Page:Jay Fox - Amalgamation (1923).pdf/31

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AMALGAMATION
29

tion with the stronger organizations in their industries, either as groups or as individual members, and thus bring the militants into their proper position among the organized masses.

(b) Where the independent unions are strong numerically and actually function as mass organizations the League shall do its utmost to upbuild and maintain them. But such unions shall not war against the old organizations nor pull individual or local unions away from them. In cases where two or more mass unions exist in an industry in rivalry with each other, the League militants will remain in their respective organizations and work to put into effect the following general policies: (1) to bring about temporary adjustments of the jurisdictional disputes between the affected organizations and to turn their attention away from fighting each other and towards the organization of the unorganized; (2) to carry on an energetic and persistent campaign for amalgamation of all the rival unions, A. F. of L. and Independents, into one industrial body.

The Textile Industry

The textile industry is one of the oldest in America. For 133 years it has been ruthlessly exploiting men, women, and children. A low degree of organization prevails. Of the 1,000,000 workers in the industry, not over 100,000 are organized. These are split up into fully a score of unions, squabbling amongst themselves, and constructed according to every known type. The employers, on the other hand, are well organized and trustified. In no industry in America are the trade unions so variegated and the workers so helpless and underpaid as in the textile industry.

There is no outlook for the textile workers better than that of slavery unless their great number of unions are brought together and united. Long ago the employers quit the foolish policy of competition. Under the leadership of the General Amalgamation Committee of the Textile Industry, which like the other similar bodies is a rank and file proposition, the workers now are also carrying on an agitation for one union of all textile workers. This Committee held its first national conference in New York on May 5, 1923. In this industry the workers are so demoralized and helpless that amalgamation will be difficult to bring about. But the militants are going at the task