Trade Unionism in the United States

hat unionism is, and just what ought to be done about it. The man in the street, the lawyer, the economist, the social worker, the teacher, the preacher, each has his positive concept and his positive scheme for union control or regeneration. Thus the student honestly seeking the truth about unionism is faced at the outset with a mass of confident but contradictory interpretations. He is told that union- ism is a narrow group organization designed to benefit ) certain favored workmen at the expense of all others; / that it is an artificial monopoly of labor, an impossible attempt to raise wages by unnatural and therefore socially inimical means; that it is the creation of selfish and unscrupulous leaders primarily for their personal gain and aggrandizement, a thing foisted upon unwilling workers and designed to disrupt the natural harmony of interests between employers and employees; that it is a mere business device for regulating wages and conditions of employment, by means of collective bargaining; that it is a great revolutionary movement, aiming ultimately to chapter{Section 4overthrow capitalism and our whole legal and moral code; that it is a universal expression of working class idealism whose purpose is to bring to all the toilers hope, dignity, enlightenment, and a reasonable standard of living; that it is, in short, selfish and altruistic, monopolistic and inclusive, artificial and natural, autocratic and democratic, violent and law-abiding, revolut...