Industrial unionism is a
labor union organizing method through which all
workers in the same industry are organized into the same
union—regardless of skill or trade—thus giving workers in one
industry, or in all industries, more leverage in bargaining and in
strike situations. Advocates of industrial unionism value its
contributions to building unity and solidarity, suggesting
the slogans, "
an injury to one is an
injury to all" and "the longer the picket line, the shorter the
strike."
Industrial unionism contrasts with
craft
unionism, which organizes workers along lines of their specific
trades, i.e., workers using the same kind of tools, or doing the
same kind of work with approximately the same level of skill, even
if this leads to multiple union locals (with different contracts,
and different expiration dates) in the same workplace.
Perceived disadvantages of craft unionism
In 1922, Marion Dutton Savage cataloged the disadvantages of craft
unionism, as observed by industrial union advocates. These included
"distressingly frequent disputes between different craft unions"
over jurisdiction; modern industry results in a constant process of
phasing out old skills; one trade doing the struck work of another
is a frequent dilemma; expiration of contracts can be staggered,
hindering coordination of strikes. Industrial unionists observe
that craft union members are more often required by their contracts
to cross the picket lines established by workers in other unions.
Likewise, in a strike of (for example) coal miners, unionized
railroad workers may be
required by their contracts to
haul "scab" coal.
Employers find it easier to enforce one bad contract, then use that
as a precedent. Employers could also show favoritism to a strategic
group of workers. Employers also find it easier to outsource the
struck work of a craft union.
A craft union with critical skills may be able to shut down an
entire industry. The disadvantage is the harsh feelings of those
who may be forced out of work by such an action, yet receive none
of the bargained-for benefits.
Arguments for industrial unionism
Savage observed that industrial unionists criticized craft unionism
not only for the ineffectiveness in dealing with a single employer,
but also against larger corporate conglomerates. A union that
challenges such a combination is most effective if its own
structure reflects that of the company. Industrial unions likewise
do not normally assess prohibitive dues rates common with craft
unions, which serve to keep out many workers. Thus, the entire
group of workers finds solidarity more elusive.
Spirit and philosophy of industrial unionism
The concept of industrial unionism is important, not only to
organized workers but also to the general public, because the
philosophy and spirit of this organizing principle go well beyond
the mere structure of a union organization. According to Marian
Dutton Savage, who wrote about industrial unionism in America in
1922,
It is this difference in spirit and general outlook
which is the significant thing about industrial unionism. Including
as it does all types of workers, from the common laborer to the
most highly skilled craftsman, the industrial union is based on the
conception of the solidarity of labor, or at least of that portion
of it which is in one particular industry. Instead of emphasizing
the divisions among the workers and fostering a narrow interest in
the affairs of the craft regardless of those of the industry as a
whole, it lays stress on the mutual dependence of the skilled and
the unskilled and the necessity of subordinating the interests of a
small group to those of the whole body of workers. Not only is
loyalty to fellow-workers in the same industry emphasized, but also
loyalty to the whole working class in its struggle against the
capitalist system.
Savage noted that some industrial unions of the period had "little
of this class consciousness, [however] the majority of them are
distinctly hoping for the abolition of the capitalist system and
the ultimate control of industry by the workers themselves.
The conception of how this was to be brought about, and indeed even
the extent to which such ideas were present in an industrial union,
was quite variable from one union to another, as well as from one
country to another, and from one time to another.
In the
United
States
, the conception of industrial unionism in the 1920s
certainly differed from that of the 1930s, for example. The
Congress of
Industrial Organizations (CIO) primarily practiced a form of
industrial unionism prior to its 1955 merger with the
American Federation of Labor
(AFL), which was made up mostly of craft unions. Unions in the
resulting federation, the
AFL-CIO, sometimes
have a mixture of tendencies. But one characteristic that is quite
typical of craft unions and the less radical of the industrial
unions is agreeing to sign a
no-strike clause, which
seriously restricts the ability of the members of these unions to
directly support each others' struggles by walking off the job, so
long as the contract is in force. On the other hand, management may
insist upon a no-strike clause as a deal-breaker, forcing a strike
over this issue alone.
