Page:William Z. Foster, James P. Cannon and Earl Browder - Trade Unions in America.djvu/13

 successful they are being used as instruments to boster up the failing power of reactionary trade union officials and to reinforce their policies of class collaboration.

Many American unions of skilled workers show tendencies towards becoming "job trusts." They restrict apprenticeship and charge exhorbitant initiation fees. Often they refuse entirely to accept members. This exclusive tendency prevails especially in the building trades. Sometimes these unions charge as high as $300 initiation fee. A common practice among them is to close their books and to refuse to accept into their ranks even members of their own national unions coming from other cities. If work is plentiful these newcomers are granted "working permits," for which they pay the union $1,00 or more per day. When work gets scarce the members of the union refuse to give out working permits, with the result that they have a monopoly of whatever work is to be had. Such practices are disastrous to the morale and solidarity of the workers.

A striking feature of American trade unionism is the graft and corruption prevailing among the officialdom. The officials, by playing politics within the organizations, manage to hoist their remuneration to fantastic heights. Salaries of $5,000 per year are common for officials of lower grades, while those in the higher executive positions receive $10,000, $15,000 or even $25,000 per year, together with the most extravagant expense accounts. In order to pay such huge amounts, the rank and file of the unions are taxed to a degree that is disastrous for the life of the unions. Not satisfied with even these salaries, many leaders descend to outright thievery. They rob the workers, the employers, and the "public" indiscriminately. They call strikes arbitrarily and then sell them out for cash payments. At the present time, Robert Brindell, formerly President of the Building Trades Council of New York, is in Sing-Sing prison serving a sentence of five years for having stolen great sums of money from the employers. Sometimes these officials, notably in the large cities, are profes-