at the place where the fight is hardest-in their own organization, in their own workshop. THE SHOP STEWARDS' MOVEMENT1 The ascendency of the shop stewards is striking; for the movement is literally in its infancy. Fifteen months ago but few persons, even in England, knew anything about it. The shop stewards' control first came into prominence in November, 1917, during the big strike in the munitions factories at Coventry. The object of the strike was to obtain recognition for the shop stewards' committees of the various works in the district. The demand was first made in a single plant, at which there has been recrudescent trouble for a long period. It was refused by the management, on the ground that the whole question of recognition was the subject of negotiations between the firm and the official representatives of the union. The consequence was a strike in this establishment; within a week it had become general throughout Coventry. The situation there greatly alarmed public opinion, because the vital airplane industry was tied up, and the Government hastened to settle the strike. The shop stewards' committees were recognized in the engineering trade. The conference for the settlement of the Coventry disputes showed clearly that the recognition of the new movement was a deal not between the workers and the employers, or between the latter and the State, but between the rank and file and the trade union. Shop stewards are by no means entirely new functionaries in the British labor world. As a matter of fact, shop stewards have always been the agents for the trade union branches (the smallest units of union activities). But the rank-and-file movement, which has loomed so large in the last year and is known as the shop stewards' movement, has no connection with the old union shop stewards. As an organization, it is doubtless a product of the war, and it has come into prominence under pressure of the war. But the adherents of the new movement assert that the shop steward idea was developing for many years before the war. They are confident that had there been no war, the shop stewards' organization would sooner or later have come to grips with the trade unions, and finally supplanted 1 From the Nation. 108:192-3. February 8, 1919. them. They maintain that the industrial reaction against the futility of the doctrine that economic power can be acquired primarily by parliamentary political action (a doctrine extremely popular with British labor for the last twenty years) had become evident before the war. In spite of the great triumph of political labor, which at the outbreak of the war was safely intrenched in Parliament, economically British labor was weaker than before. While capital gained enormous power under the flourishing conditions of British industry, labor made no corresponding gain. The exaggerated hopes of Parliamentary successes, which ran high after the election of 1910, soon gave way to disappointment and depression, and the idea that industrial power is the real expression of working-class strength gradually grew in popularity. The new shop stewards' movement was the accumulated expression of this idea. But it could only come to a head when the war demonstrated the weakness of trade unionism and made the shop the unit of industrial activity. ANOTHER EXPLANATION1 The shop stewards consider themselves the harbingers of a new unionism founded on a new democratic basis of real equality for all workers. The basis of the new unionism is the workshop, which is the natural unit for labor amalgamation and industrial activity. The shop stewards are chosen by all workers in the shop, skilled and unskilled alike, irrespective of the particular craft or affiliation. The complete and final amalgamation of the workers in the shop is the first step towards the great industrial union. THE BRITISH SHOP STEWARD MOVEMENT" What is known as the "Shop Steward Movement" in Great Britain is merely the machinery by which the rank and file of the organized workers have taken control of the Labor movement. The name "Shop Stewards" is not new in British industry. Before the War the agents for the regular Trade Union 1 From the Nation. 108:279. February 22, 1919. 2 By George Ellery. The Voice of Labor. 1:13-14. August 30, 1919. (This article represents the subject from a radical's viewpoint-Ed.) Branches-like our Local Unions in this country-were called Shop Stewards. But the present movement has no connection with the old Union Shop Stewards. The Shop Stewards are now elected by all the workers of every trade in each shop or plant, and are assisted by a Shop Steward's Committee, composed of delegates from each trade. Shop Stewards vs. Trade Unionism Of course this form of organization is directly opposed to the Trade-Unionism characteristic of British-as well as American-Organized Labor. Trade-Unionism is based upon the division of the workers into crafts, with the skilled workers in a preferred position; its aim is simply to attempt to regulate wages to keep up with the cost of living, and ultimately, to secure for Labor a voice in the determination of his job. The Shop Steward movement, however, demands more than that. Its immediate aim is self-government for the workers, both in the shop and throughout industry; its ideal is the abolition of