The most basic philosophy of the union movement observes that an
individual cannot stand alone against the power of the company, for
the employment contract confers advantage to the employer. Having
come to that understanding, the next question becomes: who is to be
included in the union?
- The craft unionist advocates sorting workers into exclusive
groups of skilled workers, or workers sharing a particular trade.
The organization operates, and the rules are formulated primarily
to benefit members of that particular group.
- Savage identified a skilled group that may not be craft based,
but is nonetheless an elite group among industrial unionists. They
are in essence craft groups which have been combined to solve
"jurisdictional difficulties". Savage called this group an
industrial union tendency rather than an example, made up of the
"upper stratum of skilled trades," and describes them as retaining
some autonomy within their particular trades.
- The mainstream industrial unionist sees advantage in organizing
by industry. The local organization is broader and deeper, with
less opportunity for employers to turn one group of workers against
another. These are the "middle stratum" of workers.
- Industrial unionists motivated by a more global impulse act
upon a universal premise, that all workers must support each other
no matter their particular industry or locale. These might be
unskilled or migratory workers who conceive of their union
philosophy as one big union. In 1922
these workers were described as "believing in assault rather than
in agreements with employers, and having little faith in political
action. [The one big union's] power is spectacular rather than
continuous, as its members have little experience in
organization."
The differences illustrated by these diverse approaches to
organizing touch upon a number of philosophical issues:
- Should all working people be free—and perhaps even obliged—to
support each others' struggles?
- What is the purpose of the union itself—is it to get a better
deal for a small group of workers today, or to fight for a better
environment for all working people in the future? (Or
both... ? )
But some philosophical issues transcend the current social
order:
- Should the union acknowledge that capital has priority—that is,
that employers should be allowed to make all essential decisions
about running the business, limiting the union to bargaining over
wages, hours, and conditions? Or should the union fight for the
principle that working people create wealth, and are therefore
entitled to access to that wealth?
- What is the impact of legislation designed specifically to
curtail union tactics? Considering that unions have sometimes won
rights by defying unjust laws, what should be the attitude of
unionists toward that legislation? And finally, how does the
interaction between aggressive unionization, and government
response, play out?
In short, these are questions of whether workers should organize
as a craft, by their industry, or
as a class. From the
Knights of Labor to the
Congress of Industrial
Organizations (CIO), with all of the industrial unions and
federations in between, the nature of union organization
has been in
contention for a very long time, and the philosophies of
industrial unionism are inter-related. The
Western Federation of Miners
(WFM) was inspired by the industrial unionism example of the
American Railway Union (ARU).
Labor Historian
Melvyn Dubofsky
traces the birth of the
Industrial Workers of the
World (IWW) to the industrial unionism of the Western
Federation of Miners, and their years under fire during the
Colorado Labor Wars. And
James P. Cannon has observed that "the CIO became
possible only after and because the IWW had championed and
popularized the program of industrial unionism in word and
deed."
History of industrial unionism
Organizational philosophies for the labor movement grow out of
observation and experimentation. Success and failure combine with
the aspirations and needs of working people and, in many cases,
with the role of government to determine which union concepts will
flourish, and which will be abandoned.
The mass organization displaced
The
Knights of Labor (KOL) was a
mass organization, embracing nearly any worker who wanted to join.
An early advocate of
producerism, the
KOL was so loosely organized that it admitted physicians and
employers.
The evolution and competition of labor organizations is quite
complex, and there are many factors beyond philosophy or specific
organizational structure that determine success or failure. The
KOL's policies on a number of issues seemed more progressive than
those of the AFL—organizing unskilled workers, educating against
discrimination, and a dedication to broad idealism. The KOL
subordinated separate craft interests to the welfare of all the
workers.
The KOL had an enormous membership compared to the early AFL. The
KOL primarily consisted of previously unorganized semi-skilled
workmen and machine operators. During 1886 KOL membership grew from
15,000 members to 700,000.
