New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1882-05-26
THE TYRANNY OF TRADES UNIONS

The labor disease is spreading. All the tan
ners at Chicago have caught it, and have
stopped work. Industry and business are III
critical position at best, and the trades unions
threaten to bring terrible disasters upon labor.
Bloodsled is already feared At Cleveland
striking moulders assaulted and fired upon
pon-union men, Threats of violence and an
attempt to burn buildings, by striking brick
makers at Jersey City, have led to arrests
Riots arc feared at Pittsburg because colored
men are willing to work in place of miners who
refuse 1t is the old story. Trades Unions
make demands and order strikes with no regard
to the state of the labor market. Then men
find others at work in their places, get angry,
| and resort to threats and violence. Every
where trades unions are found at the bottom of
the trouble. At all points, men who would
gladly work, having families which they wish
to support, are virtually compelled to strike
with the rest. A despOtism IS set up which III
free country cannot be tolerated. Associations
of laborers for mutual aid and defence are not
| necessarily and ought never to be- hostile to The
rights or best interests OF labor. But what
| can be said for the system OF trades -uniOnism
| as it actually exists At this time, when many
| thousand men are ordered to stop work, TO take
| the bread from the mouths of wives and chill
dren, to demand increased pay from employers
whose business is greatly depressed already,
and to enter upon the path which, in this as
well as other lands, has been marked by so
much of suffering, brutality, violence and
bloodshed, it seems right to ask them few
questions, which ought to be seriously and dis
/ passonatcly considered.
/. What right has Trades Union to control
| mans labor7 IL this country labor ought to
| be free. Every workman ought to be abso-
lutely free to decide for himself whether he
wishes to work or to stop. But the unions deny
the right to work OF those who are not mem
| bers, and assume to dictate to those who are
members whether they shall work or not. BY
what right Is it answered that the member
| has voluntarily given to the association that
control over his actions? That only puts the
question back one step. What right had he to
part with his freedom? Does he not owe
sacred duties to his wife, his children and
| Others dependent upon him ? Has he any right
| to subject them to want, because body OF men
who have different interests and duties so
direct7 The wife may be lying in sickness !;
has he any right to quit the work necessary for
her care because a majority who have 10 such
! duty wish to quit The education and the
future lives of children may depend upon the
steady employment of the father has he any
| right to bind himself to conSgn them to igno-
rance and want whenever a majority may so
direct Every man in this land owes duty
| to his country. He is bound to promote its
peace and order, to support its laws, to seek
| the prosperity of its industry. Has any man a
right to say that whenever Others vote to strike
he will join, though he may know that it
will lead to some violence, some crime much
disorder, and serious harm to the industry of
| the land
III. What have Trades Unions done for
labor? They have put the most industrious
and thrifty at the mercy of the turbulent, reck-
less and shiftless. There are some workmen
who waste money in drink or lust, some who
would never save anything if their wages were
doubled, some who care nothing for home and
family ties. These men have the power to turn
the scale, for or against strike, In almost
every trades union whenever there is "a differ
ence Of opinion. The worst worllmen and the
worst men invariably are most inclined to o