The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1927-08-02
Son1eEarlyLabo
Struggles
BY w. / White.

is Indispensable 1t was in England that the appca
ton of steam to automotive machinery first ap
Piled It was the application of the steam engine tc
machinery and the massing of the proletaran la
Dor in the factory which first forced the combination
of workers into trades union and this first took place
in the factories of England 1t in that country that
this change in the base of production and like change
in the methods of distribution first forced upon the
consciousness of the workers that the old methods which
had done service in the days of feudalism were nc
longer fit to serve in the new conditions which had
arisen out of these methods which had into
existence with the introduction Of the machine. This
does not say that must let those organizations which
preceded the modern union slide by without entering
into their history Not by any MEANS the contrary
the student give those organizations of labor
which had their in the days of feudaism and before
even that the closest and most panstakng study But
for the purpose of this article it is enough take
up and look into the for their existence and the
part played by the labor organization which after
the application of machinery to production
One of the first things which strikes in study
of trades unionism is the transfer of the state
from the domination of the feuda lord of the
the rising capitalist class, and the brutal of this
power in helping to keep down and srange the protest
of the workers This brutality of the capitalist class
put in the pithy words of J. c. Calhoun, the out
standing champion of the slave owning class in the
United States when he says: "the true solution of the
contest of all time between labor and capital is that
capital should the laborer whether white black
The reports of the law courts filled with of
workers being brot into court the charge of
spiracy against their employers. The of the "Sx
men of Dorset" is the outstanding case where the
of the state called in by the masters to send into
exile for years. in the penal colony of Van Demans
Land agricultural workers who had protested against
the reduction of their miserable wages from eleven
shilngs week to the of seven shllings For this
they transported into penal slavery for
Another leading in the history of the trade union
is the of the Glasgow Spnners and their
conviction by the courts which the student
the struggle which ragged about Eighteen Hundred for
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unionism.
Marx in the first volume of Capital gives us one
the most tragic pictures of the struggle of the workers
for the shorter day. and the right to organize Engels
Condition of the Working Class in 1914" is another
book the student peruse and study with profit
this struggle of the worker to build and have unions for
the protection of his class.
The journeymen tailors, silk weavers, wooden and
ton and hosiery among the first
unions which have any trace of in the early days of
unionism They first appear in the history thru laws
passed in parliament and the appointment of commits
sions to examine into their usage and the they made
of these rotous and tumultous clubs and societies.
these first combinations of workers called by the
new capitalists, in effort to suppress and silence
these embryonic mass combinations of workers. We
find law against conspiracy used in the year 1918
applied in the of combintion of cotton spnners
in attempt to raise wages and their officers
sent to prison for two years for their efforts force
the masters to give up of the wealth produced by
the spnners. In like the law of 1549 entitled
the "Bi of Conspiraces of Vctualers and Craftsmen
held to include within it's provisions all combinations of
journeymen to keep up wages reduce hours. The
1717 and 725 finds laws placed upon the statute
books fer the purpose of stopping the combinations
Wool Combers and Weavers who had combined to keep
the rate of their pay In 1743 find that even the
and women who allowed workmen to meet in their
averns (saoons) made victims and had to suffer
for their assistance given to combinations of workers
under the laws of conspiracy. The combinations of
workers were looked upon muny of the working
nv he of and thpIyp
IN accord with that view. In those days the workers
had their Saccos and Vanzettis, Moneys and Billings
who paid the price for the right of the working class
to speak and write and meet
In fact the criminal annals full of cases where
workers deported out of England to the penal
ing for the unionzaton of the working class And as
now find the blindness the fact of combina
ton the part of the master class by the courts.
The indictment of Marx, chat the government is but
bureau for doing the bidding of the capitalist Glass;
glaringy shown up in the history of the struggle of
the workers to combine and decide upon their hours of
labor and the price they would receive for their labor
power sold in the open market Court cases, in the
reports these struggles will bear out this indictment
for four hundred years they filled with the brutal
assistance given by the to the masters in their
endeavor to keep the workers from combining and join
ing their fellows in their struggle for the bet
torment of their class Lockouts and backists of the
workers by the masters could get by without calling
down the wrath of the courts while every effort of the
workers met by the thud of the polceman's club
the stab of the soldiers bayonet and injunction of
the court
The following taken from report of some commits
sioners who had investigated unionism could be lifted
out of any capitalist daily of the year 1927 They say
f the manufacturer is to employ his capital and the
machnist or chemist his ingenuity, only under the
dctaton of his short sighted rapacious workmen or
his equally ignorant and avaricious rivals if few ag
tators to be allowed to command strike which
parayzes the industry of the peculiar class of workpeo