But the AFL seemed more in touch with some of the goals of working
people. The KOL began to falter when its leadership appeared to be
out of touch with those goals. For example, the AFL supported the
eight hour day. Although the Knights supported the concept in their
constitution, they failed to provide a plan for its implementation.
Perhaps in part because employers were accepted into the KOL,
leadership of the Knights considered a shorter workday impractical.
The KOL leadership tried fruitlessly to discourage members from
supporting the eight hour movement that was embraced by the AFL. In
its declining years, the remaining KOL membership was primarily
rural and middle class.
Ascendance of a craft union federation
The
American Federation of
Labor (AFL) under the leadership of
Samuel Gompers focused on "pure and simple"
trade unionism. The AFL concerned itself with a "philosophy of pure
wage consciousness," according to
Selig
Perlman, who developed the "business unionism" theory of labor.
Perlman saw craft organizing as a means of resisting the
encroachment of waves of immigrants. Organization that was based
upon craft skills granted control over access to the job. In a
sense, craft unions provided a good defense for the privileges of
membership, but the offensive power of craft unions to effect
change in society at large has been circumscribed by a
self-limiting vision. The AFL was businesslike and pragmatic,
adopting the motto, "A fair day's wage for a fair day's
work."
The early rationale for craft unionism was that solidarity among
diverse workers seemed difficult to obtain, while the AFL believed
that skilled workers could more easily get improved conditions for
themselves. Thus, craft unions have been criticized as a labor
elite.
Many Black workers never had the opportunity to learn a skill, and
most AFL unions did not organize unskilled workers. Not only did
many AFL unions exclude Black workers or relegate them into
separate organizations, different groups of Asian immigrants had
been excluded for decades. In May 1905 the
Asiatic Exclusion League was
organized to propagandize against Asian immigration, with many
unions participating.
The AFL frequently enforced its agenda upon its member unions with
an imposed exclusivity. For example, the United Brewery Workmen
(UBW) was affiliated with both the AFL and the KOL from 1893 to
1896. Their purpose in dual affiliation was increasing the breadth
of the boycott, which they had found a useful weapon. The AFL
threatened to revoke the charter of the national UBW, and they
withdrew from the KOL, while urging their individual members to
keep their membership in the KOL.
When possible, the AFL forced industrial unions to break up into
craft unions, dividing their memberships into exclusive groups with
individual contracts. One example was the
Amalgamated
Association of Street Car Employees (AASCE) in 1912 which, with
the aid of
Cyrus S. Ching as company negotiator for Boston's
public transit system, reached a system-wide agreement for all
transit workers. But the AFL and its
building
trades affiliates were not happy with such an arrangement.
Ching, AFL President
Samuel Gompers,
and International President William D. Mahon of the AASCE, held
conferences in which the AASCE ceded jurisdiction over carpenters,
painters, electricians, and other skilled trades. The union's
membership was divided into 34 distinct labor units, each with a
separate agreement.
Having experienced such a breakout into separate labor
classifications at Boston transit, Ching opposed such a concept
when he became director of industrial relations for the
United States Rubber Company.
According to economic analyst A.H. Raskin, Ching recognized "that
the AFL's commitment to craft delimitation provided poor protection
for the welfare of workers in a mass production industry like
rubbermaking, which operated along industrial, rather than craft,
lines."
Before
Herbert Hoover became
president, he befriended AFL President Gompers. Hoover, as the
former United States Food Administrator, president of the Federated
Engineering Societies, and then Secretary of Commerce in the
Harding Cabinet in 1921, invited
the heads of several "forward-looking" major corporations to meet
with him.
[Hoover] asked these men why their companies didn't sit
down with Gompers and try to work out an amicable relationship with
organized labor. Such a relationship, in Hoover's opinion, would be
a bulwark against the spread of radicalism reflected in the rise of
the "Wobblies," the Industrial Workers of the
World. The Hoover initiative got no encouragement from those at
the meeting. The obstacles that Hoover did not comprehend, [Cyrus]
Ching recorded in his memoir, were that Gompers had no standing in
the affairs of any company except to the extent that AFL unions had
organized the workers, and that the federation's focus on craft
unionism precluded any effective organization of the
mass-production industries by [the AFL's] affiliates.
