One Big Union
Encyclopedia
The One Big Union is a concept which emerged in the late 19th and early 20th centuries amongst working class trade unionTrade union
A trade union, trades union or labor union is an organization of workers that have banded together to achieve common goals such as better working conditions. The trade union, through its leadership, bargains with the employer on behalf of union members and negotiates labour contracts with...
ists.
Unions initially organised as craft or trade union
Trade union
A trade union, trades union or labor union is an organization of workers that have banded together to achieve common goals such as better working conditions. The trade union, through its leadership, bargains with the employer on behalf of union members and negotiates labour contracts with...
s. Workers were organized by their skill: carpenters, plumbers, bricklayers, each into their respective unions. Capitalists
Capitalism
Capitalism is an economic system that became dominant in the Western world following the demise of feudalism. There is no consensus on the precise definition nor on how the term should be used as a historical category...
could often divide craft and trade unionists along these lines in demarcation disputes. As capitalist enterprises and state bureaucracies became more centralised and larger, some workers felt that their institutions needed to become similarly large. A simultaneous disenchantment with the perceived weakness of craft unions caused many unions to organize along industrial lines
Industrial unionism
Industrial unionism is a labor union organizing method through which all workers in the same industry are organized into the same union—regardless of skill or trade—thus giving workers in one industry, or in all industries, more leverage in bargaining and in strike situations...
.
As envisioned by the Industrial Workers of the World
Industrial Workers of the World
The Industrial Workers of the World is an international union. At its peak in 1923, the organization claimed some 100,000 members in good standing, and could marshal the support of perhaps 300,000 workers. Its membership declined dramatically after a 1924 split brought on by internal conflict...
(IWW), however – which for many years prior to 1919 had been associated with the concept – One Big Union was not just the idea that all workers should be organised into one big union. In the 1911 pamphlet "One Big Union", IWW supporters Father Thomas J. Hagerty
Thomas J. Hagerty
The Reverend Friar Thomas J. Hagerty was an American Roman Catholic priest from New Mexico, and one of the founding members of the Industrial Workers of the World .-Biography:...
and William Trautmann
William Trautmann
William Ernst Trautmann was founding General-Secretary of the U.S. Industrial Workers of the World and one of six people who initially laid plans for the organization in 1904.He was born to German parents in New Zealand in 1869 and raised in Europe...
enumerated two goals: One Big Union needed to "combine the wage-workers in such a way that it can most successfully fight the battles and protect the interests of the workers of today in their struggles for fewer hours of toil, more wages and better conditions," and it also "must offer a final solution of the labor problem—an emancipation from strikes, injunctions, bull-pens, and scabbing of one against the other."
One Big Union was the notional organizational concept, while the IWW's revolutionary industrial unionism was the organizing method by which that concept could be realized. "Organizing the One Big Union of all workers the world over" was meant to achieve "working class control." But the One Big Union organizations were resisted by government and industry, and subverted by existing trade unions. By 1925, only the concept of One Big Union remained.
One Big Union in practice
The One Big Union concept was adopted and promoted by the Industrial Workers of the World after the publication of the One Big Union pamphlet in 1911, and is still used by the organization. Members of the IWW historically, and currently, signed letters (and other communications) with the closing, "Yours for the O.B.U." Many commentators consider One Big Union to be synonymous with the Industrial Workers of the World. One of the popular IWW publications was called One Big Union Monthly.The One Big Union concept was promoted by the IWW in various ways, including as an invitation to racial equality. One IWW leaflet proclaimed:
To Colored Workingmen and Women: If you are a wage worker you are welcome in the I.W.W. halls, no matter what your color. By this you may see that the I.W.W. is not a white man's union, not a black man's union, not a red or yellow man's union, but a working man's union. All of the working class in one big union.
The IWW used the same sort of arguments to welcome women into the workforce. The appeal subsequently proclaimed the intent to organize "all wage workers . . . into One Big Union, regardless of creed, color, or nationality . . . An injury to one is an injury to all." The immediate goal of One Big Union was better pay, shorter hours, and better surroundings. The IWW propagandized, "Organize in one big union and fight for a chance to live as human beings should live. All together now and victory will be ours."
