CHAPTER IV.
The Amalgamation Movement
BY the time a movement gets to be a movement and has people boosting for it, it has traveled a long time unseen. For many years the workers have been clearing the ground for amalgamation, actually doing the preparatory work, by trying out another and less radical form of union affiliation, namely, federation. Seeing that conditions were ripe and over ripe for the inauguration of amalgamation, the Trade Union Educational League came along and made amalgamation the object of its first big drive. These League militants, who honeycomb the entire labor movement, report that the workers are ready for Amalgamation right now, if they could only get action on their International officials, who stand in the way of every new idea for fear it might explode under their seats and throw them back into the ranks of the working class.
Of course, it must not be understood by this that the officials are going permanently to block the way to Amalgamation. The movement is now being organized in every industry in the country including Canada; for, so far as the labor movement is concerned there is no boundary line between us and our brothers to the north. As unionists we are one nation, with one flag, one goal and one common enemy to conquer. The enemy has tried to separate us, but we still hold to our one union idea and Canada holds her place as one division of the proletarian army of North America.
The great stimulus to the movement is the breakdown and failure of the craft unions and the federations of craft unions. The federations have at times done good service by holding the unions together when making the demands upon the bosses. But on the whole they have failed in their mission to unite the craft unions, and now the demand for a better tie has been raised and the Trade Union Educational League answers with "Amalgamation."
The Railroad Industry
The movement for amalgamation is being given special attention by the railroad men whose recent sad experience in the shopmen's strike has been an eye opener to them and has quickened their minds to the crying need of the transportation industry. These railroad men