Industrial unionism as rejection of craft unionism
Six weeks after formation of the Asiatic Exclusion League, the
Industrial Workers of
the World was
formed in Chicago,
created as a rejection of the narrow craft unionism philosophy of
the AFL. From its inception, the IWW would organize without regard
to sex, skills, race, creed, or national origin.
An outgrowth of the struggles of the
Western Federation of Miners
(WFM), the IWW also adopted the WFM's description of the AFL as the
"American Separation of Labor." While the IWW shared the concept of
a mass-oriented labor movement—what the IWW would call
One Big Union—with the Knights of
Labor, the idea of workers having much in common with employers was
discarded by the IWW, whose Preamble declares that "the working
class and the employing class have nothing in common."
According to
Eugene V. Debs, "seasoned old unionists" recognized in
1905 that working people could not win with the labor movement they
had. Among the critiques of the AFL were
organized scabbery of one
union on another, jurisdictional squabbling, an
autocratic
leadership, and a relationship between union leaders and
millionaires in the
National
Civic Federation that was altogether too cozy. IWW leaders
believed that in the AFL there was too little solidarity, and too
little "straight" labor education. These circumstances led to too
little appreciation of what could be won, and too little will to
win it.
For many, organizing industrially is seen as conferring a more
powerful structural base from which to challenge employers. Yet
this very power has sometimes prompted governments to act as a
counterweight to maintain the existing power relationships in
society. There are historical examples.
Eugene Debs formed the
American
Railway Union (ARU) as an industrial organization in response
to craft limitations. Railroad engineers had called a strike, but
locomotive firemen, organized into a different craft, did not join
that strike. The firemen kept their engines running, helping their
employers to break the strike. In June 1894, the newly formed,
industrially organized ARU voted to join in solidarity with an
ongoing
strike against the Pullman
company. The sympathy strike demonstrated the enormous power of
united action, yet resulted in a decisive government response to
end the strike and destroy the union.
Within hours of the ARU lending support to the boycott, Pullman
traffic ceased to move from Chicago to the West. The boycott then
spread to the South and the East.
A statement was issued by the chairman of the General Managers
Association, a "half-secret combination of twenty-four railroads
centering on Chicago," which acknowledged the power of industrial
unionism:
We can handle the railway brotherhoods, but we cannot
handle the A.R.U.... We cannot handle Debs. We have got to wipe him
out.
The General Managers turned to the federal government, which
immediately sent federal troops and United States Marshals to force
an end to the strike.
One union leader who closely observed the experiences of the ARU
was
Big Bill Haywood, who became the
powerful secretary treasurer of the
Western Federation of Miners
(WFM). Haywood had long been a critic of the craft unionism of the
AFL, and applied the industrial unionism critique to the AFL's role
in
a strike called
by his own miner's union.
The WFM had sought to extend the benefits of union to mill workers
who processed the ore dug by miners. Miners and mill workers walked
out to support the organizing drive. The 1903-05 Cripple Creek
strike was defeated when unionized railroad workers continued to
haul ore from the mines to the mills, in spite of strike breakers
having been introduced at mine and at mill. "The railroaders form
the connecting link in the proposition that is scabby at both
ends," Haywood wrote. "This fight, which is entering its third
year, could have been won in three weeks if it were not for the
fact that the trade unions are lending assistance to the mine
operators."
A craft unionist might argue the miners would have been better off
sticking to their own business. After all, both the miner's union
and the fledgling mill worker's unions had been destroyed. But
Haywood took away from this experience the conviction that labor
needed more, not less, industrial unionism. The miners had struck
in sympathy with the smeltermen, but other unions—notably, craft
unions—had not.
Haywood went on to help organize the
Industrial Workers of the
World, which was itself nearly destroyed by government action
during and after
World War I. But the
more basic principles of industrial unionism were adopted by the
very successful
CIO in the 1930s.