Founding organizations
In North AmericaNorth America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
, the most significant early impetus for the One Big Union concept came from the Western Federation of Miners
Western Federation of Miners
The Western Federation of Miners was a radical labor union that gained a reputation for militancy in the mines of the western United States and British Columbia. Its efforts to organize both hard rock miners and smelter workers brought it into sharp conflicts – and often pitched battles...
(WFM) which was headquartered in Denver, Colorado
Denver, Colorado
The City and County of Denver is the capital and the most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Denver is a consolidated city-county, located in the South Platte River Valley on the western edge of the High Plains just east of the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains...
. The WFM and its allies first launched the Western Labor Union
Western Labor Union
The Western Labor Union was a labor federation created by the Western Federation of Miners after the disastrous Leadville strike of 1896-97. The WLU was conceived in November, 1897 in a proclamation of the State Trades and Labor Council of Montana, and gained support from the WFM's executive...
(WLU).
The Western Labor Union was initially intended to displace the conservative American Federation of Labor
American Federation of Labor
The American Federation of Labor was one of the first federations of labor unions in the United States. It was founded in 1886 by an alliance of craft unions disaffected from the Knights of Labor, a national labor association. Samuel Gompers was elected president of the Federation at its...
(AFL) in the West. The WLU's rebranding in 1902 as the American Labor Union
American Labor Union
When the Western Labor Union , a labor federation formed by the Western Federation of Miners, decided to overtly challenge the American Federation of Labor in 1902, it changed its name to the American Labor Union . The ALU was created because the WFM wanted a class-wide labor body with which to...
(ALU) was a direct response to actions by (AFL) President Samuel Gompers
Samuel Gompers
Samuel Gompers was an English-born American cigar maker who became a labor union leader and a key figure in American labor history. Gompers founded the American Federation of Labor , and served as that organization's president from 1886 to 1894 and from 1895 until his death in 1924...
.
The WFM and the ALU then cooperated to found the IWW
First Convention of the Industrial Workers of the World
When Bill Haywood used a board to gavel to order the first convention of the Industrial Workers of the World , he announced, "this is the Continental Congress of the working class...
.
The IWW was conceived as a global union with the goal of organizing the entire world. The concept of One Big Union, growing out of the IWW's revolutionary program, evolved over a period of time:
[In] moving toward revolutionary industrial unionism, Denver's labor radicals were not building from scratch; rather, they drew upon and elaborated ideas and strategies generated by the previous twenty years of Denver's labor history... [Although] the labor wars of 1903-4Colorado Labor WarsColorado's most significant battles between labor and capital occurred primarily between miners and mine operators. In these battles the state government, with one clear exception, always took the side of the mine operators....
may have triggered the formation of the IWW, the ideological synthesis it would uphold had been worked out in the American Labor Union's leadership by the summer of 1903...
The WFM had been founded as a conservative trade union after a bitter and violent strike in Coeur d'Alene
Coeur d'Alene, Idaho labor strike of 1892
There were two related incidents between miners and mine owners in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho: the labor strike of 1892, and the labor confrontation of 1899....
in 1892. The WFM conducted a successful strike in Cripple Creek
Cripple Creek miners' strike of 1894
The Cripple Creek miners' strike of 1894 was a five-month strike by the Western Federation of Miners in Cripple Creek, Colorado, USA. It resulted in a victory for the union and was followed in 1903 by the Colorado Labor Wars...
in 1894, notable for the exceedingly rare intervention of the state on the side of the striking miners. But the strike which some historians believe shaped the philosophy and tactics of the WFM, and which ultimately resulted in the WFM embracing revolutionary industrial unionism
Industrial unionism
Industrial unionism is a labor union organizing method through which all workers in the same industry are organized into the same union—regardless of skill or trade—thus giving workers in one industry, or in all industries, more leverage in bargaining and in strike situations...
and the eventual promulgation of the One Big Union concept, occurred against mine owners in Leadville
Leadville Colorado, Miners' Strike
Silver was discovered in Leadville, Colorado in the 1870s, initiating the Colorado Silver Boom. The Leadville miners' strike in 1896-97 occurred during, and as a result of, rapid industrialization and consolidation of the mining industry. Mine owners had become more powerful, and they resolved not...
