afford and finally yielding to the greater force or even if it is able to secure such a compromise as enables the leaders to advertise a victory it is at such expense as to be a Pyrrhic victory.

The plan generally followed is to determine what amount of strike pay can be given to the men who come out and having settled that this strike pay can be found for at least a time to declare a strike.

Thenceforward the process follows a routine. The strikers picket, the employer imports scabs; physical conflicts arise which necessitate the employment of the police. Both sides engage a corps of lawyers. The scabs start up the industry. The unions keep on paying strike pay. Finally, one of two things happens, either the employer, by reason of the interruption to his business loses valuable customers and his business is attacked by competitors so that he is compelled to make terms, or the strike pay gives out and the striking union men are driven to return to work. It will be observed that the former alternative is less and less likely to occur with the growing concentration and the extinction of competition between employers.

All this time men not belonging to the crafts actually engaged in conflict go on with their work. I have known a building struck by one craft which picketed the