Page:William Zebulon Foster - The Railroaders' Next Step, Amalgamation (1922).djvu/24

Rh From its inception, the A. F. of R. W. has been a thorn in the side of the old unions. It has done them much harm and compromised the interests of railroaders generally. One of its latest exploits was a clear betrayal of union principles. During the recent big struggle to maintain the national agreements and to preserve the system of bargaining upon a national scale rather than with individual companies, the officials of the A. F. of R. W. promptly stepped in and signed up a separate agreement with the Philadelphia & Reading, which not only gave up the principle of the shopmen's national agreement, but also many of the conditions established by the same. Similar agreements have since been made on other roads, to the sad compromise of the interests of railroad workers as a whole. But such are the fruits of dual unionism generally, no matter in the name of what high-sounding purpose the dual union operates.

The One Big Union was set afoot in Western Canada in 1918. It is a general dual union, organized upon the industrial plan and claiming all classes of workers. For a time it made great progress in Canada, assembling large numbers of workers, among them many railroad men, into its fold. Some railroad locals were established in the United States also, notably in Chicago. But the movement has lost its impetus; it is waning rapidly and seems about to be eliminated.

The United Association of Railway Employes is an aftermath of the great, so-called "outlaw" yardmen's strike of the Spring and Summer of 1920, headed by John Grunau. It was formed of the various groups of strikers and blacklisted men. Numerically it is not strong. So far as the writer can learn, it has no agreements with the companies anywhere. It, too, appears to be moribund.

The strike that gave birth to this organization is a typical illustration of the unfortunate dualistic tendency that has long afflicted railroad men. It must be admitted that the men affected had crying grievances and that the union