The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1928-11-23
Misleaders in
the American
Labor Unions
BY WILLIAM 2. FOSTER.

cation demoralize the workers in
their struggles. This system, under
the stimulation of reactionary of
ficials, has led to practices that
bring the blush of shame to the
cheek of every good union man.
Not only haves the organizations,
driven on by treacherous leaders,
practiced union scabbery repeatedly
against striking brother unions and
worked side by side with profess
sional scabs, but they have often
done actual, direct strikebreaking
themselves. Thus, in the G. B. &
Q. engineers strike there were fire
men doing the work of engineers; in
the big switchmen's strike of 1900
on the G. N. union engineers and
firemen helped the companies teach
the scabs how to do the work of
the switchmen; in the historic I. C.
strike the engineers and trainmen
often made running repairs on en-
glnes and trains so far as they
could, thus relieving the pressure
on the company's scab mechanical
force, etc.
A disastrous product of railroad
craft unionism was the long iuris-
dictional struggle between the
Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen
and the Switchmen's Union. This
has led to open scabbery time and
again. AS far back as 1891 on the
e. q N. W. we find the R. T. filling
the places of the striking S. U. The
same policy has been followed for
30 years, shameless scabbery tax
ing place during many strikes, in
GLIDING, among others, the D. & R.
G. in 1901, the Pennsy in 1901, the
M. K. T. in 1902, the G. N. and
N. T. IN 1909, the Wabash in 1916,
etc. Usually the B. of R. T. simply
stepped into S. U. strikes, Signed
agreements with the companies, and
furnished scabs to break the strikes.
So fragrant has been the conduct of
the b. of R. T. that the Chicago Fed
Grafton of Labor and other central
bodies upon such occasions have
openly condemned it for strikebreak-
ing. No one has profited from this
devastating jurisdictional fight ex-
cept the companies. 1t has kept the
railroad unions in turmoil for a gen.
GRAFTON. The reactionaries at the
head of the B. of r. T. are chiefly
to blame, but Heberling, Cashen,
and Connors of the S. U. are not
guiltless. They have bitterly re-
sisted all efforts to amalgamate
their organization with the B. of R.
L. They are typical Composites.
Misleaders Active.
For 40 years the conservative rail-
road union leaders, playing the game
OF the companies, have stubbornlv
fought against every attempt to
unite the railroad workers in one
solid body. They have striven to
preserve the system whereby few
strateglcally placed, well-organized
workers can trade with the com
panles at the expense of the weaker
unions and of the great masses of
unorganized. Naturally the com
panies also have been entirely in IA
vor OF this policy. For more than
generation the prime issue that has
divided reactionaries from progress
sives on the railroads is that of
craft unionism versus industrial
unlonism. Craft unionism is the
sign manual of the railroad labor
taker, even as it is of the labor
faker IN many other industries.
No matter in what form the rail
road industrial union idea has de-
veloped, whether through dual unions
or by proposals to amalgamate the
craft unions, it has been strenuouslu
resisted by the reactionary leaders
who are always supported by the
companies. The old Knights of La
Dor tended to combine all railroad
ers together. The incipient craft
unions openly scabbed upon it. Thew
did the same when Debs launched
the American Railway Union and
carried on the great Pullman strike
OF 1894. incidentally Gompers took
hand to wreck this vital strike. nv
formally refusing to give it the ac-
tive support of the A. F. of T.,
Smaller dual unions, such as the
United Brotherhood of Railway En-
ployes (for example the M. K. T
strlke) were eliminated by ruth
less policy of open scabbery wher-
ever they got foothold in the in
dustry. On the other hand. the
movement to amalgamate the 16
railroad unions, which has been
especially strong since the 1929
strike, meets with the united opposi-
ton of the railroad union bureau
crazy, grand chiefs" and all II
was a great mistake, however. of
early industrial unionists not to
have fought along the lines of ANAL
gamating the existing unions instead
of for the formation of dual unions
as the latter policy has given the
reactlonaries a much better opor-
tunltV to defeat them