Page:William Z. Foster, James P. Cannon and Earl Browder - Trade Unions in America.djvu/10

 absent in America. The A. F. of L. unions stretch over the whole expanse of the United States and Canada. A big rank and file movement is being carried on by the Trade Union Educational League to amalgamate all these craft organizations into a dozen industrial unions.

In each of the states of the United States (and in some of the provinces of Canada) the A. F. of L. has state federations, comprising all the local unions in the respective territories involved. In all the industrial centers similar federations, on a local scale, are in existence. These state and city central bodies are purposely kept weak by the centralized national unions. They have insignificant representation at the A. F. of L. conventions. They have very little power either industrially of politically, the national unions watching them jealously as a dangerous, class type of organization. In Canada all the unions affiliated to the A. F. of L. are crystallized into the Canadian Trades and Labor Congress.

The conservative independent unions, including the four railroad brotherhoods, the Amalgamated Clothing Workers, etc., follow the general structural type prevailing in the A. F. of L. They are craft unions. On the other hand, most of the revolutionary independent unions take the industrial form. The I. W. W. particularly is a militant advocate of this type of organization. Operating under one general executive board, it sets up unions for each of the more important unions listed. Its strongholds are in the marine transport, metal mining, agriculture, lumber and general construction industries. The United Labor Council is a federation of revolutionary industrial unions. The Canadian O. B. U. organizes class unions with local autoonomy.

The main body_of American organized labor is unaffiliated with the workers of the world. The A. F. of L was affiliated to the Amsterdam International, but withdrew because that reactionary organization wasswas [sic] "too