Such was the program of British labor.  What of the Reconstruction program of American labor?  First of all, American labor thought of Reconstruction as a program to be carried out by the trade union, not by the government.  Moreover, it did not see in Reconstruction the great break with the past which that meant to British labor.  The American Federation of Labor applied to Reconstruction the same philosophy which lies at the basis of its ordinary, everyday activity.  It concerned itself not with any far-reaching plan for social reorganization, but with a rising standard of living and an enlarged freedom for the union.  The American equivalent of a government-guaranteed right to employment and a living wage was the “right to organize.”  Assure to labor that right, free the trade unions of court interference in strikes and boycotts, prevent excessive meddling by the government in industrial relations—­and the stimulated activities of the “legitimate” organizations of labor, which will result therefrom, will achieve a far better Reconstruction than a thousand paper programs however beautiful.  So reasoned the leaders of the American Federation of Labor.  During the period of War, they of course gladly accepted directly from the government the basic eight-hour day and the high wages, which under other circumstances they could have got only by prolonged and bitter striking.  But even more acceptable than these directly bestowed boons was the indirect one of the right to organize free from anti-union discriminations by employers.  Having been arrested in its expansion, as we saw, by anti-union employers and especially “trusts,” the American Federation of Labor took advantage of the War situation to overflow new territory.  Once entrenched and the organization well in hand, it thought it could look to the future with confidence.

FOOTNOTES: 

[84] For the developments which led up to this joint move see above, 182-184.

[85] Congress ignored the last-named recommendation which would have introduced in the United States the Canadian system of “Compulsory Investigation.”

[86] See below, 283-287.

[87] See below, 238-240.

[88] The unions again lost their hold upon the packing industry in the autumn of 1921.

CHAPTER 11

RECENT DEVELOPMENTS

The Armistice with Germany came suddenly and unexpectedly.  To the organized workers the news was as welcome as to other citizens.  But, had they looked at the matter from a special trade union standpoint, they would probably have found a longer duration of the War not entirely amiss.  For coal had been unionized already before the War, the railways first during the War, but the third basic industry, steel, was not touched either before or during the War.  However, it was precisely in the steel industry that opposition to unionism has found its chief seat, not only to unionism in that industry alone but to unionism in related or subsidiary industries as well.