Page:William Z. Foster, James P. Cannon and Earl Browder - Trade Unions in America.djvu/12

 economic power, rather than upon their funds, to win strikes and to hold their membership together.

The trade union system of educating the membership in established schools is still in a very primitive state. The only industry which evidences any serious development of this nature is the needle trades. The unions in this branch all have regular educational departments. Within the last five years a number of trade union colleges were started in Boston, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Montreal and a few other cities, but the movement has not prospered. The only live institution of this character now existing is the Brookwood College just outside of New York. It is supported by radical and liberal sources. Two years ago the labor educational institutions, mostly of a radical character, combined into the Workers' Education Bureau. But the lieutenants of Gompers managed to seize control of it and to strangle it. The whole "workers' education" movement is taking on an ever more distinct class collaborationist character.

For many years American trade unions have tried to establish a real co-operative movement. The miners, clothing workers, the railway trackmen and various central labor councils have been especially active in this direction. But such efforts have almost universally failed. Either the men managing the co-operatives were incompetent or corrupt and wrecked them outright, or the enterprises became capitalistic by one means or an other. Within the past four years this movement has taken a new turn in the formation of labor banks. The Machinists launched the first bank; then followed one by the Locomotive Engineers; and after that came many more in rapid succession. At present there are about 25 of such institutions in various big industrial centers. Their total capitalization is about thirty millions of dollars. With the corruption and incompetence now prevailing among labor officials, it will be a marvel if a number of these banks do not go the way of similar labor enterprises by failing ignobly. When financially