Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-10-02
LABOR,s WORST DANGER.


matters renders it necessary to point out the
results that are involved when labor organ
izations take to fighting each other.
1t has long been a fundamental rule OF
action in labor circles that an employer
who attacked or opposed the organization OF
his hands in any form was to be taken as
inimical to labor. No preference of the
employer for one form OF organization over
another was permitted to modify the con-
demnation of any one who attempted to
break down an organization of working
men. Though the condemnation was often
extreme, and the retaliatory measures were
sometimes carried to unjustifable lengths.
the idea at the bottom of the contention was
correct. 1t involves the personal rights of
the workingmen that they be permitted to
form any organization they choose, within
the law. Friendly advice from outsiders
may be pertinent when offered as such; but
anv attempt to coerce laboring men from be-
longing to labor organization is an interter-
ence with their individual rights.
Now when two labor organizations begin
fighting each other, what happens? One of
them orders strike to have the members of
another dismissed from their work; the other
retaliates with boycott; and so on until, as
threatened recently to be the case in this
city, each is fully committed to the policy
of breaking up the other. In other words,
the representatives of organized labor take
exactly the course which has been long
condemned in employers by the ethics of
labor organization. 1t is hard to understand
how they can do SO without seeing that they
cut the ground from under their own feet.
The principle being established that no man
has right to say to another that he shall
not join any union he chooses under pain Of
dismissal from his work, it is inconsistent to
powers of one organization to drive the
members Of another out of employment
If this involved merely the destruction of
the reasonable basis on which labor organi-
zatlon is defended from attacks, it would be
bad enough; but unfortunately fights be- |
tween the organizations do not stop there.
Sometimes the employers are dragged in.
For years employers have been impressed |
that they must not interfere with the liberty |
of the men to join whatever unions they |
please. Now in some cases they are di- |
rected to violate that principle and discharge |
the men belonging to one organization under |
penalty OF strike or boycott by the othe r.
The first aspect of such a position that
strikes the impartial mind is its injustice.
The employer in such cases has recognized |
the right of his men to form their own
unions He has left them at liberty to join |
what organization they please, free from |
his dictation. Having thus committed |
himself to the principle of free labor organ
ization, he is asked to violate the principle,
is dragged into fight for which he has no
and his business hampered
and delayed through no fault of his, and
solely because some hasty leaders of the labor
organizations themselves forgot their own
principles and interests in their rivalry.
But the injury to labor does not stop |
there. Heretofore the employer has had the
greatest lnducement to recognize labor or
ganization in the maintenance of harmony |
with his employers. But if such conflicts |
continue, as those now going In various
cities, that harmony will become impossible. |
Labor organization has succeeded in es-
tablishing itself on firm basis by adhering |
to a conservative line of action, and stand
ing upon the principles of individual
right The tendency to depart from that
principle has been manifested locally in but
one instance; but the results involved are so
great as to make it necessary to point out
that when such conflict is permitted it |
undermines the foundation on which labor
organization stands. 1t violates the princi- |
pie which defends them from outside attack, |
and stimulates employers to violate it
also. 1t involves those who have supported
labor organization in quarrels without their
fault and 1t actually gives an excuse to un-
friendly employers to get loose from the
fighting organic hons altogether.
Contending labor organizations have |
the full right to urge upon workingmen
their respective effectiveness, economy or
democracy of organization; but when they |
get into fights which provoke demands from |
either that employers shall discharge the |
members of the other, they need the warn
ing that such a course threatens the |
destruction of labor organization at the |
foundation.