The Scranton Declaration, and the isolation of industrial
unions
In the aftermath of the federal government crushing the American
Railway Union, Eugene Debs, who had put his prison time to good use
reading
Marx, turned to politics, seeking
solutions to the problems of working people through socialism. Some
railroad workers in Indiana, Kansas, and Illinois who had been a
part of Debs' ARU in 1894 resented the fact that Debs turned to
socialism for,
...[Debs] had left them without a fighting industrial
union and forced them to enter the scab craft movements after he
changed the ARU to a political movement...
These railroad workers formed the
United Brotherhood of
Railway Employees (UBRE), with George Estes as president. Estes
came from a faction of the Order of Railroad Telegraphers.
In 1904 the largest industrial union organization, the Western
Federation of Miners, was under significant pressure from
employer association attacks and the use of
military force in Colorado. The WFM's labor federation, the
American Labor Union had not
gained significant membership. The AFL was the largest organized
labor federation, and the UBRE felt isolated. When they applied to
the AFL for a charter, the
Scranton
Declaration of 1901 was the AFL's guiding principle.
Gompers had promised that each trade and craft would have its own
union. The Scranton Declaration acknowledged that one affiliate,
the
United Mine Workers was
formed as an industrial union, but that other skilled
trades—carpenters, machinists, etc.—were organized as powerful
craft unions. These craft unions refused to allow any encroachment
upon their "turf" by the heretical industrial unionists. This
concept came to be known as voluntarism. The federation turned the
UBRE down in accord with the voluntarism principle. The Scranton
Declaration acknowledging voluntarism was adhered to, even though
the craft-based railroad brotherhoods had not yet joined the AFL.
The AFL was holding the door open for craft unions that might join,
and slamming it in the face of the industrial unions who wanted to
join. The following year the two thousand member UBRE joined
the organizing
convention of the IWW.
The craft union federation adopts an industrial union
concept
The craft-based AFL had been slow to organize industrial workers,
and the federation remained steadfastly committed to craft
unionism. This changed in the mid-1930s when, after passage of the
National Labor Relations
Act, workers began to clamor for union membership. In
competition with the CIO movement, the AFL established
Federal Labor Unions (FLUs),
which were local industrial unions affiliated directly with the
AFL, a concept initially envisioned in the 1886 AFL Constitution.
FLUs were conceived as temporary unions, many of which were
organized on an industrial basis. In keeping with the craft
concept, FLUs were designed primarily for organizing purposes, with
the membership destined to be distributed among the AFL's craft
unions after the majority of workers in an industry were
organized.
Radicalism in the union movement
Industrial unionism has sometimes been considered a more
radical—or even
revolutionary—form of unionism (see below.)
The CIO and to a lesser extent, the
AFL (which was
already
more conservative) purged themselves of radical members and
officers in the years before they merged, as part of what came to
be known as the (second)
Red scare. Some
entire unions, perceived by the labor federation leadership as
incapable of being reformed, were expelled or replaced.
Revolutionary industrial unionism
Tied closely to the concept of organizing not as a craft, or even
as a group of workers with industrial ties, but rather, as a
class, is the idea that all of the
business world and government, and even the preponderance of the
powerful industrial governments of the world, tend to unite to
preserve the
status quo of the economic
system. This encompasses not only the various political systems and
the vital question of property rights, but also the relationships
between working people and their employers.
Such tendencies appeared to be in play in 1917, the year of the
Russian revolution. Fred
Thompson has written, "Capitalists believed revolution imminent,
feared it, legislated against it and bought books on how to keep
workers happy." Such instincts played a role when the governments
of fourteen industrialized nations
intervened in the
civil war that followed the Russian revolution. Likewise, when
the Industrial Workers of the World became the target of government
intervention during the period from 1917 to 1921, the governments
of the United States, Australia and Canada acted
simultaneously.
Therefore, in order to significantly improve the status of working
people who sell their labor—according to this belief—no less than
organizing as an entire class of workers can accomplish and sustain
the necessary change.
