The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1925-01-03

| De COuuuCl6U uuuSI INC onOp uSASSaIS
form of organization and why it is
necessary and advantageous from a
union point of view. 1t gives a precise
and simple idea as to how a centril-
lied union can function with shop
committee system as its basis.
"The sharpening Of the struggle be-
tween the workers and the employers
necessitates a much broader partici-
patton, more intense activity on the
part of the masses in behalf of the
union. With the present small num-
Der of active members it is not only
difficult to maintain what we have,
but well nigh impossible to make
progress for the future. The number
of conscious active workers must be
increased many times the present
number. This can, however, not be
accomplished without reforming con-
siderably the present bureaucratic sys-
TEN of management and leadership Of
our organizations. This system must
give way to one that win make mass
interest and mass activity on the part
of our membership possible. The
structure, the internal machinery of
our unions must be changed to estab-
lish the broadcast contact with the
masses in the shops. We must strive
by all means in our power to eliminate
all the artificial devices set up by the
present bureaucratic system for the
purpose of breaking and counteract-
ing the will of the membership.
"In order to accomplish this, our
form of organization must be changed
so as to make the shop the basic unit
of our unions. The present form of
our organization of local unions as the
basic unit has definitely outlived its
effectiveness, and cannot longer serve
the purposes of militant unionism.
Remnants of Craft Divisions.
"The craft local as a basic unit of
organization may have served useful
purpose when the unions we're first
organized and the membership small,
it may have filled the need at the time
when craft unionism was the domi-
nant form of organization in the
needle industry. Now it is a remnant
Of the days that shall never come
back, days when craft locals were
autonomous with power to negotiate
wages and working conditions, sepa-
rate and irrespective of the other
locals in the trade.
"Our industry has outgrown this
stage long ago. And our unions have
been forced to abandon the old divi-
sions into innumerable powerless craft
locals when making agreements with
the employers. Changed conditions in
the industry has made it necessary to
act along trade lines instead of craft,
the result was the creation of joint
boards which act for all the workers in
the trade. The creation of these joint
boards, however, has deprived the To-
Gals of many of their powers and made
them more dependent upon the higher
bureaucracy. The membership in the
locals being far removed thru the in
Vulnerable subdivisions, craft locals,
sections, ETC., from the present main
body of the union, the joint board,
and hence unable to directly influence
it, is little interested in the impotent
bubbles that take place at the local
union meetings. The result is an ir-
repressible lack of interest in the
affairs of the union. Usually a local
can boast of no better attendance than
to 10 per cent of its membership.
To the average worker today, the
union is an unwieldy machine far
removed from his daily life in the
shops. He considers it as merely an
Office where he pays compulsory
weekly dues. the interests of the shop
appear to him separate and distinct
from the interests OF the union. Due
to these state of affairs within our
own organizations it has become pos
sfhIa for the maid ohicora IN uaurn