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Sections (Content) :
• 1
[Shaggy, red-haired man:] Ours is a just cause. It is for the bread of our children we are struggling. We want our rights, and we are bound to get them through the union... So it stands in Leviticus. So you see that our bosses who rob us and who don't pay us regularly commit a sin, and that the cause of our union is a just one. What do we come to America for? To bathe in tears, and to see our wives and children rot in poverty? Tears and sighs we had in plenty in the old country.
• 2
While employers were pre-occupied with the destiny of their single enterprises, the union leaders knew that they had to point the way both for their immediate following and the nation.
[Chapter 3: Italy: A New Industrial-Relations System Moving from Accommodation to Edge of Confrontation, by Pietro Merli Brandini, Page 110.]
• 3
The very existence of unions is the proof of the old axiom that "Where there's a will, there's a way."
• 4
...to the outside observer the struggles may appear a fruitless repetition of meaningless conflicts, they are, like the great labor movement of which they are a part, ever marching onward, ever advancing.
• 5
...the Trades Union is the point upon which the Socialist Movement must revolve...
• 6
The simple fact is that industrial conditions have undergone such a complete change that now the trade union, instead of uniting the workers, divides them, incites craft jealousy, breeds dissension and promotes strife—the very things capitalists desire; for so long as the working class is divided, the capitalists will be secure in their dominion of the earth and the seas, and the millions of toilers will remain in subjection.
• 7
The Industrial Workers is a working class organization, so all-inclusive, so comprehensive, that it will embrace every man and woman who does useful work for a livelihood.
• 8
As long as this great army of workers is scattered among so many craft unions, it will be impossible for them to unite and act in harmony together. Craft unionism is the negation of class solidarity. The more unions you have, the less unity; and here, in fact, you have no unity at all. In this state you can do nothing to improve your working condition. You are substantially at the mercy of the corporations.
• 9
And if you join this union in sufficient numbers, if you build op this organization and give it the power it ought to have-if you rally to the standard of this revolutionary union-then, as certain as I stand before you, you will carry that banner to victory. Then the workers will be the sovereign citizens. the rulers of this earth. They will build houses and live therein; they will plant vineyards and eat the fruit thereof. The labor question will have been settled, and the working class, emancipated from the fetters of wage-slavery, will begin the real work of civilizing and humanizing the human race.
• 10
My first step was thus taken in organized labor and a new influence fired my ambition and changed the whole current of my career. I was filled with enthusiasm and my blood fairly leaped in my veins. Day and night I worked for the brotherhood. To see its watchfires glow and observe the increase of its sturdy members were the sunshine and shower of my life. To attend the "meeting" was my supreme joy, and for ten years I was not once absent when the faithful assembled.
• 11
Up to the present time the workers have fought only when they were forced to do so. They strike or take drastic measures when the cost of living has gone up to such an extent that they cannot live on the prevailing wages, or they cannot endure any longer the shameful working conditions.
In short, the workers have always been on the defensive to recover lost ground, so that after the fight they are in the same position as some time before the fight. The spirit of defense, however, is "Not to lose." That is all.
To go toward victory in the industrial revolution that is already in its beginning stage, the workers must imbue their brains with the spirit of attack. That means, "To Win."
• 12
If we do not want to change the dynamic quality of the American people, then we do not want a tame, visionless labor movement.
• 13
...it is only by industrial unionism that the general strike becomes possible.
• 14
...it was very early discovered that the only way for the workers to make head against the capitalists was to organize. The purpose of labor unions has been to control or partly control, the conditions of labor and the division of labor's product. That is, the workers seek, through their unions, to help govern the industries, instead of letting the capitalist do just as he pleases.
• 15
...it is the trade-unionist who is on the firing line of the class struggle. He it is who blocked the wheels of the capitalist machine; he it is who has prevented the unchecked development of capitalist increase; he it is who has prevented the whole labor body of the world from being kept forever at the point of mere hunger wages; he it is who has taught the workers of the world the lesson of solidarity, and delivered them from that wretched and unthinking competition with each other which kept them at the mercy of capitalism; he it is who has prepared the way for the cooperative commonwealth.
• 16
A labor movement is not created in such a manner, simply because one gentleman should have a whim; it is created by a virtue of genuine need.
• 17
...the organizations of the miners and railway men, iron workers, and the like were not predatory movements to trespass on the rights of employers, but were a measure of self-defense forced on the men who saw their rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness being taken away one by one.
• 18
The trade-union movement is not that which is reflected in the quite understandable but irrational illusion of a minority of the trade-union leaders, but that which lives in the consciousness of the mass of proletarians who have been won for the class struggle.
• 19
A Union is set up to defend the day to day interests of the workers and to improve their conditions as much as possible before they can be in any position to make the revolution and by it change today's wage-earners into free workers, freely associating for the benefit of all.
["Syndicalism and Anarchism," by Errico Malatesta, April-May 1925.]
• 20
...for the associations or organizations to be of any real importance for the workers in their struggle for their rights it must take such a route, that its edge is directed towards the root of the evil, from which they suffer most, from the misery and poverty. Among all known forms of worker's organization it is mostly one, which promises good for the future, the trade union movement.
• 21
...the field of economic interests... [is] where the workers intuitively fight their bitter struggle for living conditions.
• 22
I verily believe these men [unionists] would starve to death rather than bend their backs again under the yoke.
• 23
...all proletarians ready for revolutionary combat must be got together at the workplace in revolutionary factory organizations, regardless of their political origins or the basis by which they are recruited.
• 24
The self-conscious organization of the labor class in itself is the expression of the historical fact that humanity has reached a unique level of civilization. On this level the lower classes can no longer be made the passive footstool of the higher. They will be a self-conscious, active member of the entire organization.
• 25
These [labor] organizations become a significant contribution to our civilization when we consider that they stand in every case for higher wages, a shorter work-day, and better conditions, and that they signify therefore a greater intelligence, a better education, and a higher culture of the working classes.
• 26
It can be reasonably argued that without a union the test of industrial democracy is wholly insufficient.
• 27
As usual for the cause of the poor, the answer lay in numbers and organization.
Chronology :
April 14, 2020 : The Union -- Added.
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