CORRESPONDENCE 641 



A NATIONAL UNION OF SCIENTIFIC WORKERS 



From Norman Campbell, General Secretary, N.U.S.W* 



Dear Sir, — May I venture to draw the attention of, your 

 readers to the advertisement, which appears in this number 

 of Science Progress, of the formation of a National Union 

 of Scientific Workers. 



The general object of the Union is sufficiently suggested by 

 its name. It exists to improve the status and economic 

 position of scientific workers, and it will hardly be necessary 

 to argue to the readers of Science Progress that the highest 

 interests of science in its relation to the national life are inti- 

 mately bound to such an improvement. Any doubt which is 

 felt concerning the Union will probably be based on a belief 

 that its objects will be attained, better or as well, by associations 

 of a type already existing. 



It should be explained then that the originators of the 

 Union have not the slightest wish or intention to trespass on 

 the ground already occupied by existing societies ; but they 

 think there is a work to be done which none of them have 

 attempted or could attempt by reason of their origin and 

 constitution. It is certainly a necessary precedent to any 

 improvement in our status that professional qualifications 

 should be maintained and raised, and that unprofessional 

 conduct should be suppressed by the methods of such societies 

 as the Institute of Chemistry or of Electrical Engineers. It is 

 also important that the methods of public meetings, speeches, 

 and deputations should be worked to their fullest capacity, 

 as they are by the British Science Guild. But however active 

 and efficient are the bodies which undertake such work, there 

 it yet another method of attaining our ends which remains 

 unexploited and yet is, in the opinion of those who have 

 founded the Union, the most powerful of them all. It is the 

 method of the Trade Union. 



I know I am daring greatly in mentioning those words. 

 Experience has taught me that there are people who, as soon 

 as the words Trade Union are mentioned, rush to the con- 

 clusion that the first act of our association will be to call all 

 chemists out on strike, picket the doors of universities against 



