Page:William Z. Foster -Organize the Unorganized.djvu/18



N the United States, the task of organizing the workers is an extremely complicated and difficult one. The situation in the industries is not uniform. In industries that are competitive in character, especially where there are established unions or where the workers have a tradition of organization, unions and efforts, to organize them are tolerated; or at least not violently persecuted.

In other industries, where the organization and tradition of unionism are weak, and the employers, highly organized, are applying a militant "open shop" policy, the unions are ruthlessly crushed and attempts to establish them are met with an iron repression. This situation necessitates upon our part two general kinds of organizing work, open and secret. Let us first discuss "open" organization work.

It is possible to carry on "open" trade union organization work in many industries such as on various railroads, in half organized northern coal fields, in the unorganized sections of the building, needle, culinary, and printing trades, and in the general mass of small metal and other competitive industries, where the employers are not strongly organized. In such situations are commonly found trade unions, however weak. Wherever "open" trade union organization is possible, the task of the left wing consists, for the most part, in stimulating the existing unions into carrying on open organizational campaigns among the workers by mass meetings, individual solicitation, etc.

To develop this activity of the old unions necessitates a variety of means. Every phase and stage of the movement must be stirred up on the organization question. In every local union the question of organizing the unorganized must be made a burning one, and committees established to unite the workers. Between