Bailxj Name Jindugtrial Morkens
Published Daily except Sunday
Nome Mine Workers’ Union. So. 240. Western Federation of Miners.
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"To secure to each laborer the whole product of his labor, or as
•early as possible. Is a worthy object of aDy good government."—
• Draham Lincoln
Address all Communications to Dally Nome Industrial Worker,
Box 210 Nome. Alaska. Phone, Black 134
All changes In standing advertisements must reach this office at six
• clock cacn evening to Insure Insertion In the following Issue.
Advertising rates made known on application.
Entered as second class matter March 1' 1911, a: the post office at
home, Alassa, under the Act of March 3, 1879
Nome. Alaska, January 2!, llllti.
It is < lie cis t a£|
ti;- f.llTi: ; r ' . t' em
ploy u:I'-iil- d i, '».r i'i the muni-,
tim: i ; '■■■•■ v.f ii! hurt!ofoi ■
none o,it skilled hav. bocu thoughV
co jo ' i. to '.Void •
.. ■ . ' iim nu o con - ■
• ■!, io rr:,l ire wages' it is wholly*
is. ,,,.;, ski!. That tIt**;, cun introduco i
to unskilled, break them in to the
work and instead of ‘.mparinj the
e.llieieney of the work rather increase
it, should make craft unionists si;
• up and take notice.
What the ::uv rnmm.t in one
e.oijnt'y < ,n do during a vis mat
emergency, that ajso can any em
ployer do during an industrial emer
gency.
We 1 > reached the singe in in
dustrial conditions wherein skill
cuts comparatively little lig ire.
'With the advance of technical know
ledge and tic great improvement in
automatic machinery, personal sjcili
counts for little. What this super
stition of individual skill has done
■' is to keep out many of the unskilled
from competition, and thus lessen
ing til.’ supply of labor in any parti
cular craft, to increase the demand
and to thus also increase the wages.
It was all right for those who could
thus trade upon their skill; but it
was not all right for those who
lacked the advantage that that skill
j gave others.
Many unions organized because
sl.ill was the basis of their solidari
ty. not any such thing as their class
community of interest. On the
contrary, a whole lot of labor orga
nizations are organizations which
mu ivi mcu iu in i/bcvt mu iwi .j
against other workers by maintain
ing a little job trust.
For this reason limitations as to
membership were maintained;for this
reason limitations as to the num
bers who could learn some particu
lar trade were enforced no that in
tine, the fewer were skilled the mors
would employers have .to pay the
unskilled.
Moreover this caused the unskilled
io form a separate and distinct class
within the ranks of wage workers,
whose employment was ill required
and whose jobs were insecure.
With them craft unions made no
common cause. A”d yet when craft
unions got in trouble and their;
places were taken by those unskilled
who had been rigidly denied the pri
vileges of membership in unions,
the. craft unions heaped upon such,
all kinds of term'; of condemna
tion. »
The fact was noticeable however
that the craft unions all along had
denied them who now took their
place any rights to labor, and kept
them outside the fold altogether.
With such sort of organization the
workers could have very little ulti
mate patience one would Imagine.,
Yet such was practically the oppo
site case. Despite the fact that the
unions rigidly held themselves aloof
from the unskilled, and denied
<>theis the right to work, the rest of
the workers who were thus discrimi
nated against by follow workers,
supported and assisted them in
trouble.
The day lias now been reached in
industry when the employer can
take the unskilled and put him to
work in place of the most skilled
ertiftsman. it is only a matter ot
time when the unskilled will func
tion as usefully as any*one in the
industry. • Today the machinist or
the tradesmen is oftener than not a
mere machine tender and the ma
chines are automatic. Great facto
ries maintain specialists who are
placed upon an entirely different
footing to the rest, and these see to
it that the machines are kept run
ning.
But in the industry practically
everyone has a common footing. No
man, craft unionist or not, has a
monopoly by reason of his skill. As
he acquired it ,the man out ot a job
can and does acquire it, and if he
quits the other man can .aki his
i>laee.
means Hu rt fore tl.it '.hero I
i .. j
fcue '.C organiz;.lion in ■ ruins-1
try, ; nr; that is the one th t. take.- j
in Ji... •’Zletl ant the uuski.l.:.;
It is true that right today cm-1
ploy ::!;o u . of un'iisiiii d racu
to tower the wages of the shitted.
I 'lit they have done nothing diffei -
c:n to what the skilled men in the
past did: to make tli" lack of skill
and lack of organization because oi
it, a pretext to justly employers
to cut unskilled workers pay to the
very lowest.
in this emergency there is only
one refuge and that is the organiza
tion of both the skilled and un
skilled in any one and in all indus
tries.
Thus the lack of skill may no
loader be used as it has been and
as it is for an excuse to pay lower
wages, nor availed of by employ
er.' to pay the skilled leas wages by
threatening to place unskilled at
wori instead. Hut it seems to be
the hardest kind of thing to get a
skilled worker to admit that any
a ns' i'ied person can acquire h'.s
ability with certain machines or
certain tools. It has been his ability
so long and comes so naturally from
the ends of his lingers, that he
thinks no man unless with great
natural gifts, can do what he does.
It is the employer who swiftlv
disillusions the skilled man. He
takes the most hopeless ease of lack
of skill and ability, and after a
short period of factory discipline
has him turning out a finality 0*
work which shows no difference to
» 11 v uu iilu win uj uic nitiii ui (,u;ai
skill, who thought his art was to be
acquired only by a lifetime of study
Skill today therefore is no protec
tion. It is nothing at all worth or
ganizing. Skill today is quite im
material. It is the labor that
counts. And unless all labor is or
ganized, the workers are up against
it, no matter what their ability ana
technical skill.
