Page:William Z. Foster, James P. Cannon and Earl Browder - Trade Unions in America.djvu/7

  industries are almost completely unorganized. Likewise the ' and ' save for small and weak A. F. of L. and I. W. W. unions. The millions of ' and , and ' have no organization at all except in the rare instances of skilled workers and a small union of migratory agricultural workers in the I. W. W. In many of these industries, whwichwhich [sic] are completely outside of trade union influence, the employers set up so-called "company unions," which are controlled by the bosses and which serve merely to delude and demoralize the workers.

American industries contain millions of foreign-born workers of all nationalities. In the great Homestead steel mills, for example, 54 nations are represented. Comparitively few of these foreign-born workers are organized except in the clothing and mining industiresindustries [sic]. The American workers tend to monopolize the best jobs in industry hence they predominate in most of the skilled workers unions. The four railroad brotherhoods are almost entirely American in character, while the four largest clothing unions are made up almost altogether of foreign-born. One-seventh of the population of the United States are Negroes. These tend constantly to migrate from the agricultural south to the industrial north, from the farms into the industries. Already great numbers of them are engaged in the steel, packing, automobile, railroad and other industries. They are almost entirely unorganized. Many of the unions, notably the four brotherhoods, with the machinists, railway clerks, railway carmen, etc., openly refuse to accept them as members. This forces them to act as strikebreakers. The Negro question is a serious problem to the whole trade union movement. Women workers are also very weakly organized, except in the needle trades, where they play a very important part in the unions. Ordinarily the women workers join the same