Wanted: Sane Trade Unionism! 



WHY SHOULD NOT UNITED LABOUR BE FREE? 



" I curse you in the name of the workers' wives, for it is you and your likes who have caused our ruin ; 

 it is you and Tillett who are starving my child ! Can't you see that it is dying ? Who asked you to bring 

 the dockers out ? Who cares what becomes of us now that your strike has failed ? Who will feed the children ? 

 May God curse you for your foul work ! " 



IN' these terrible words a starving woman denounced 

 to the workers on Tower Hill, and to the world 

 generally, the abominable system of demagogic- 

 autocracy and oligarchy prevailing in trade 

 unionism, and which has the effrontery to parade 

 itself as being for the good of the men. No more 

 damning refutation of this pretence can be found than 

 the story of the genesis of the strike of the transport 

 workers in 1912. This was no strike for the good of 

 the memliers of the union ; it was no preconceived 

 ideal, elaborated and thought out with the. assistance 

 and consent of the men. It was as criminal a»negation 

 of the whole principles of trade unionism as can be 

 imagined. No despotic monarch of a savage land, 

 making war to obtain fresh territory or to satisfy his 

 lust of hale, could do anything more horrible than did 

 the leaders who precipitated this strike. And these 

 leaders are theoretically rather in the position of the 

 president of a republic, not the autocrat of a despotic 

 state ! There was no preparation for the strike. No 

 affiliated organisations were consulted. The strike was 

 absolutely " by order " of the Transport Workers' 

 Federation officials ; there was no vote or ballot of the 

 members. 



ACTION INCONSTITUTIONAL AND VNWARRANTF.l). 



The Transport Workers' Federation officials, having 

 transgressed, then endeavoured to get the rank and file 

 of the affiliated unions to go contrary to the ad\ii'e of 

 their leaders and against their rules by striking without 

 waiting for a ballot. The action of the London nlficials 

 of the Transport Workers' Federation in llic first 

 instance was unconstitutional, uncalled for. and 

 unwarranted. And why was this done .-' " because 

 someone wishe.s to deprive one poor man sixty years 

 of age (who ha.s been a trade unionist for over twenty 

 years, and has regularly gone out on strike on every 

 occasion that there has been a strike, excepting the 

 present one) of the means of earning his daily bread, 

 resulting in heavy losses being inflicted on numberless 

 innocent people, including the members of other 

 unions." 



IF THIS IS TRADE UNIONIS.M — END IT. 



If this be the net effect of trade unions, then the 

 country has no use for them, and must crush them 

 remorselessly, even at the cost of civil war. But we do 

 not believe that the workers of this country understand 

 trade unions in this way, nor will they be content to 

 place their destinies and risk the lives of their babes 

 in the hands of unscrupulous but clever leaders, who 

 seek their own advantage and not the success of labour. 

 Men of the stamp of Ben Tillett and Tom Mann are not 

 true Labour leaders ; they arc rather the vampires 

 sucking the life-blood from the trade unions, bleeding 

 white the working manhood of this country. Trade 

 unions and all forms of combination amongst workers 

 are necessary phases of social development; but in the 

 interests of the men and of the country we must 

 demand of such combinations that they be such as to 

 enable those in them to express opinions and take 

 decisions consonant with the ideas of the majority. 

 They must not be under the absolute control of the 

 agitator. 



I'NIONS AND STRIKES PERMISSIRI.E. 



Wc iiclicve in the right of men to combine — wc 

 c\en think it their duty ; in the same way, we think 

 it the duty of all classes of the community who have 

 common interests and seek common ulijects to combine 

 to obtain them. Nor do we dc[)recate strikes for 

 [)rinriples, although surely enough progress has been 

 made to enable the avoidance of at least 99 per cent, 

 of the strikes now made or threatened. A strike, 

 like a revolution, is a drastic- expression of puiilic 

 opinion which should ne\er be used unless the circum- 

 stances are sufficiently widespread and vital to show 

 promise of adequate reward. It is no exaggeration to 

 say that no strike really achieves great things ; that 

 is to say, relatively to what could be accomplished 

 without striking and taking into account the wastage 

 on all sides. We go so far as to hold that strikes may 

 .sometimes be a national necessity ; they can rarely be 

 an international one. .Such a case would be a 

 unanimous strike of seanu-n. firemen, engineers and 