We see in the intention of the
British government to employ un
skilled where heretofore have been
only employed skilled, an evident
confirmation of the facts observers
in the industrial world have long
ago pointed out.
Today machinery is so advanced
and men are merely machine tend
ers that the place of the unskilled
worker can he promptly taken by
ilip unskilled.
In spite of the most patent fact
however we see the American Fed
eralion of Labor turn dowr. with
out any hesitation the industrial
system of organization and cing
ing ot an archaic system which is in
many other respects dividing lather
than uniting the workers.
This is, due of course to several
reasons Not the least important is
the gu!!d instinct of the craftsman.
WML his trade still to him what it
was to the guildsman of anvher
epoch, he regards the mass of un
skilled workers with no common
feeling as a worker. It is true
however that the economic strug
gle in which he finds himself would
rapidly knock such nonsense out
of his head were it not for another
factor.
His craft organization is divided
into a number of locals with officers
and officials of one sort or another,
most receiving recompense es dele
gates, business agents, secretaries,
presidents and so forth. The sun-,
collected in dues is enormous and
the sum collected and disbursed for
salaries is no whit less large. Thus
a single industry will often have
ten maybe more, and of course very
often considerably less, craft unions
operating within that industry.
Each has its own organization; its
own special salaries and its own
particular union Jobs. Naturally
and inevitably those officials who
are enjoying these Jobs will be the
very last to admit that the whole
astern is an expensive inefficiency.
They find that their stand is easily
endorsed by the craftomen who are '
members because of their craftsman
ship and they ^oppose any diasolu
,ion of the craft organization in
favor of the industrial form of or
ganization. Moreover they have
very often succeeded by conservative
tactics on the labor field, in ingra
tiating themselves with the em
ployers and have cast iron contracts
whereby they agree to labor for a
cortain wage while the employer
agrees to boycott all other labor but
that which belongs to the craft
union.
Then having thus firmly enscon
ced themselves on the industrial
field, they proceed to dictate terms
to the rest of the workers with
whom they recognized nothing what
ever in common. They jealously
guard any encroachment upon their
own field of craft, and jurisdictional
squabbles are inevitable, squabbles
which have been the despair of
unionists ar.d the laughing stock ot
employers.
It is hard to imagine any system
of organization more completely h- j
scientific and more completely inefh-j
cient. The enormous sum spent in
unn *cf - ary salaries could ue much;
more effectively <1 voted to orgr.m-1
ation, and the moneys collected |
pn served a.s a war chert which
would, bo handy when a big stra
would-fall upon an industrial orga-(
nization. Morecv -r it is' not* to m ;
questioned that in keeping tin |
workers divided up into unions by j
craft, the craft system is real* ■
successful means of disuniting j
rather than solidifying the workers j
Today there is not a single jnstl- j
fieation for the existence of any
craft union in any industry -net
one. The basis upon which they ar
organized: their skill, is nothing at
all. Unskilled men can be put to'
work and have been put to work
successfully at the most highly skil
led trade without any trouble. Al
though it may be quite true tha:
the British government which is
trying to dilute the ranks of the
skilled with unskilled does so foi
the purpose of lowering the wage
scale, yet tiie more fact that this di
lution can lie successfully done is
proof itself tiiat skill is nothing in
these days.
it is obvious that if the unskilled
are also organized they then can
not l>e made . use of to decrease
wages. And it has got to come t -
lliis. There is no reason why all
workers should not be organized.
There is no room for job trusts ex
cluding workers from positions or
monopolizing from the rqet for a
few aristocrats of labor, the jobs
they have organized to control
against fellow workers.
There is just one efficiency today
and that is industrial efficiency. The
industries are controlled by t^e un
skilled, not by the skilled, and Wi
have repeatedly seen that in times
of strike in industries the very
first to surrender and return were
the skilled men who have made an
hereditary boast of their unionism.
It can be said frankly and cleajly
that there is not a craft union today
which can defy employers success
fully., The only reason that they
are not fighting employers in be
cause they work on the employers’
terms.
Anytime that employers saw fit to
fight craft unions, even the strong
est, they have done so successuflly
and the officials of craft unions have
been shrewd enough to see that and
to adopt for their own preservation
a policy of strict conservatism which
being more freely translated means
taking what the employers gives, as
tlie only policy.
Scarcli any agreement among
those craft unions with employers
nnd nine tines out of ten the em
ployers concessions are trivival and
. ■ paper, while the workers to gain j
their craft some little exclusive con
trol of the jobs, practically sn
reniered everything.
Nearly all trie vital labor struggl
i the railed States are carried or
cither by the unskilled and unorga
nized or by the industrial organi
zations. The craft unions dare no:
move a step. And it has to be ad
mitted that ever: in the railroad in
dustry before the craft brotherhood!
could think of making an aggressive
move for the eight hour day, they
had to get all the orders in the in
ch: try together first, vote together
and agree to act together for an
eight hour day that some of the of
ficials fought so hard against tli’ir
even considering. Eventually ot
cour: e the industrial union will
come to its own. But not before the.
craft unions will recognize the im
possible and wholly archaic position
they occupy in the world of labor
today.
PROFESSIONAL CAR!).
Dr. A. F. Heimlich
PHYSICIAN & SURGEON,
Office A: Residence:
OVER HILL’S PHARMACY.
Office Hours: 2—5 and 7—8 p. in.
Done—Night or day, Main 26.
iflS'Sl 3130130131:7131313131313131313131313131313131
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