The building trades’ fight in Chicago is another glaring example of the foolishness of continuing the old craft union tactics of each separate union for itself. The employers have organized a solid front, backed by Judge Landis, and by the “Citizens’ Committee” with its many millions of dollars pledged to break the unions. They have allowed their solidarity to be broken, each union acting for itself, without any kind of plan whatever. The results are plain, the lesson must be learned before Labor can fight a winning battle.
The present fight started May first last year, when the Contractors’ Association refused to renew the wage-scale previously in effect, and locked out the union members. This lockout continued until early in June, when the employers and the unions agreed to submit the wage question to arbitration, and agreed upon Judge Landis as the arbitrator. In the meantime a tremendous barrage of newspaper attack had been levelled at the unions, and preparations were made to “get them” in the arbitration proceedings. Landis immediately took the offensive by assuming jurisdiction over working rules in addition to wages. In September he announced his award which slashed wages savagely and completely revised the working rules. The union members spontaneously walked off their jobs, although the unions did not immediately call a strike. The contractors were willing to reopen the case. The Building Trades Council was capable of handling a dispute with some degree of success so long as the opponent was only the contractors. But this time the unions were up against something bigger. The “Citizens’ Committee” had been formed, containing the financial and corporate powers of Chicago, with a war chest of millions of dollars, and they took charge of the capitalist side of the fight.
From the beginning of these unfortunate arbitration proceedings, the result of which might easily have been foreseen, the building trades forces were split. Five of the unions were to the arbitration from the first. Those unwise enough to participate in the arbitration were divided into those who accepted it with reservations, and the “good unions” who were determined to resist its orders. The result was a disgrace, the unions being out going to work about the same as went out. Some of them tried to get the good will of the employers, and a few got it by going back to work and staying there. A few of them have consistently stood out against the whole business from beginning to end. Others have wavered between these two positions, going on strike, going back to work, alternating with each other, and increasing the confusion and lack of solidarity.
The Building Trades Council, the body which has brought about what united action there has heretofore been, has utterly failed to cope with this situation. It has been for a strike, then it has been against it, then for a strike again; but it has not been able to present the unified attack of all the capitalist forces massed on the other side of the fight.
Much bitterness has been aroused in the workers’ ranks in the course of this fight. Harsh names have been called, and charges hurled back and forth. Probably some of the harsh names are just; surely some of the charges have truth behind them. But this is the lesson which building trades workers must learn from this experience, or it will have been in vain:
THESE CONDITIONS WILL CONTINUE UNTIL THE BUILDING TRADES UNIONS ARE SOLIDLY UNITED INTO ONE ORGANIZATION.
Federation of the 25 and more unions into the Building Trades Council is not enough; it has broken down; it does not meet the conditions of today. Nothing short of COMPLETE AMALGAMATION of all building trades unions into one industrial union for the building trades, will meet the situation. Such a unified, solidly organized body of workers, led by men of spirit and intelligence, would quickly change the present terrible chaos, disunity and helplessness. In the face of a united Building Trades Union, the “Citizens’ Committee” and Judge Landis would be pitifully impotent.
BUILDING TRADES WORKERS! NEW METHODS ARE NECESSARY TO MEET YOUR ENEMIES TODAY. GET CLOSER TO-GETHER, JOIN HANDS, AND AMALGAMATE YOUR UNIONS INTO ONE COVERING THE ENTIRE BUILDING INDUSTRY.
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