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INDUSTRIAL PIONEER Preamble of the Industrial Workers of the World

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INDUSTRIAL PIONEER Preamble of the Industrial Workers of the World INDUSTRIAL PIONEER Preamble of the Industrial Workers of the World The working eltuu and the .employing class have nothing in common. There can be no peace as long as hunger and want are found among millions of the working people and the few who make up the employing class have all the good things of life. Between these two classes a struggle must go on until the workers of the world organize as a class, take posses* sion of the earth and the machinery of production, and abolish the wage system. We find that the centering of the management of in­ dustries into fewer and fewer hands makes the trade unions unable to cope with the ever growing power of the employing class. The trade unions foster a state of affairs which allows one set of workers to be pitted against another set of workers in the same industry, thereby helping to defeat one another in wage wars. Moreover, the trade unions aid the employing class to mislead the workers into the belief that the working class has inter­ ests in common with their employers. These conditions: can be changed and the interests of the working dass upheld by an organization formed in such a way that all its members in any one industry, or in all industries, if necessary, eease work whenever a strike or lockout is on in any department thereof, thus making an injury to one an injury to all. Instead of the conservative motto, “A fair day’s wage for a fair day’s work,” we must inscribe on our banner the revolutienary watchword, ’’Abolition of the wage sys­ tem.” It is the historic mission ef the working class to do away with capitalism. The army of production must be organized, not only for the every-day struggle with cap­ italists, but also to carry on production when capitalism shall have been overthrown. By organising industrially we are forming the struc­ ture of the new society within the shell of the old. EDITORIAL: ' Page Industrial Depression--------------------------------------------------- 1® SERIALS: The Story of the Sea. By Tom Barker ..... &0 Hunting a Job in the Clouds. By W. J. McSweenejr............... 60 ARTICLES: The Glass War on the Railroads and in West Virginia. By Jan Rus -------------------------------- ;- (3 Can Labor Unions Function as Revolutionary Organizations? By H. Van Dorn---------------- 17 The Thirteenth Convention of the I. W. W .-------------------- 20 Run-Avray Slaves. By Mary E. Marcy ...'.------------------------ 28 The International Relations of the I. W. W. By G. C — 24 For Unity in the Metal Industry. By Glenn B. Fortney 37 “High Spots” of the Thirteenth I. W. W. Convention. Com­ piled by Roy Brown ----------------------------------- ...— 88 Is Personal Gain a True Incentive? By Jane A. Lee — 46 Wastes in the Coal Industry. By the.I. W. W. Bureau of Industrial Research ____1........./ --------------------------- 68 FROM FOREIGN LANDS: The Lesson of the British Betrayal. By Jack Tanner ...... 8 The British Miners Come Back. By Francis Davis _______ 11 A Worker Looks at Reparations. By Hugo Schurtz------------ 14 The Revolutionary Movement in India ----- 16 Conference of the Unemployed in Great Britain. By H. Van Dorn --- 26 Address to the Russian Transport Workers. By Tom Barker 48 DEPARTMENTS: Book Review. By S. B............................................................... 43 *» Wobbles ............................................ 49 Defense News ....................................................... *_ 52 FICTION: “The Hoosierfied Can.” Ry Ralph Winstead ___ _.....____ 29 The Roar. By R. M. F o x ---- 47 POETRY: Wesley Everest. By Ralph Chaplin ........................................... 7 A Preacher's Solution. By Hal Brommels .................. 10 The Rebel Lads Who Won't Come Back Again. By Richard Brazier ...................................... 13 To a Factory Whistle. By S. P..................... 26 Everett, November Fifth. By Charles Ashleigh _________ 86 Debs the Dreamer. By Ellis B. Harris ...................... 58 CARTOONS: Writing History. By C. D. Batchelor ..................................... 2 Prejudices of Race and Nationality. By Maurice Becker 22 Labor Is Invincible. By Maurice Becker ....... 28 Trade Unionism. By V. Finnberg.................................. 36 Solidarity. By Dust ...................................................... 