. Out of that struggle came the November 1897 proclamation
November 1897 proclamation
The November 1897 proclamation of the State Trades and Labor Council of Montana was a reflection of western labor's assessment of the struggle between labor and capital after the failed Leadville Colorado, Miners' Strike...
of the State Trades and Labor Council of Montana, a document which broke with the past – declaring that "the old form of organization is unable to cope with the recent aggressions of plutocracy" – and called for a new type of labor organization.
The WFM wasn't that organization. It had poured resources into the Leadville strike, and yet was defeated. Additional resources which had been promised by the AFL were not provided. The solution was organizing western laborers and western unions into a new umbrella-like federation (i.e., the WLU, the ALU, and eventually, the IWW.) These conclusions represented "an absolute rejection" of the AFL, of its conservative philosophy and its complacent demeanor.
But the WFM did undergo substantial changes. In contrast to the AFL, the WFM,
...opened itself to all potential members and also to ideas and values in conflict with Capitalism. It accepted any member of a bona fide union without initiation fee upon presentation of a valid union card. It demanded neither a closed shop nor an exclusive employment contract. It sought jobs for all, not merely the organized and highly-skilled few.
Members of the WFM "...saw no advantage to huddling within their traditional crafts; they sought to mobilize all workers across a given industry to confront employers—and governments—with their aggregate clout. With little stake in the status quo, they invested their faith in sweeping political programs to remedy the grim conditions in which they worked and lived."
In 1905, WFM leaders initiated a meeting of thirty prominent socialists and labor radicals in Chicago. This group analyzed industrial and social relations from the revolutionary viewpoint and drafted a manifesto. Enumerating labor's grievances, it criticized craft unions for creating a skilled aristocracy
Labor aristocracy
"Labor aristocracy" or "Labour aristocracy" has three meanings: as a term with Marxist theoretical underpinnings, as a specific type of trade unionism, and/or as a shorthand description by revolutionary industrial unions for the...
, and suggested "one big industrial union" embracing all industries and "founded on the class struggle." Printed in great quantities, this invitation to the first convention of the IWW
First Convention of the Industrial Workers of the World
When Bill Haywood used a board to gavel to order the first convention of the Industrial Workers of the World , he announced, "this is the Continental Congress of the working class...
was sent around the country.
The One Big Union concept grows
The IWW organised in the United States, CanadaCanada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
, and other countries, employed creative tactics, and advocated the general strike
General strike
A general strike is a strike action by a critical mass of the labour force in a city, region, or country. While a general strike can be for political goals, economic goals, or both, it tends to gain its momentum from the ideological or class sympathies of the participants...
as a favorite method for workers to gain control of industries. But One Big Union spread far beyond the IWW. The revolutionary character of the OBU can be appreciated from a statement by the Brotherhood of Metal Workers' Industrial Union, a 1909 offshoot of the International Association of Machinists. In 1919 this organization published the following,
The workers, not only of America, but of all countries, are determined to get the full valueSurplus valueSurplus value is a concept used famously by Karl Marx in his critique of political economy. Although Marx did not himself invent the term, he developed the concept...
of the price they paid and will yet pay. There can be no peace until the workers not only control, but also own, the means of life, liberty, and happiness. To accomplish this, it necessitates the ownership of all industries by a government of workers, for the workers, which can and will be accomplished by the One Big Union.
Also in 1919, the International Federation of Workers in the Hotel, Restaurant, Lunchroom, Club and Catering Industry (IFWHRLC) called upon its members to terminate any AFL memberships and was judged by investigators, on the basis of an explanation of industrial unionism in the Hotel Worker, one of its publications, to be a "revolutionary organization based upon the One Big Union principle, having for its objective the establishment of a new social order and the seizure of industry." The Hotel Worker stated, in part:
Under industrial unionism, all the Workers in one industry form One Big Union of that industry. Instead of being split up into a lot of separate units, with divided and often conflicting interests, they strengthen and unite their forces in one mighty and irresistible combination.
