Evening star., 1937-03-29
BY WILLIAM ALLEN WHITE.

held in abeyance Is the right to work.
Under gradual legal evolutionary
processes, having gained the right first
to strike, then to picket peacefully, in
the last hundred years, they now are
moving the picket line from the high
way and sidewalk. There it was de-
Tended by the bill of rights under
their claim of free speech and free
assemblage. Now they are croWding
through the front door.
As picketers, they were merely de-
baters. Inside of the front door, with
the nine points of the law which comes
from possession, the representatives Of
labor unions are now moving from de-
bate to the use of force. That move
from the sidewalk across the doorstep
of the factory was indeed fully i'm
piled by the very formation Of the
vertical industrial union.
Craft Claims Adjudicated Separately.
The craft union was interested pri-
marily in promoting the wage rights
of skilled workers, seeing that they
had special privileges which common
labor did not enjoy. Also, in an In
dustrial plant, the loyalty OF craft
union members was not to labor as a
whole, but to their fellow craftsmen.
Moreover, the claims Of each craft
were adjudicated separately with the
boss. He had his special privileges.
They desired theirs. 1t was question
which could out-talk the other and
convince public opinion. For, in the
end. public opinion decided every
strike under the craft union set-up.
But the vertical union makes
labor" out of workers. Their loyalty
is to labor" not to their fellow crafts
men. The philosophy Of the vertical
union is class conscious. These new
unionists contend that the philosophy
of the boss is class conscious. They
are right. The mere fact OF class
consciousness. cannot be strongly con-
demned on the labor side Of the
quarrel and permitted on the other.
Now we see class conscious workers
organized as labor" not as crafts
men, moving in one big plant union
quarrel off the street They are
taking the struggle away from the
protection of the bill of rights for
free speech and free assemblage.
What they are really seeking is to
erect class right to work co-equal
with the right to own tools. Here
we have something fundamentally
different from any labor troubles
which America yet has seen. Call it
socialism, even call it communism, 1t
is still new phase of our American
industrial life, the core of the labor
plank of the New Deal!
Underlined Rights Sought.
Now, what is the right for which
labor has abandoned its appeal to
reason and left the bill of rights on
the sidewalk and gone into the shop
to win by force? 1t Is an underlined
right Of labor to some kind of joint
control in lieu of joint ownership
of the tools of industry. Probably
labor leaders today will call this new
assumed right property right, the
right of man to his job.
The whole political philosophy in
America for the last four years has
implied this right of the worker to
live and live by work, either by made
work, by public work. or by private
as the fundamental right
of man What else does w. P A. |
mean? Or the c. c. c.? Or any
of the dozen alphabetical set-ups
which have been called from the vastly
deep to keep men employed during |
the depression? The right to job |
which inheres in the basic philosophy |
of the New Deal is easily transmitted
into the right Of particular job
my job," says Labor. Your job |
the cats FOOT" replies Capital and
adds: How come? Under the Con-
stitution?"
Both sides are a bit excited. The
right to strike and the right to picket
in an industrial controversy implies
rather profoundly some right Of the
worker to his job. Labor feels that |
his new assumed right inheres in the
in what may be called |
the joint partnership of labor and |
capital. The title is not clear to this
right. The courts shrink from es-
tablishing it. The right is still even
But it turks in all the
legislative and labor decisions that,
for hundred years, have been grad
ually strengthening workers in their
right to collective bargaining with |
representatives Of their own choos-
ing" If the boss is compelled to
bargain with you and talk about your
case as a laborer to q man whom he |
dislikes and distrusts, you as a laborer
have certain rights which the boss
is bound to respect.
Pr0letarian Treatment.
Now then, what are those rights? |
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