The
Industrial Workers
of the World (IWW), formed in 1905, organized more broadly than
did the CIO or the Knights of labor. The IWW sought to unite the
entire
working class into
One Big Union which would struggle
for improved working conditions and wages in the short term, while
working to ultimately overthrow
capitalism through a
general strike, after which the members of
the union would manage production (
also see anarcho-syndicalism which has some
similarities...)
And One Big Union
Historically, industrial unionism has frequently been associated
with
the concept of One Big
Union (OBU). On July 12, 1919, The
New England Worker
published "The Principle of Industrial Union":
The principle on which industrial unionism takes its
stand is the recognition of the never ending struggle between the
employers of labor and the working class. [The industrial union]
must educate its members to a complete understanding of the
principles and causes underlying every struggle between the two
opposing classes. This self-imposed drill, discipline and training
will be the methods of the O. B. U.
In short the Industrial Union, is bent upon forming one
grand united working class organization and doing away with all the
divisions that weaken the solidarity of the workers to better their
conditions.
Revolutionary Industrial Unionism, that is the
proposition that all wage workers come together in organization
according to industry; the groupings of the workers in each of the
big divisions of industry as a whole into local, national, and
international industrial unions; all to be interlocked, dovetailed,
welded into One Big Union for all wage workers; a big union bent on
aggressively forging ahead and compelling shorter hours, more wages
and better conditions in and out of the work shop... until the
working class is able to take possession and control of the
machinery, premises, and materials of production right from the
capitalists' hands...
Political parties and industrial unionism
Some political parties also promote industrial unionism, such as
the
Socialist Labor
Party of America, whose early leader
Daniel De Leon formulated a form of
industrial unionism as the mechanism of government in the SLP's
vision of a
socialist society, and the
British
Labour Party which has
relations with
affiliated trade
unions.
Industrial unionism outside the United States
Australia
Verity Burgmann asserts in
Revolutionary industrial
unionism that the
IWW in Australia provided
an alternate form of labour organising, to be contrasted with the
Laborism of the
Australian Labor Party and the
Bolshevik Communism of the
Communist Party of Australia.
Revolutionary industrial unionism, for Burgmann, was much like
revolutionary syndicalism, but focused much more strongly on the
centralised,
industrial, nature of unionism.
Burgmann saw Australian syndicalism, particularly
anarcho-syndicalism, as focused on mythic small shop organisation.
For Burgmann the
IWW's vision was always a
totalising vision of a revolutionary
society: the
Industrial
Commonwealth.
The IWW's politics in 2007 mirror Burgmann's analysis: the
IWW does not proclaim
Syndicalism, or
Anarchism (despite the large number of
anarcho-syndicalist members) but instead advocates
Revolutionary Industrial Unionism.
Britain
Marion Dutton Savage associates the spirit of industrial unionism
with "the aspiration of workers for the control of industry"
inspired by
Robert Owen in 1833-34. The
Grand Consolidated Trade Union (GCTU) recruited skilled and
unskilled workers from many industries, with membership growing to
half a million within a few weeks. Frantic opposition forced the
GCTU to collapse after a few months, but the ideals of the movement
lingered for a time. After
Chartism failed,
British unions began to organize only skilled workers, and began to
limit their goals in tacit support of the existing organization of
industry.
A new union movement that was "distinctly class conscious and
vaguely Socialistic" began to organize unskilled workers in
1889.
Industrial unionism thence proceeded primarily by combining craft
unions into industrial formations, rather than through the birth of
new industrial organizations. Industrial organizations prior to
1922 included the
National Transport
Workers' Federation, the
National Union of Railwaymen,
and the
Miners' Federation.
In 1910
Tom Mann went to France and became
acquainted with
syndicalism. He returned
to Britain and helped to organize the
Workers' International
Industrial Union, which was similar to the IWW from North
America.
Korea
The theory and practice of industrial unionism is not confined to
the western, English speaking world. The
Korean Confederation of
Trade Unions (KCTU) is committed to reorganizing their current
union structure along the lines of industrial unionism.
South Africa
The
Congress of
South African Trade Unions (
COSATU) is
also organized along the lines of industrial unionism.
References
See also
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