Baraboo weekly news. [volume] (Baraboo, Wis.) 1912-197?, 1922-07-20
THE FUTURE OF THE TRADE.
UNIONS

Like all living institutions, the la.
Dor unions are in constant flux. They
alter their methods. modify their aims,
amend their organizations. the better
to adapt themselves to changing con-
ditions or to varying states of public
opinion. The unions of fifty or sixty
years ago were local affairs, usually
confined each to a single shop or
factory, occupied with the effort to
make better terms of employment
with individual employers. The unions
of today are nationally organized,
often include under one control al
most all the workers in a great in
dustry and in many cases aim at fun
damental changes I'm industrial man
agement. The process of variation
of growth or of DECAYS sure to go
on during the coming years What
direction is it to take? The radical
group within the unions demands fur
Their consolidation. 1t wants to see
the various industrial organizations
merge into one great labor party. 1t
approves the class war and the CON
troll of government by organized labor
In that doctrine it merely pushes for
ward logically in the direction that
the labor unions have taken for a
generation-more rapidly in European
countries than in the United States.
But there are many indications 5hat
the pendulum has gone almost as far
in that direction as it can go. Public
opinion begins to revolt at the idea
of the class war, and so does opinion
within the unions themselves. Our
great strikes are less violent than
they used to be. There is less the air
of melodrama about them. People
both within and without the labor
unions begin to see that the industrial
problem is one OF great completely,
and that IT cannot be settled by out
breaks of passion or by the selfish ex-
ercise of political power either by one
side or by the other. The working
man begins to see that other influ-
ences than his union determine the
rise and fall of wages, and he finds
that the politically minded leaders of
his union often make mistakes and
sometimes are not true to his inter-
ests.
1t seems at least possible that the
unions will undergo something of a
decentralizing proc ess; that the lead
ers of the future will not be paid
officials no longer actually engaged in
industry, but men who are still work
ingmen, and therefore closer to the
problems of their trades and to their
constituents. With such a movement
representation by the employees in
business management must go hand
in hand. Most concerns where that
is practiced already show regularity of
employment, an improved and a high
er level of pay that must set intelh-
gent workingmen in other shops TO
thinking-and intelligent shop own
ers too.
The unions of the future must also
recognize more and more that most
industries are too closely affected
with public interest to be used as a
battle ground for a fight to the finish
between capital and labor. They have
begun TO learn that lesson, and so
too have the employers. What means
the nation will take to assert it's
right to an unobstructed current Of
industry we do not know, but we
expect that in the end it will take
some action to that end. That will per.
force affect in some way or other
the status of the unions, though hard
ly more than ii will affect that of the
employers.-Youth's Companion.