The Chicago whip. (Chicago, Ill.) 1919-19??, 1919-11-22

to Work with Him.
Asserting the legal or moral right OF
preached of Mormonism to occupy a
Presbyterian pulpit is obvious.
In like manner, the unrestricted
right of the wage-worker TO work at
any trade, in any circumstances, with
any and all classifications Of other
wage-workers, is customarily denied
by law. Statutes are enforcible for
the protection of body of workers
against individuals who may put in
jeopardy the safety of their fellows
with respect to life, limb or health.
The state recognizes as valid con-
tracts between employers and en-
ployed under which the latter pass
upon the occupational fitness of
either apprentices or journeymen
seeking to work among them.
Amid the confused list of rights
recognized by the capital group, the
fundamental concrete and practical
declaration is incontestibly the right
of wage earners to organize in trade
and labor unions, and hence to bar
gain collectively and to be represen-
tatives of their own choosing. Once
this foundation right is in good faith
accepted by employers, they take
upon themselves the obligation of
modifying all alleged abstract rights
of wage workers in general which are
inconsistent with it as basic and
cncompassing principle. In accepting
this right they concede to an associa-
ton of wage workers the right of its
self preservation, and this includes
the right when necessary to that end
to refuse to work with persons whose
acts would tend to destroy the asso-
citation, When non-associated ndi-
viduals, asserting their right Ito re-
frain from joining any association"
and 'to deal directly" with employ
ers as they choose, decide to accept
wages lower than an association
scale, to work longer hours than the
established workday and to put up
with working conditions of a worse
standard than those obtained by the
association, they initiate a competi-
zion in the work shop which tends to
disintegrate the association.
Thereupon, in the absence of or
panization, competing workers lower
the level of living for the mass to
the grade of the most necessitious,
and hence finally injure society in
general through the helplessness OF
all to stand up for even the right to
live at civilized standards. Prior to
the world war, during which the ces-
sation of immigration caused a rela-
tive scarcity of labor in this country,
the colossal monopolistic industrial
corporations Systematically reduced
their common labor approximately to
that level. They unremittingly drew
upon the vast reservoirs OF Europe
undergrad and casually employed
workers to supply the enormous turn
over of labor at their plants conse-
ouent on the l2-hour day, a studied
scheme of part employment, a wage
below American labor, and living con-
ditions intolerable to human beings
In other branches of American indus
try in which occasional competition
for labor among employers had no,
been superseded by combination, and
/ in which trade unionism had moi
established collective bargaining, la
Dor competition led to similar injurl
Gus social consequences. At the same
time, employers in general, aside
from those forming an economic
oligarchical menace to our republic
were learning to depend upon thu
trade unions, through uniformity il
contractual terms, for the mainte
nance of standard occupational train
ing and the general conditions of in
dustrial stability.
It is submitted that these consid
erations establish the fact that tn
assumed right of any and all wage
workers so to act as to bring ruil
to the labor associations, which a
the present stage in the development
of society are the sole bulwor
against the economic degradation o
the masses, cannot be recognized a
under all conditions valid. The at
stract right of the non-unionist It
deal directly with an employer as h
choosed" does not give him the cor
crete right which compels unionist
to work with him. His alleged RICH
to make any contract whatever wit
an employer is, in the absence of
trade union, amere fiction hiding tn
! truth that the employer may play on
, "free" unemployed wage-worke
: against another.