The toiler. [volume] (Cleveland, Ohio) 1919-1922, 1920-06-25
National Chamber of Connce Program of Industrial Slavery

What about unemployment Surely this is
waste of energy utility below the economic limit"
yet it is constant, wholesale, inevitable part of
the system of private capitalistic production. Mil
lions are out of work all the time; on the average
all workers lose one-fourth of full time Too bad
for the workers; all that the Chamber Of Commerce
is concerned about is the time that the employees
are ON the job, and that during this time days
work shall be not one ot less than the last ounce
of efficient energyl
There is no word in this program about un-
employment 1t is taken for granted that the cap
italists will generously supply work to all who
accept these terms, when as a matter of fact this
has never been the case and never will be the case
under private industry
The next two clauses are restatement of the
Gary version of "collective bargaining, as fol-
lows:
49, Adequate means, satisfactory both
to the employer and his employees, and
voluntarily agreed to by them, should be
provided for the discussion and adjustment
of employment relations and the just and
prompt settlement Of all disputes that arise
in the course of industrial operation
g. When, in the establishment or adj
iustment of employment relations, the en-
ployees do not deal Individually, but by
mutual consent such dealing is conducted
is proper for the other party to- ask that
these representatives shall not be chosen or
controlled BY or in such dealing in amy de-
gree represent any outside group or inter
est in the questions at issue"
In other words, no union negotiations solid
arity of workers even Of a single craft, but only
nce amiable little unonism of the one plant, a
unionism which the employer can very easily super
wise and keep in hand.
Th Chamber of Commerce is kidding itself, or
here is the deliberate challenge against any form
of labor organization which goes outside the one
shop which means no organization at all. Pro-
bably the latter is the truth American capitalism
realizes that all organization of labor must be de-
stroyed or the momentum Of the wages and hours
fight will hurl the workers into the revolutionary
struggle for the overthrow of capitalism. The
Chamber of Commerce appears to be ready to face
the issue, to declare openly that it to main
tain a slave system by might of the State.
The last clause Of this program are anti strike
clauses, dealing with government employees, also
with the workers in "public service activities, a
classification which can easily be extended to in
clude every major industry.
This declaration by the leading organization OF
capitalism in the United States shows that we have
arrived at the showdown in the class fight. The
employers dare to show their full hand. They hold
in contempt the backwards narrow, corrupt union
movement in this country; and they mean to crush
in it's infancy the newer movement toward militant
industrial unionism. This is the program Of class
conscious capitalism, program of industrial slav
cry built directly on the law-making, court, police
and military power Of the State; program which
regards the worker as one form of material for thu
making of profits, never for moment as human
being