Page:William Zebulon Foster - The Bankruptcy of the American Labor Movement (1922).djvu/14

 Rh formed. On the other hand, the progressive German unions, which are much further advanced than the A. F. of L., and by no means as hard pressed by the employers, at their 1922 Leipzig Convention went on record for amalgamation generally and laid plans to reorganize the whole labor movement on an industrial basis. In the United States, where capitalist organization has reached the highes known type, the trade unions should lead the world in the matter of numbers and structure. In point of fact, however, they are not beyond the point reached generally by European trade unions 15 years ago.

Invariably American labor leaders, when confronted with irrefutable facts demonstrating the numerical, structural, and intellectual inferiority of our labor movement as compared with that of Europe, attempt to wave aside the unfavorable comparison by making the broad assertion that trade unionists enjoy better conditions in this country than any where else in the world. So far as wages are concerned this is undeniably true. But it is idle to say that such is the case because American labor is better organized or more ably led than European labor. Without belittling the accomplishments of our unions, it is safe to say that the determining factor in the matter is that the United States, as compared with Europe, has long been a bonanza country. Enormously rich and getting from 2 to 20 times greater production from their employees, the capitalists in this country are much more inclined to yield a bit on the wage scale of the workers, unorganized as well as organized, than are the employers in poorer and slower-going Europe. Unquestionably European workers have to fight much harder for wage increases than we do.

Nevertheless, up to the outbreak of the war at least, the European unions were able to make a surprisingly creditable showing in wages. During a debate in 1909 between Karl Legien and Karl Kautsky this was strikingly illustrated. In his paper, Die Neue Zeit, Kautsky sought to prove that trade union action had little value. To back up his assertions he cited official A. F. of L. statistics which showed that the wage increases secured by its affiliated unions from 1890, to 1907, had barely beat the advancing cost of living. Legien took exception to this argument, and refused to consider the accomplishments of the A. F. of L. organizations as exhausting the possibilities of trade unionism. In a pamphlet, Sisyphusarbeit oder positiv Erfolg, he demonstrated that the German unions had made a much better