The Journeymen Bakers' and Confectioners' International Union of America (JBCIUA) came under suspicion for hosting a delegation of the IWW, and for forming a committee to explore a merger with the IFWHRLC. Investigators concluded that such events confirmed "the organization of One Big Union along I. W. W. lines to control all the workers in the food industry in this state, as well as in the greater part of the country." Cognizant of repression of the period that came to be called the Red Scare
Red Scare
Durrell Blackwell Durrell Blackwell The term Red Scare denotes two distinct periods of strong Anti-Communism in the United States: the First Red Scare, from 1919 to 1920, and the Second Red Scare, from 1947 to 1957. The First Red Scare was about worker revolution and...
, the JBCIUA passed a resolution which stated, in part,
...that our best friends and advisors [sic] are being martyrized [sic] by the capitalistic system, in the present period of worst reaction, and have been thrown into jail for long terms.
In 1919 in the United States the newly-formed Communist Labor Party
Communist Labor Party
The Communist Labor Party of America was one of the organizational predecessors of the Communist Party USA. The group was established at the end of August 1919 following a three-way split of the Socialist Party of America...
(CLP) sought to attach itself to the One Big Union movement, and to industrial unionism. The CLP urged all its members to join industrial unions. The IWW concluded that the Russian revolution and local communist activities had a divisive effect on the general anti-capitalist
Anti-capitalism
Anti-capitalism describes a wide variety of movements, ideas, and attitudes which oppose capitalism. Anti-capitalists, in the strict sense of the word, are those who wish to completely replace capitalism with another system....
movement, but this effect was not immediately apparent.
Australia's One Big Union
The One Big Union movement was organized in Australia. The concept was initially considered in 1908, when the idea of adopting the Preamble of the Industrial Workers of the World was voted upon by the New South Wales Trade Union Congress, and the first concrete step toward one big union was adopted in 1912. In 1917, the Labour Minister for the New South Wales Government said in a speech,
"...an important conference of Trade Unionists was held in Sydney to further the idea of one big union... to get the Unionists formed into a one big union organization which, at any time, by the proclamation of a general strikeGeneral strikeA general strike is a strike action by a critical mass of the labour force in a city, region, or country. While a general strike can be for political goals, economic goals, or both, it tends to gain its momentum from the ideological or class sympathies of the participants...
, could stop all production and transport, and force from any government in office whatever concessions were demanded... The men at the head of this movement are in favor of direct actionDirect actionDirect action is activity undertaken by individuals, groups, or governments to achieve political, economic, or social goals outside of normal social/political channels. This can include nonviolent and violent activities which target persons, groups, or property deemed offensive to the direct action...
as against political action... With consummate skill the men who initiated this idea have got possession of the whole Labour movement."
An organization called the One Big Union Propaganda League (OBUPL) was formed in Brisbane on September 10, 1918, growing out of former IWW strongholds in the north. With help from IWW members, the OBUPL gained considerable support from the rank and file of craft unions, emphasizing job control and bottom-up organizing.
However, Australian trade union officials, aided in part by the Communist Party
Communist party
A political party described as a Communist party includes those that advocate the application of the social principles of communism through a communist form of government...
, succeeded in changing the character of the OBU from that envisioned by the IWW, and also by the Workers' International Industrial Union
Workers' International Industrial Union
The Workers' International Industrial Union was a Revolutionary Industrial Union active in the United States, Canada, Britain and Australia...
(WIIU), a group that had split off from the IWW, and was active in Australia. The One Big Union movement ceased to challenge capitalism in Australia, but rather sought to function within capitalism; it evolved from an industrial to a craft basis; it developed into a top-down bureaucracy. By 1924 the Australian OBU ceased to be viable.
Canada's One Big Union
In 1919 in CanadaCanada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, unionists who were discontent with policies of the Trades and Labour Congress of the Dominion formed a union called "One Big Union
One Big Union (Canada)
The One Big Union was a Canadian syndicalist trade union active primarily in the Western part of the country. It was formally founded in Calgary on June 4, 1919 but lost most members by 1922. It finally merged into the Canadian Labour Congress in 1956.-Background:Towards the end of World War I, a...
