United labor bulletin., 1913-02-06
ACTION WANTED
Organize To Benefit Yourselves
and Your Families.
CFrom A. F. of L. News letter.


Unlike every other human institution,
workmne. Greed, color and nationality
play no part in determining the mem
bership. The only qualification is that
the applicant be a bona fde workman,
working for wages. 1t makes no differ
ence whether he be a skilled mechanic
or an unskilled laborer, the doors of the
labor organizations are open to receive
him. In fact, the members of the labor
unions appropriate money every year to
be expended in employing organizers to
tell the unorganized of the benefits of
unionism.
Those who by experience have learned
and participated in the benefits accruing
to the members of unions are willing
and anxious that those outside the ranks
of the organized workmen should re-
ceive equal benefits with them. But the
organized workmen cannot confer these
benefits upon the unorganized without
their cooperation. In the struggle to
secure higher wages and better condi-
tions, those who are to be benefited must
} do their share. If shorter hours and
decent wages are desired by workmen.
there must be an earnest effort made by
the individual workman, in cooperation
with his fellows, to secure them.
The improved conditions of union men
| a
employers Every cent of increase,
every hour taken on the workday, every
Improvement in working conditions has
| been made possible by the union work
men refusing to accept anything less.
| The business of the employer is to buy
| labor at the lowest possible price, and
| it is the business of the labor union to
assist its members in selling their labor
at the highest possible price. Individual
with large employers of labor. The sin
gle workman is but unit, and mighty
small one at that, in dealing with the
large commercial combinations-trusts
etc.
The organized labor movement, the
American Federation of Labor, is a great
army of men and women who have
learned the value of cooperation. Every
paragraph in history tells its own story
of the tyranny to which the workers of
every age have been subjected In for
mer times toilers were accorded no
| rights; they were but the serfs and
slaves and were given no more privil-
/ eges than the beasts of burden. Tyran-
ny and repression, however, awoke in
! the workmen a rebellious spirit The
| first stone laid in the foundation of eco
nomic liberty was the formation of the
guilds. So hemmed in by restrictive reg
"
the active spirits in the formation of
these guilds had any clear conception
of what might be accomplished, save and
except that the organizations permitted
the close contact of the wealth produc-
ers and afforded safeguard against
further repression.
| Slight reference to the past is admiss-
ible, but in our day the right of wage
earners to make common cause with one
another is not directly denied. The le-
gal right is Afforded every workman to
| join with his fellows in an effort to bar
| gain with his employer OF course, the
| employers are not anxious or willing
that their workmen should organize, and
this very fact ought to be sufficient
proof that the employers have the best
of the bargain. If the employers set the
price on the products that workmen pro
duce. why should not you. the workman
set the price on the labor that is neces
sary TO the employer?
Labor unions don't want to wait-they
want more wages for their members
better conditions and shorter hours-to
day. NOW. The employers will make
all kinds of promises for the future, with
the hope that the wage-earners will
lapse into lethargy and forget about
them. The employers have fought and
will fight for more profits. and the work
Continued on page 81