45 Digitized by ^ooQie Vol. 1, No. 6 JULY, 1921 Serial No. 6 The Class War on the Railroads and in West Virginia ' / i B y Jan Rus O TWO industries in the United States business it is to make .one dollar do the N are more replete with arguments for work of twenty dollars, and to find at the working class solidarity than trans­ end of a year that the twenty have swollen portation and coal mining. Could the work­ to a hundred. Schism and secession are ers in these two industries be so correlated the order of the day. Nor could it well be as to act in unison on all questions involv­ otherwise. Having no aim beyond a fair ing the rights of each, there would be a day's pay for & fair day's work, compror speedy end to such tragedies as are en­ piising with the enemy when any dual or­ acted from time to time in the West Vir­ ganization shows signs of activity, how is ginia coal fields—Labor’s Valley Forge. it to be expected that the American Feder­ America needs no Triple Alliance to tie up ation of Labor can hold together over 2,- her industrial life. Practically self-sustain­ 000,000 railroad workers? ing and of vast inland distances, the dock Events during the “outlaw" railroad workers do not hold the strategic position shopmen’s strike of last year showed how of the dock workers in, say, Great Britain. out of sympathy the heads of the Railway The failure of unity between these Employes’ Department of the American powerful industries is nowhere better illus­ Federation of Labor were with the rebels; trated than in West Virginia. The miners showed, in fact, more than this. In Pitts­ strike. Scabs and thugs are imported. Coal, burgh, for example, one of the brother­ if only in small quantities, is- produced, hoods invaded the city, camped there for ready for hauling to the steel plants in several weeks, sent out organizers to dis­ Ohio and Pennsylvania. And union engin­ credit the striking yard and trainmen, and eers and train crews haul scab coal for the conferred daily with heads of the Pennsyl­ simple reason that, did they refuse, their vania, the Baltimore and Ohio, and the brotherhoods would penalize them, and did Lake Erie roads, to see what could be done they still persist in acting on their belief to preserve the “morale" of the disgusted that an injury to one is an injury to all, men. This sort of thing was going on every­ their places would be taken by other union where, despite the quite phenomenal out­ men. That is the sorry state of affairs in . burst of resentment all over the country which the workers in the United States find among the rank and file, as was evidenced themselves. An obsolete form of organiza­ by the comparative unanimity of the strike. tion holds back a coming day. It is yet too early to say what the action Even within the transportation industry of the brotherhoods will be in regard to itself there is that lack of harmony charac­ the reduction of wages, effective July 1st, teristic of the whole American labor move­ as announced by the United States Railroad ment and so welcome to the men whose Labor Board last month. Ballots have been 3 Digitized by v ^ o o Q le r i t s , '* W ' y x w r n labor officials re- Foster says in his “The Railroaders' Next Ij&t of the 12^ per step": “The supreme advantage of the amalga­ jrogation of the National Agree- mation of all the railroad unions into one ; bodes ill for the future. The lack of industrial union would be, of course, the ty the new local agreements offe? enormous increase in economic power com-. is shown by the recent strike vote ing from the greater scope of activity, in­ illman employes after the company tensified solidarity and clearer vision of the [' refused to join in a conference with large body.” iew to arriving at suitable rules and A one big railroad workers' industrial rking arrangements. B. M. Jewel's or- union would not only gain in fighting power lization, the Railway Employes' Depart- over the present craft organizations by £he lt, refused to authorize the strike ballot, elimination of internecine strife, it would iich was! only halted by the appearance effect, as well, a saving both in time and the scene in Chicago of a government in organization expense. It is quite prob­ iciliator from the Federal Department able that were such an amalgamation in ^ Lab or. existence now there would have been no What is the exact meaning to the organ- talk of local agreements and reductions. »d railroads of the canceling of these The 2,000,000 railroad workers standing i rational Agreements? In the first place, together as one body, not only would be le use of local agreements materially re- able to hold what little gains had been made Luces the possibilities of a ^national strike, but would be within measurable distance le only kind of strike that really counts, of industrial control, of operating trans­ rational strikes are not only combatted, portation effectively, of compelling recog­ but a localized affair can be broken up nition of the right, not only to their own with the employment of thugs and strike­ necessities, but to the necessities of that breakers. larger body of workers dependent under Local agreements undoubtedly will work our system of society, upon the continued to the disadvantage of the men in that the operation and development of the trans­ machinery for their enforcement will be so portation industry.
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