The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1925-03-11
LOSOVSKY WRITES
OF The UNIONS
OF The WORLD
Their Pre-War Number
And Nature
BY A. LosoVsKY.
General Secretary Of the Red inter
national of Labor Unions.

In order 10 understand the develop
ment and the ways Of the world trade
union movement in the postwar per-
iod, we will have to give a short char
acterization of its conditions before
and during the war.
Before the war the trade union
movement could be characterized as
follows, first of all from the geograph-
! ical point of view it was not yet a
world movement; it was mostly de-
veloped in Europe and in the Anglo
Saxon countries, and on the other
hand in the British colonies, such as
Canada, Australia, South Africa.
All Asia without mentioning Africa
this great area Of working masses
which by its population is much
greater than the so-called civilized
world, had not been drawn into the
worlds socialist nor into the worlds
trade union movement, for the simple
reason that the labor movement began
to crystalize in these countries only
at the end of the war and mainly in
! the postwar period.
So from the geographical point Of
view we have a trade union move
ment which is confined withon a GER
tain territorial frame, which can only
be called a world movement with Ger.
tain reservations.
Trade Union Statistics.
In the whole world before the war
there were about ten million organ
lied workers, which were organized
into unions of all kinds of political
shades, beginning with anarcho-syndi-
calists and ending with catholic, dem
ocrat, protestant and so forth. The
bulk of these. organized workers were
in Europe.
Taking the main countries we get
the following picture: Before the
war in Great Britain in round num-
bers, were about 100000 organized
workers; in Germany, about $500. 900:
in the United States, 200 600; in
France, about 1000 900; in Italy, 9OO,-
900; in Belgium, 100000; in Holland.
100000, etc, etc. We will stop with
these figures in order to show the
real value, to show what they really
contain.
What These Figures Contained.
France before the war was show
ing 100000 members in the trade
unions; but in the General Confedera-
ton Of Labor, the only organization
which could be called a class organi-
cation, there were no more than $780,
900.
The rest were unions Of agricultural
workers which stood on the other side
Of the national trade union movement
almost on the other side; unions Of
government employees, which in fact
were in opposition to the c. G. T.;
here we also find some little yellow
unions; in short, the official statistics
include in the trade unions every or
ganization, which under the law of
1884 had to register it's by-laws-and
even without such registration was
under that law.
1t is clear such figures cannot give
the real picture of the trade union
movement, for such a picture we can
get only when we know not only the
amount, but also the contents
in other words, the political compost
ton and the political movements
which exist in that group or workers.
The same about Germany.
The same about England, where in
stead of four million and a couple OF
hundred thousand, we should say a
maximum of about three million work
+, | org had ~ not q oIoeg coreofo,,. IL.
form, at least very close to II.
In the whole world we had about
{ ten million organized workers In the
first question which naturally comes
up-What actually did that big army
represent?-we have TO look behind
the figures. That ten million is a big
army is shown by the last war. Ten
million well organized workers, know
ing what they want distributed all
over the world, are great power.
We can say without exaggeration
that, If these ten million organized
workers had been not only revolu-
tionary in mood, but revolutionary in
fact the world war would have never
come about. You will see that this
mass Of workers represented very
vivid and varied picture.
Each week on this page we will
print selected excerpts form Com
rade Losovsky's great book, "The
Worlds Trade Union Movement"
The book may be ordered from tho
7. U. E. l., 1918 Washington Blvd,
Chicago, H., for so cents.)