, 1925-02-02
Some Realities

Figures published by TIE National Bureau of Economic
Research in a report on "rhe Growth of American Trade
Unions" cut the ground from many notions widely accepted
by friends and enemies of organized labor. 1t appears that
four-fifths of all the wage earners in the United States are
completely innocent of trade union affiliation, radical or other
wise. By a careful comparison, of membership figures, OBJ
tanned from the unions themselves, with the occupational sta
tistics of the census burau, DR.. Leo wolman, the author of the
report, shows that only twenty per cent of the working people
of the country are unionists. The I. w. W., militant vanguard
of the revolution" is discovered to have a total membership of
41,oOo out of a working class" of 2eyoO 0,o00. Compared with
Great Britain and Germany, for example, where forty per cent
of the wage workers are members of labor unions, the Amer
lean statistics are hopeful or pitiful according to the extreme
from which they may be viewed
Those who subscribe to the theory that labor and capital
have nothing in common, and that poverty and unemployment
breed organized resistance among the working people, will
find it difficult to argue out of existence the direct relation
which DR.. Wblman shows between the curve of business pros.
perity and the curve OF labor-union membership. Evidently
good times meal strong unions, bad times mean weak unions.
THE periods of loss in membership" he says, 1904 1906, 1905
1909, 1%s1s1s15, correspond roughly with the periods of bust
ness decline Except also, for the year 1923 and possibly 1922,
the years of business revival are generally those of gain in
membership" The figures also disclose an interesting correla.
ton between the growth and what might be called the world
illness" of labor unions. Broadly speaking, it has been the or.
CARNATIONS which have stuck the closest to the practical daily
concerns of their members that have shown the most consist.
emily expanding power and prestige.
The American Federation of Labor has stood for worldli.
ness in the labor movement, and it has been unions like the l.
W. w, standing outside the federation, which has been intent
on the goal of another world. In 1897 nearly 40 per cent of the
total membership of American unions was claimed by organ.
izations outside the Gompers fold; in 1923 the independents
could muster but 10 per cent, and Of that a large proportion
was the conservative railroad brothers. ~The steadiest growth"
Says DR.. wolman, lis found in the three important groups of
building, transportation and printing unions-in all of these
groups the dominant organizations are the old and we'll estab.
lished unions" He might have added the most businesslike and
conservative. The notable exceptions are the recently estab.
lished clothing workers unions; one inside the federation and
one out Than these there are no labor organizations in the
country i'll closer contractual relations with the employers or
more closely involved in the daily problems of the factory and
the workshop; This willingness to enter into contractual rela.
lions with management, this readiness to assume some respon.
sibility for the industry, has in fact come to be the hallmark of
the vital and growing union, no matter what the political and
social opinions of its membership may be.