" (OBU). The Canadian OBU movement had been inspired by the IWW, and like the IWW, it favored the general strike. However, the concept of One Big Union in western Canada did not gain widespread acceptance until the Western Labor News reported that the idea had been adopted by the Australian Workers International Industrial Union in South Melbourne, Australia. That Australian workers' organization went beyond industrial unionism
Industrial unionism
Industrial unionism is a labor union organizing method through which all workers in the same industry are organized into the same union—regardless of skill or trade—thus giving workers in one industry, or in all industries, more leverage in bargaining and in strike situations...
to advocate the abolition of private ownership of the means of production. Because of recent history in Western Canada, an increasing acceptance of industrial unionism accompanied a growing appreciation of the general strike, and the need for an OBU to call it. A mood of militancy had been growing in Western Canada for some time.
The OBU spread rapidly in Canada. Lodges, trades councils, and provincial federations withdrew from their international organizations, and joined the OBU, culminating in a membership of nearly fifty thousand the first year. The OBU also generated considerable support for dual affiliation
Dual unionism
Dual unionism is the development of a union or political organization parallel to and within an existing labor union. In some cases, the term may refer to the situation where two unions claim the right to organize the same workers....
. This incarnation of the OBU movement was also attacked by mainstream labor, in the person of John L. Lewis
John L. Lewis
John Llewellyn Lewis was an American leader of organized labor who served as president of the United Mine Workers of America from 1920 to 1960...
, and other AFL officials.
The One Big Union organization in Canada differed structurally from the IWW. While the IWW organized on industrial lines, the OBU of Canada focused more on organizing workers geographically. The absence of an existing industrial union structure within the Canadian OBU resulted in the defection of 20,000 members of the Lumber Workers Industrial Union
Lumber Workers Industrial Union
Between 1915 and 1917, the Agricultural Workers Organization of the Industrial Workers of the World organized hundreds of thousands of migratory farm workers throughout the midwest and western United States...
(LWIU). According to the 1922 publication Industrial Unionism in America, "Their withdrawal was a staggering blow from which the O. B. U. [never] recovered."
When the IWW in the United States was suppressed during the Red Scare
Red Scare
Durrell Blackwell Durrell Blackwell The term Red Scare denotes two distinct periods of strong Anti-Communism in the United States: the First Red Scare, from 1919 to 1920, and the Second Red Scare, from 1947 to 1957. The First Red Scare was about worker revolution and...
and the Palmer Raids
Palmer Raids
The Palmer Raids were attempts by the United States Department of Justice to arrest and deport radical leftists, especially anarchists, from the United States. The raids and arrests occurred in November 1919 and January 1920 under the leadership of Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer...
, there was pressure to similarly attack Canada's One Big Union movement:
The movement was got well under way with a basis of I.W.W. and Socialist support; Calgary was a center of the movement as it had been in the Alberta mining unrest of these years. So obvious was the current of thought that the Calgary Herald of Sept. 6th struck a warning note: "There is an element in Western Canada that is somewhat akin to the I.W.W. if not actually affiliated with and controlled by it. Let the I.W.W. of Canada or their imitators, beware lest the strong hand of the law does not stretch out and grasp them as it has their friends on the other side of the 49th parallel. There is a feeling throughout the country that it would be better for all concerned if a few of them were behind the bars."
The Canadian government imprisoned the most prominent members of the Canadian OBU.
One Big Union and mainstream unions
The goal of the IWW – as interpreted by government investigators in 1920 – was "to break up the system of craft or trade unions, and to organize workers into One Big Union having subdivisions along the lines of industry, rather than those of trade." That interpretation appears to have been accepted by American Federation of LaborAmerican Federation of Labor
The American Federation of Labor was one of the first federations of labor unions in the United States. It was founded in 1886 by an alliance of craft unions disaffected from the Knights of Labor, a national labor association. Samuel Gompers was elected president of the Federation at its...
