Page:Solomon Abramovich Lozovsky - The World's Trade Union Movement (1924).pdf/41

 Rh Force plays the role and this trust of the victors found it necessary to create an International Labor Bureau whose purpose was to bring about "justice" between capital and labor.

Having before it a great purpose, the International Labor Bureau was organized in the following way: In October 1919 a conference was called at Washington to which were invited the representatives of trade unions, employers' organizations and representatives of governments which, as it is known, are "neutrals." The bourgeoisie and the reformists liked very much to talk about the non-class rule of government, spreading widely the legend of the "neutrality" of government. In the report of the Amsterdam International there are many pages telling of victories the Amsterdamers attained at the Washington Conference. These victories consisted in the adoption by the Washington Conference of a program of social reform, and especially the endorsement of the eight-hour day.

It is interesting that the representatives of the governments neutral in the war voted for that program. The organizations of those countries where the eight-hour day was already won by the workers, insisted that it should be spread all over; and, of course, they declared their motives to be humanitarian, as it is well known that these are the main considerations of the employers and the governments.

The question of competition and the price of commodities also played a big role at the Conference. There were long discussions with representatives of the Japanese government which tried to prove that Japan has its peculiarities thanks to which the workers there must work twelve hours a day. But here the greatest defenders of the eight-hour day were not only the representatives of the workers organizations but also the employers of England and France, which, of course, are not interested in the principle of the eight-hour day but in the question of competition.

Finally, the program of social reforms has been adopted and as a result of the Washington Conference the International Labor Bureau was created. It is composed of six representatives of the workers, six representatives of the employers' organizations which, we may mention, at the Washington Conference also created their international, and twelve representatives of governments: England, France, Czecho-Slovakia, Poland, etc. Thus, we see that the reformists had a "brilliant victory:" Out of twenty-four representatives they have six. The director of this wonderful institution, the choice of the reformists, was