The Railroaders' Next Step—Amalgamation/Chapter 7
CHAPTER VII.
IN CONCLUSION
In the foregoing pages we have pointed out the militant aggressiveness and fathomless greed of the railroad companies, how they are seeking to enslave their workers, and that the only hope of the latter is to make united resistance as one great army. We have also pointed out the glaring weaknesses of the unions as they now stand, and shown that only in industrial unionism can the workers exert their maximum economic power. But we have likewise indicated the folly and ruin of trying to achieve the needed industrial union by going outside of the old unions and starting new organizations. We have explained that the natural development of labor unions to the industrial status is through the three phases of isolation, federation and amalgamation; and also that our railroad unions, now in the federation phase, must inevitably pass on to the next one, amalgamation. And finally, we have outlined a practical plan of amalgamation, citing the many advantages that would come from industrial unionism on the railroads and answering the alleged objections thereto.
Now, the big job is to put the proposed amalgamation into effect. This can be readily accomplished if the multitudes of progressives and radicals in the railroad industry will put their shoulders to the wheel. Industrial unionism through the amalgamation of the sixteen craft unions should be made a live issue wherever railroad workers congregate: in the shops and offices, on the roads, at the meetings of the local unions and of the local, system and divisional federations; at the national conventions of the Railway Employes' Department and of the individual craft unions. The many journals should be filled with the idea. If all this is done it will not be long before such a body of favorable sentiment is created that the sixteen unions can be combined into one, and the amalgamated organization launched into a career of power and success now hardly thought possible.
Of course, the standpatters in the unions will vigorously oppose this amalgamation project. They will argue that the present network of federation and semi-federation constitutes the highest attainable degree of solidarity. But that is only to be expected; such reactionary elements are constitutionally against all progress. Blinded by ignorance, or dominated by some petty selfish interest, they have combatted every step in the evolution of the railroad unions. They are apostles of things as they are. When the system federation movement began to take root they denounced it as an unnecessary and dangerous innovation. It was the same with the divisional federations and every other progressive movement initiated by railroad men. Such conservatives are the greatest of all hindrances to the progress of the working class. They hang like a millstone about its neck. Their opposition is more destructive even than that of the employers themselves. Had we railroaders hearkened to the croakings of this "it-can't-be-done" element we would be still striking one craft at a time in each division town that is, if the companies had not destroyed all semblance of unionism in the meantime. Every pace forward has been won in spite of their bitter opposition, and so it will be with amalgamation. To accomplish that task is a job for the progressives and radicals.
But while we are working for the amalgamation of the railroad unions into one industrial organization we must never forget that that, too, is only a step on the workers' road to power. We cannot stop with that measure; we must press on still farther. Next we must form alliances with the miners and transport workers, as the British railroaders have done in the Tripple Alliance, but more effective and militant. And then, with that accomplished we will go on and on, building up still greater combinations of Labor, until finally we have the whole working class solidly united in one militant organization.
The trade unions are more than merely a means to win a few cents an hour more in wages or a few minutes a day less of work; they are battalions of an army of emancipation in the making. The greedy railroad autocracy is intolerable. It must go, and along with it the balance of the parasitic capitalist class. Private property in social necessities must be abolished root and branch. There is no other cure for our industrial troubles. Then, and only then, will war, poverty and exploitation come to an end. To do this great work is the supreme mission of the labor movement. At heart and in their daily action the trade unions are revolutionary. Their unchangeable policy is to withhold from the exploiters all of their product that they have the power to. In these days, when they are weak in numbers and discipline, they have to content themselves with petty acheivements. But they are constantly growing in strength and understanding, and the day will surely come when they will have the great masses of workers organized and instructed in their true interests. That hour will sound the death knell of capitalism. Then they will pit their enormous organization against the parasitic employing class, end the wages system forever and set up the long-hoped-for era of social justice. That is the true meaning of the trade union movement.
(THE END)
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