Page:William Z. Foster, James P. Cannon and Earl Browder - Trade Unions in America.djvu/9

 weaken the labor movement. Unions having labels tend to lose their militancy. They get agreements with the employers on the basis of the amount of trade they control. The interests of the workers are often completely lost sight of in such union label bargains. Sometimes a system of semi-espionage develops, in which the workers have no say whatever over the regulation of their wages, hours and working conditions. Often serious corruption results by the officials selling the union label to "unfair" employers.

Although the A. F. of L. itself is decentralized, the 111 national and international unions composing it are highly centralized and autonomous bodies. These unions range in character from pure craft unions to pure industrial. The craft, or near craft, is the predominant structural type. In the railroad industry there are 16 "standard" organizations, one for each of the big craft divisions. The building trades are divided into 15 important organizations, and the printing trades into six. There are six unions in the clothing industry, and 25 in the metal industry. The food industry has several national craft organizations. During strikes these many unions in the various industries customarily scab on each other, save in the few cases where they have alliances among themselves. The usual method is for one or more unions to strike while the rest remain at work. In the national strike of railroad shopmen, 1922, nine unions struck while seven stayed at work. Such a lack of solidarity is of course ruinous to the workers' interests.

On the other hand there is only one union, the United Mine Workers, which includes workers of all classes employed in and around the mines. In the textile industry there is one A. F. of L. union, industrial in form, and half a dozen or more small independents. A similar condition prevails in the shoe and leather industry. In the general transport industry there are a dozen A. F. of L. national craft unions and several independents. The local type of unions that characterizes the British movement, is