of miscellaneous unions should strike up a co-operation among themselves upon a national scale.[1]
The first step in this direction had to do with political measures. The unions clearly recognized their industrial relationship and mutual interdependence in the Plumb Plan. To advocate this proposal they formed themselves into the Plumb Plan League, issued the joint journal, "Labor," and launched a general publicity campaign. But it was not long until this new co-operation also manifested itself on the industrial field, and in 1920 all the organizations united in a national movement for wage increases.
Thus, after many long years of evolution, the enormous army of railroad workers, beginning at the simple system of one trade acting at a time in each division town, finally arrived at the stage where all the trades acted together simultaneously on every railroad in the United States. Although the lineup was yet far from perfect, the 1,850,000 railroad men, for the first time in their history, were moving in a body against the common enemy. The approach made to industrial unionism by this long evolution is unmistakable.
Much of this national, all-trades co-operation is unquestionably flimsy as yet, as we shall see farther on. It may be that the present alliances will be partly dissolved through the shortsightedness of the men though the sixteen trades strike on the Atlanta, Birmingham & Atlantic augurs well. But such setbacks can only be temporarily. The evolution of the unions will go on, in spite of occasional reverses, until all the railroad workers of America stand stolidly united in one organization, fully conscious of their common interests against the common foe, and determined to fight shoulder to shoulder to make them prevail.
- ↑ A forerunner of the all-craft movement occurred on the Chicago & Eastern Illinois in 1915, when all the trades on that road joined forces in a system federation, the first of its kind. The system federation was unique in that it comprised all the railroad crafts, and not merely several of the more closely related grroups. as had previously been the case.