capitalist production, and the control of industry by the workers. In the Labor movement, it stands for the breaking down of craft-lines, organization by shop and industry, instead of by trade, and direct election and control of Union officials. British Labor and Politics The War undoubtedly gave birth to the Shop Steward movement, but the causes for it existed long before. For the past twenty years British Labor leaders had been absorbed in politics. The British Labor Party was built up on the idea that the workers can acquire economic power through electing Labor men to Parliament. The Labor Party was very successfulsuccessful to such an extent that at the outbreak of the War there was a powerful Labor delegation in Parliament; but at the same time, British Labor was economically weaker than before. The capitalists gained colossal wealth, but Labor fell more and more behind. The elections of 1910 made it seem as if the Labor Party would soon be all-powerful in Parliamentbut it soon become evident that parliamentary action would not help. British Labor, like American Labor, has swung periodically backward and forward between political and industrial action. The recruiting movement toward industrial action, which was expressed in the formation of the Triple Alliance of Miners, Railwaymen and Transport Workers shortly before the War, was still in full swing when the War broke out. How the War Smashed the Unions Also the development of modern industry, with its subdivisions of crafts, and its methods of speeding-up, produced the same tendency toward Industrial Unionism that has been evident in this country. And as in America, the reactionary form of Trade-Union organization, and the reactionary policies of the Trade-Union officials, placed the workers at a disadvantage, and actually held them back. At the beginning of the War, the British Government found that it was necessary above all things to get increased production, which was prevented by Trade-Union rules and regulations, made to protect Labor by limiting hours of work. The Government thereupon called in the Labor "leaders," and asked them to give up all Union privileges for the duration of the War. The Government solemnly promised that all Union rules and practices should be completely restored when peace came. “Any departure during the war from the practice and ruling in the workshops, shipyards and other industries prior to the war, shall be only for the period of the war, and must be absolutely and completely reinstated when the war is over." Thus said the Munitions Act. By the Treasury Agreement of March, 1915, the Unions, through their officials, renounced all the essential features of Trade-Unionism; shop rules and regulations, Union practices, even the right to strike. The Importance of Labor In return, the Government invited the Trade Unions to cooperate with it in making munitions and supplies. Trade Union officials formed part of Munitions Boards, sat upon Government Commissions and Tribunals, and were treated with the greatest respect. In time of crisis the Government discovered that the industrial workers were of supreme importance; while on the other hand, the capitalists proved themselves practically inca pable of managing industry. In many cases the Government was compelled to take over industries-just as in this country, the bad management of the railroads forced the Government to assume control. But all this power and glory, while it strengthened the selfrespect of the workers, did not make them economically more powerful. As a matter of fact, the rank and file, deprived of all safeguards, were driven at frightful speed. Officials Against the Workers At first, bewildered by the new conditions and the patriotic clap-trap of the capitalistic press, the workers submitted. Before long, however, they began to wake up to the fact that the slowly-accumulated gains of half a century had been swept away. Women poured into industry; "dilution" grew by leaps and bounds-the same process that went on among the Machinists of Bridgeport, Conn., whereby unskilled men were taught to do each one part of a skilled man's job, and so replaced the skilled men at lower wages; conscription came, munitions legislation, which made the workers almost serfs, then conscription of labor. At first all these demands were indignantly rejected by Labor. Yet, supported by the Trade Union leaders, the Government was able to put them through. Resentment of the Rank and File The resentment of the British workers grew and grew, accumulating not so much against the Government as against the Trade Union leaders. Deprived of the support of their Unions, the workers, driven to the wall, developed their own form of resistance the Shop Stewards and Shop Stewards Committees. Moreover, there was another cause for the new form of organization. British industry had developed more in three or four years than in the preceding thirty. The removal of Trade Union restrictions, also, had changed the very face of the Labor movement. The women workers and the "dilutees" robbed of their old meaning the words "skilled" and "unskilled." Union jurisdictional disputes were suspended, and new industrial classifications, unclassified, grew more and more numerous. Deprived of their old-time Union rules and guideposts, |