Gompers who in 1922 expressed his belief that the One Big Union idea was designed primarily to put the American Federation of Labor out of business. Gompers undermined any labor actions that he perceived might be related to the One Big Union movement; for example, the Winnipeg General Strike and the Seattle General Strike. A 1919 editorial proclaimed:
The union bureaucrats are particularly against industrial unionism, since industrial unionism ends craft divisions and craft disputes, which constitute the power of the union bureaucracy. In Canada, the One Big Union — Industrial Unionism — has captured the imagination of the organized workers. The One Big Union directed the great general strike in Canada; but, says an observer, "The International Brotherhoods have come out against the strikers, shrewdly foreseeing in the One Big Union the destruction of their organization." This is a damning indictment of the old unionism.
In June, 1919, the American Federation of Labor
American Federation of Labor
The American Federation of Labor was one of the first federations of labor unions in the United States. It was founded in 1886 by an alliance of craft unions disaffected from the Knights of Labor, a national labor association. Samuel Gompers was elected president of the Federation at its...
(AFL), in session in Atlantic City, New Jersey
Atlantic City, New Jersey
Atlantic City is a city in Atlantic County, New Jersey, United States, and a nationally renowned resort city for gambling, shopping and fine dining. The city also served as the inspiration for the American version of the board game Monopoly. Atlantic City is located on Absecon Island on the coast...
, passed resolutions in general opposition to the general strike. The official report of these proceedings described the convention as the "largest and in all probability the most important Convention ever held" by the organization, in part for having engineered the 'overwhelming defeat of the so-called Radical element' via crushing a 'One Big Union' proposition and a proposal for a nationwide general strike, both by a vote of more than 20 to 1." The AFL amended its constitution to disallow any central labor union (i.e., regional labor councils) from "taking a strike vote without prior authorization of the national officers of the union concerned." The change was intended to "check the spread of general strike sentiment and prevent recurrences of what happened at Seattle and is now going on at Winnepeg." The penalty for any unauthorized strike vote was revocation of that body's charter.
In 1919 the Lusk Committee, charged with exposing and stamping out radicalism of all types, issued a report that found the AFL to be "free from the taint of revolutionary radicalism." However, it found one AFL affiliate, the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union
International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union
The International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union was once one of the largest labor unions in the United States, one of the first U.S. unions to have a primarily female membership, and a key player in the labor history of the 1920s and 1930s...
(ILGWU), to have "marked radical tendencies . . . it is founded upon the principles of class struggle . . . it adopts the One Big Union idea and seeks to bring about the overthrow of society."
One Big Union Canada also came under considerable pressure from the Canadian Trades and Labour Congress
Trades and Labour Congress of Canada
The Trades and Labour Congress of Canada was a Canada-wide central federation of trade unions from 1883 to 1956. It was founded at the initiative of the Toronto Trades and Labour Council and the Knights of Labor...
and the AFL. The United Mine Workers
United Mine Workers
The United Mine Workers of America is a North American labor union best known for representing coal miners and coal technicians. Today, the Union also represents health care workers, truck drivers, manufacturing workers and public employees in the United States and Canada...
(UMW), in particular, came to an agreement with employers to freeze out the Canadian One Big Union.
In June, 1919, the UMW revoked the charter of District 18, which included Alberta and British Columbia, for joining the OBU. The UMW International persuaded a number of locals to return to the parent organization. The UMW then came to an agreement with employers which would effectively lock out the OBU. With One Big Union seen as the greater threat, employers agreed to require UMW membership on the part of all employees in and around the mines. The companies implemented the dues checkoff to seal the new agreement.
OBU members refused to work under circumstances where they were assessed dues for an organization to which they no longer belonged, and a number of mines organized by the OBU were therefore closed down. The OBU sought relief from the courts, but the courts sided with the United Mine Workers and the employers. The employers and the UMW then together secured injunctions against any OBU members to prevent any interference with UMW miners. The O.B.U. Bulletin for October 23, 1920, reported that the UMW had thirteen such injunctions issued, and had set aside a million dollars to fight the OBU. The Canadian OBU concluded that "Officials of the U.M.W. of A. are the same bunch of crooks who have so often betrayed the miners of the U.S. in their struggles and strikes at the instance of their government and the owners." The OBU felt particularly angry that the UMW invoked the aid of both the employers and a "ruthless capitalist government" in order to crush a rival union organization.
