Page:The Scientific Monthly vol. 3.djvu/161

 LABOR ORGANIZATIONS 155

^^TTIAIiS IN THE STUDY OP LABOR ORGANIZATIONS

By PBOFB88OB FBANK T. CAKLTON

▲I/BION COLLBOB

THE assumption that all labor organizations may be traced back to some one original form of local trade society is unwarranted. Labor organizations of different types and located in different commu- nities are the products of environmental conditions and forces which have caused the wage-earners to cohere in some weak or strong form of imion organization. Because of increasing population, the elimination of free land, rising prices, or other social phenomena, American wage- eamers have been vividly impressed with the insufficiency of individual bargainiDg. Organization is naturally the next step. Wage-earners organize in order that wages may be raised, hours reduced, or conditions of work improved. The form of the organization is not the significant fact; nor is the expressed function of the union whether business, revolu- tionary or " predatory '* of great importance But classification may help students of labor problems in their effort to investigate the complex of union origins, structures, methods and functions.

Organized labor is a social phenomenon ; it is a form of institution. The form, methods, ideals and immediate purposes of labor organiza- tions may be studied in the same manner as political parties or fraternal organizations may be analyzed. A union consciously or unconsciously adopts a certain peculiar form or structure in order to aid it in accom- plishing certain aims. No institution would come into being were it not intended, deliberately or fortuitously, to affect certain changes in the course of human affairs. And no form of organized labor would exist iinless wageworkers hoped to obtain through its agency some improve- ment in living and working conditions. These statements are certainly little short of axiomatic. In short, both the structure and functions of a labor organization or of any other institution are the visible and tangi- ble reaults of underlying forces and causes which spring out of the pliysical and social environment. The analysis of a labor organization is a study in social mechanics. To classify labor organizations according to structure or according to functions may be desirable; but the classifier should remember that he is only dealing with outward manifestations and results, not with causes and fundamental motives.

The union — a social structure or organization — ^is a grouping of wageworkers for the purpose of accomplishing certain results. The union is a tool ; a means to an end. Writers upon the subject of labor and labor organizations have not held that the form of organization was fundamental. Nor have they held that all labor organizations were alike or even similar in ideals and plans. Indeed, quite the contrary is true.

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