Twin city review. [volume] (Champaign, Ill.) 19??-1929, 1921-12-09
ORGANIZATION
is BENEFIT TO
THE PUBLIC
(By Member of the Building Trades
Couneil.l


(By Member of the Building Trades
Couneil.l
If any man or woman i'm the Twin
Cities has any doubt as TO the
efficiency of organization, they have
but to pause for moment and con
slider the amount of money raised i'm
Champaign county in the past six or
eight weeks in the hotel and hospital
drives, to be convinced that in ORDER
to accomplish anything worth while
no matter what the objective point
is-the first thing to do is organize
your forces.
Almost half million dollars sub
serlbed to these two funds. Does any
one think this could have been ac-
complished in any other way than by
f1rst organizing the people who were
picked to do the work into units, hav-
ing each unit cooperating with every
other unit, thereby creating a solid
organization which got results that
any one of the units working alone
would have fallen down ON before
reaching first base?
Ii seems that the building crafts in
the Twin Cities after having so clear
~ demonstrated to them what organ
ization and cooperation will accom-
plish, should be able to see how fool
ish the course of action pursued by
the different locals i'm the past year
has been, and would start a drive to
close up their ranks and bring all To-
Gals Tor units) into one organization,
thereby making it possible to get re-
suits that will be beneficial to all.
The antagonistic feeling existing
between the different crafts in the
Twin Cities today is disgrace to the
whole labor movement and the sooner
we get busy and find out where the
trouble lies, and who is responsible
for the present conditions, the better
it will be for all concerned. A thor
ough overhauling is needed, and if
any part of the machine is found to
be tainted with rust from outside
sources, or has become swollen or
puffed up to such an extent that other
parts of the machine can not operate,
or If it does operate at all succeeds
only In producing more discord of
which we already have too much, we
can replace the parts that are caus-
ing the friction, or scrap the whole
machine and replace it with one that
will operate in all its parts.
That the laboring men of the Twin
Cities believe in organization is evil
denced by the number of rcaft unions
here today. Then why not go on and
perfect an organization that will
mean something to its members, and
be power for good in the commun-
ity, not only for the man who carries
a card, but the community as a whole.
Labor as it stands today in the
Twin Cities is not in the true sense of
the word organized at all. What it
is pleased to call organization, is SIM
ply a banding together of a certain
per cent of the men who follow some
particular line of work into groups,
for the sole purpose of controlling
that line of work, establishing a work
day of so many hours and setting a
price on thei rlabor. Each group is
now acting Independently of each
other, except in rare instances when
two or more groups may combine to
gain some point land very often the
action taken by this combination may
be very detrimental to the interests
of one or all the other groups) and
in a short time these same groups
will be found opposing each other
along some other line.
As stated above in this article, this
1t is not the kind that put over the
1t snot the kind that put over the
hospital and hotel drives; it is not
the kind that will bring the most
good to the most people; it Is organ
ization in name only.
Why not get together to do away
with a lot of petty jurisdictional
claims, forget the little jealousies and
build real organization that will
have weight and be able to function
when called on. Then when the
spring drive starts we will know
where we are going and just how to
get there.