THE CHAPTER XV LABOR ORGANIZATIONS HE Immigration Commission has made the statement that "the recent immigrant has not, as a rule, affiliated himself with labor unions, unless compelled to do so as a preliminary step toward acquiring work. . . . Where he has united with the labor organizations he has usually refused to maintain his membership for any extended period of time, thus rendering difficult the unionizing of the occupation or industry in which he has been engaged." This assertion could be proved only by a statistical study of the membership of labor organizations. It is a characteristic fact that with a Federal Bureau of Labor and a number of State labor bureaus we have no compilation of the total number of organized workers in the United States for a series of years. A great deal of information on the subject is scattered in the published reports of labor conventions. The inevitable gaps could be supplied from the records of labor organizations. The Immigration Commission, however, made no effort to secure statistics of union membership in a systematic way from official sources, but confined its inquiries in the main to the heads of the households covered by its investigation. The report of the Commission contains data concerning 3325 trade unionists, whereas the total membership of labor organizations in the United States was estimated for 1910 at 2,625,000. The reports of the Commission contain a few fragmentary data on the membership of labor organizations, apparently obtained from their 2 Reports of the Industrial Commission, vol. xvii., p. xviii. • New York Labor Bulletin, September, 1911, p. 418. officials, but these data flatly contradict the conclusions of the Commission. We learn that "practically 36 per cent of the total number of clothing workers in New York are organized; while 80 per cent of the cutters are members of the cutters' union. Of the organized workers, about 60 per cent are Russian and Polish Hebrews, 30 per cent Italians, and 10 per cent persons of other races including foreign and native-born." To understand the meaning of these percentages, we must compare them with the percentage of organized workers in all industries. The total number of male industrial wageearners in the United States at the census of 1900 can be estimated at 8,600,0002; since very few women are affiliated with labor organizations the number of males alone need be taken into consideration in computing the percentage of organized workers. The increase of the population of the United States from 1900 to 1910 was 21 per cent. The number of male industrial wage-earners in 1910 can accordingly be estimated at 10,400,000, and the proportion of organized workingmen in all industries at 25 per cent. Thus while, on an average, only 25 per cent of all male wage-earners in the United States were affiliated with labor organizations, among the clothing workers in New York City 36 per cent were organized, all but one tenth of the organized workers being Russian and Polish Hebrews and Italians. Of the most skilled among them, the cutters, 80 per cent were members of their union, i.e., relatively thrice as many as in all industries of the country at large. Of course, the question is whether the condition in the clothing industry of New York may be accepted as typical. The reports of the Immigration Commission furnish no comparable data for the industries of the country at large. The results of the study of households comprise less than two trade-unionists in every 1000. Still, this being the only 2 Reports of the Immigration Commission, vol. 11, p. 388. I. A. Hourwich, "Social-Economic Classes of the Population of the United States," Journal of Political Economy, March, 1911, p. 205. statistical evidence which the Immigration Commission has produced in support of its conclusions regarding the attitude of recent immigrants toward trade unions, it is worthy of note that upon the Commission's own showing tradeunionism is as strong among the immigrants as among the native American workmen. The ratio of organized workers to all male wage-earners in each population group is shown in Table 96. While on the whole trade-unionism is very weak in the field covered by the investigation of the Commission, it is manifest from the practical uniformity of the percentages for each group that distinctions of birth, race, and color do not explain this weakness. Neither could a line be drawn in respect of unionism between the "desirable" immigrants from Northern and Western Europe and the "undesirable aliens from Southern and Eastern Europe." This fact is brought to light by the comparison in Table 97 of the principal immigrant races that are represented by at least 500 persons each in the statistics of the Immigration Commission. On the whole, the average percentage of union men among the "undesirable aliens" is higher than among the immigrants of the preferred races. I Reports of the Immigration Commission, vol. I, p. 417. 2 Smaller groups have been omitted because, where the numbers are small, the ratios are liable to be influenced by exceptional circumstances and local conditions; for example, the highest percentage of organized workmen, 100 per cent, was found among the Mexicans, because the investigators of the Commission chanced to come across 56 Mexican miners in a unionized mine.—Ibid., pp. 418–419. The percentage of trade-unionists among North Italians is nearly three times as high as among native Americans of native parentage; the Lithuanians furnish twice as many as the more desirable Englishmen; the Hebrews twice as many as the Swedes; the Ruthenians are far ahead of the Americans of native stock; even the South Italians can boast a percentage twice as high as the Germans; the Magyars and the Slovaks march in front of the Swedes; and the Poles, who are at the tail end of the procession of undesirables from Eastern Europe, still outnumber two to one their more I 1 Reports of the Immigration Commission, vol. 1, p. 418. favored kinsmen, the Bohemians and Moravians. Considering that the native Americans and the members of the races which contributed most largely to the earlier immigration are, as a rule, engaged in higher occupations, where they are for the most part segregated from the recent immigrants, it is clear that the latter could not be an obstacle in the way of organization among the skilled men; and that they have not been an obstacle is shown by the fact that the recent immigrants themselves furnish a higher percentage of organized workmen. As usual, when the facts do not fit its theory, the Commission seeks to qualify the plain language of the figures: These figures must not, however, be taken as representative of racial tendencies except in a few cases, for the reason that the information shown for one race may be for but one or two industries in which the race is employed and which are so controlled by labor organizations that membership in the labor unions is necessary to secure employment. On the other hand, a race or several races may be employed in an industry or industries in which no labor unions exist. The fact that certain races are most extensively employed in highly unionized localities and industries is indicative of comparatively greater assimilation and progressiveness on the part of the members of such races.' The Commission thus assumes that affiliation of immigrants with labor organizations is a sign of their "assimilation," which implies that organization of labor is a native growth, and that the foreigner merely imitates the ways of the native. This view has no foundation in the history of organized labor in the United States. The fact is that the membership of most of the labor organizations has from their inception been very largely foreign-born. Historians have traced the embryo of labor organization in America to the colonial period. Labor organizations sprang up here and there during the first quarter of the nineteenth century. Between 1825 and 1850 a number of labor conventions were held. But all labor organizations I Reports of the Immigration Commission, vol. 1, p. 419. |