Criticism of One Big Union organizations
The One Big Union organizations adopted some principles of One Big Union as initially promoted by the IWW. But the OBU idea became popular in Australia at a time when some syndicalist-leaning labor leaders were moving toward communismCommunism
Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...
.
Although the One Big Union organizations were frequently formed with the help of IWW members or members of IWW offshoot organizations such as the WIIU, the OBU organizations frequently incurred criticism from the original industrial union organizations. The IWW advocated organizing bottom-up, the OBU in Australia was increasingly top-down. The IWW advocated job control, the Australian OBU did not. Shop committees and rank and file participation which had been so important to IWW members were de-emphasized. The OBU in Australia was described as "the plum extracted from the IWW cake to keep down discontent among the dupes."
The Industrial Union News of the WIIU criticized the structure of the Canadian One Big Union organization, declaring "the O.B.U. seeks to masquerade under the guise of industrial unionism while organized on a territorial plane, without sound foundations and building from the top down."
The Industrial Union News also criticized the Canadian OBU for not providing for elections of officials by the entire membership. The OBU was described as "not red but pale pink," and in league with the "reactionary Socialist Party of Canada."
The IWW publication Solidarity of July 10, 1920, stated that labor fakirs had seized control of the OBU, and had organized new branches of the OBU in the United States in opposition to the IWW.
Marian Dutton Savage, who published a book on Industrial Unionism in 1922, saw problems with the organizational structure of the Canadian OBU.
In neglecting to give adequate recognition to the ties binding workers of the same industry together and in seeking to rely instead on the general feeling of solidarity in the working class, the O. B. U., like the Knights of LaborKnights of LaborThe Knights of Labor was the largest and one of the most important American labor organizations of the 1880s. Its most important leader was Terence Powderly...
, has failed to understand the psychology of those it has sought to win and hold. If it is difficult to make skilled and unskilled workers in the same industry realize their community of interest, it is doubly difficult to make those in different industries feel a strong bond of union. The I. W. W. has faced this fact and, unlike the O. B. U., seeks to unite all who work in an industry in one international union having a large measure of control over its own affairs. Although it preaches the brotherhood of all workers as ardently as does the O. B. U., it recognizes that each industry has its own particular problems which can best be solved by workers in that industry, and considers that loyalty to one industry need in no way impair loyalty to the I. W. W. or to the working class as a whole. If the O. B. U. had adopted the same course it would not have lost the strongest group which had affiliated with it.
Influence
Thus, the One Big Union organizations were attacked by government, subverted by mainstream unions, frozen out by employers, and criticized by the revolutionary industrial union organizations from which they sprung. They were considered too radical, or not radical enough. By 1925 the One Big Union organizations were largely defunct, and only the concept of One Big Union remained.While attempts to organise One Big Union on militant and revolutionary lines did not succeed, the unions which made the attempt – for example, the IWW, the WIIU, the One Big Union organizations of Canada and Australia, or Confederación Nacional del Trabajo
Confederación Nacional del Trabajo
The Confederación Nacional del Trabajo is a Spanish confederation of anarcho-syndicalist labor unions affiliated with the International Workers Association . When working with the latter group it is also known as CNT-AIT...
(CNT) in Spain – have had a significant influence on the labor movement.
See also
- General unionGeneral unionA General Union is a trade union which represents workers from all industries and companies, rather than just one organization or a particular sector, as in a craft union or industrial union...
- World Federation of Trade UnionsWorld Federation of Trade UnionsThe World Federation of Trade Unions was established in 1945 to replace the International Federation of Trade Unions. Its mission was to bring together trade unions across the world in a single international organization, much like the United Nations...
- Anarcho-syndicalismAnarcho-syndicalismAnarcho-syndicalism is a branch of anarchism which focuses on the labour movement. The word syndicalism comes from the French word syndicat which means trade union , from the Latin word syndicus which in turn comes from the Greek word σύνδικος which means caretaker of an issue...
- Industrial Workers of the WorldIndustrial Workers of the WorldThe Industrial Workers of the World is an international union. At its peak in 1923, the organization claimed some 100,000 members in good standing, and could marshal the support of perhaps 300,000 workers. Its membership declined dramatically after a 1924 split brought on by internal conflict...
- Labor federation competition in the United States