CHAPTER V.
Departmentalized Industrial Unionism
A COMMON objection to amalgamation is the argument that the industrial union will throw ali the workers together in a general mass, eliminating craft identity and thus creating a confusion and general indifference among the rank and file that will weaken rather than. strengthen the organization. This would, indeed, be a vital objection were it true, But all over the world-where such industrial unions exist they are formed on the basis of departments, each of which contains several closely-allied crafts. The League is urging this same form here. In each industry there will be one organization covering the whole body of workers, but this will be sub-divided into sections or departments for the principal branches of the industry. This will enable the respective trades to handle their particular problems efficiently and at the same time benefit from the strength of the whole mass.
Thus, far from being a confused mixture, the departmentalized industrial union will be a system of perfect order. Each department will handle its own line of work efficiently, and all departments will be blended together in the general organization through their representatives on the national executive board. Compared with this modern system of organization the present craft. unions, each going its separate way and duplicating the union work of the industries as many as thirty times, is confusion worse confounded. The departmentalized union will be like an army, with its separate branches of artillery, cavalry, infantry, etc., but all welded together into one powerful machine.
Under the industrial system of unionism the workers will obtain tremendous power compared with the craft or federated form. Unity of action will at all times be obtainable. There will be no craft or departmental strikes without the absolute assurance that the whole industrial union stands solidly behind them with the combined strength of all. The painful spectacle of unions going down to defeat before the onslaughts of combined capital, while allied unions stand by with seeming indifference and give their fallen brothers no helping hand, will be a thing of the past, Such preposterous unionism will be buried so deep it will never be revived except in scornful memory. It will then be difficult to imagine that the workers ever had such short-
