The third essay in A.J. Muste’s Brookwood Labor College based series on on the mechanics and personalities of labor organizing. This one on the problem of selling-out.

‘Going Over To the Other Side ‘by A.J. Muste from Labor Age. Vol. 16 No. 12. December, 1927.

IN EUROPEAN countries, the rule is that a man who is born in the working class stays there all his life; furthermore, the chances are that his children in turn will live and die, as they are born, in the working class. In the United States, with vast, undeveloped resources on the one hand, and with no such tradition of class distinction on the other, that has not, until recently at least, been the case. There are not so many messenger boys who become presidents of banks nor so many floor sweepers who become heads of the corporation as the “success” magazines would have us believe. But there have been enough cases of this sort to make a tremendous difference at many points. It is not so easy to organize people into unions who think that they are soon going to graduate out of industry, even though few of them actually do, and on the other hand, unions frequently suffer because some of their most capable people leave and “go over to the other side.

For the purpose of our discussion it would be best to divide the latter into two groups. On the one hand, there are the workers and the children of workers who get on the other side by a process of promotion—a craftsman becomes a foreman in his shop, presently a superintendent perhaps; a young worker shows technical ability, is given an opportunity to get a higher education and becomes a technician, executive, or employer. On the other hand, there are those who may be said to “sell out,” people who have been leaders of the workers in their struggles against the employers and who then become leaders of the employers in their struggle against the workers, or even perhaps work secretly for the employers while serving in positions of trust in the unions.

Attitude of Managers

As to the first group, even if it were considered desirable to stop workers and workers’ children moving up into technical and managerial jobs, we could not do so under American conditions. It is the part of wisdom to accept the situation and see how it can be handled. a following suggestions have been voiced in discussion of the subject:

1. There are cases of former union men becoming executives or employers and then being viciously anti-union in their attitude; on the other hand, there are not a few cases of men in such positions who retain their belief in trade unionism, remain loyal to many of its fundamental concepts and “deal fairly” with unions, and in specific situations may be of very great help to the labor movement, Sometimes doubtless this difference is a matter of individual temperament. Some people “cannot stand prosperity,” have been perhaps so repressed and bossed in their infancy that they have to “take it out” on the other fellow as soon as they have a chance. But perhaps we are not confronted with a situation about which nothing at all can be done. For one thing, suppose that our homes and our schools taught children from infancy the truth about the rise of the labor movement, the place of the union in society and the concrete achievements of the movement, instead of ignoring these things or disseminating downright falsehoods about them, is it not likely that such early education would bear fruit in later years, even among those who ceased to be manual workers? Anti-labor homes and anti-labor schools will certainly produce anti-labor people. Then, too, there are cases where unions pay no attention to young workers in the trade, give little opportunity to the younger members to participate in union activities, unions that are dishonestly or autocratically conducted, unions whose meetings are dull and stupid, unions that spend their time and energy in internal squabbles instead of constructive activity for the workers, unions that have grown lazy. Naturally, people do not stay in such unions any longer than they have to, and once out retain no kindly feelings for the movement. Where such conditions exist, remedying them may be expected to have some effect in retaining the loyalty of former members and even getting help from them in labor struggles.

Foremen in Unions

2. It has been suggested that in some instances union rules and practices might be changed so as to keep in the union persons promoted to be “straw bosses,” “overseers, foremen; in other words, people in the lower supervisory and managerial positions, Probably conditions vary so greatly in different parts of the country, in different industries, and even in different shops in the same industry, that it would be absurd to try to lay down any fixed rules in this matter. At some point a man who has supervisory functions definitely leaves the workers’ side and goes to the side of the employers; otherwise, of course, we might as well dispense with trade unions and all join company unions. Just where the line is, however, it is not easy to say. Obviously, however, many foremen are just as much wage earners as the people who work under them. Often they get very little additional out their jobs except the glow of self-importance that comes from bossing the other fellow. Now if such people are not permitted to remain in the union, are, so to speak, pushed over on the employers’ side, it is only natural that they begin to get an employer’s psychology. On the other hand, if they stayed in the union, there might be some danger that they would report about the happenings at meetings to the employer. But as American employers seem to get pretty full reports about union activities anyway, this does not seem to be a very big item, while the fact that such overseers could be called to account for their actions at union meetings as well as by the employer might have a very decided effect in making them watch their step.

There are in fact unions that definitely require persons in such positions to retain their membership in the union. There have also been efforts from time to time to organize unions of yardmasters on the railroads, for example, of foremen in government employ or private concerns. There are cases here and there of organizations of such men starting out to be merely recreational or benevolent in character and gradually taking on real trade union functions of bargaining with employers about wages, hours and conditions. Certainly employers are all the time trying by schemes of various sorts to bind the men in these ranks to their interests, and the labor movement can well afford to give some thought to the problem of keeping these men who have come out of the working class and are still, in spite of appearances to the contrary, wage-earners, loyal to labor.

3. Of great interest in this same connection is the tendency on the part of engineers and technical men of various sorts to organize themselves into trade unions. Thus we have large and fairly aggressive regularly chartered unions of technical men in the employ of our two greatest cities, New York and Chicago. In the past, these men on graduating from college and coming into white collar jobs, have felt above the workers, and usually have been definitely hostile to organized labor. As their numbers multiplied, however, and as many of them have to content themselves with routine jobs in great corporations, they are beginning to realize that they too are essentially wage-earners, and that they are helpless so long as they act as individuals and fail to combine not merely in order to discuss technical problems, but in order to bargain with employers for such basic material things as wages and conditions of work. These men, if organized and imbued with a labor psychology can be of great assistance to labor today, and if labor is ever to be in control of industry, it will of course require their services and support.

Selling Out

We have a different problem presented to us, however, in the second group of cases to which we referred at the beginning, those who may be said to “sell out” either by working secretly for the bosses while keeping their place in the unions, or by going into the service of employers’ associations and leading them in their struggle against their former fellow workers in the labor movement. A few brief observations on this problem must suffice:

1. America is the only country in the world where the industrial spy is a serious factor in the trade union struggle. Incidentally that is something which those who sweetly assure us that there is no such thing as a class struggle in America and that it is unchristian or Bolshevik or something like that to talk about it, might rightly be called upon to explain. If there isn’t any war on, why these armies of spies, something we otherwise always associate with war? On the other hand, it would be childish to assume that the existence of this evil indicates that Americans individually are of inferior moral caliber, that they take naturally to low down activities like spying. One proposition may be safely laid down, namely, that so long as government permits these private detective agencies to operate, and permits the arming of private guards furnished by these agencies during strikes, employers will be willing to spend money in order to get the unfair advantage in the struggle which this involves, and in turn there are bound to be workers who yield to the temptation to take this money. Exposing individual spies is useful as a form of agitation, but will not go far toward overcoming the evil itself. So long as we have legislatures that can get excited about prohibition or anti-prohibition, but cannot be stirred to the faintest interest in the activities of private armies operated within the state against workers who are citizens of the state, so long as labor remains as weak at many points as it is in the United States, this evil will continue to be with us. (Those who are interested in this subject should read R. W. Dunn’s book on Company Unions with a foreword by Louis F. Budenz, Editor of Labor Age, published by the Vanguard Press.)

Getting Rich Quickly

2. In considering both the spies and the men who openly take positions with the other side, we must call attention once more to certain elements in American life and psychology that profoundly influence many of our institutions. We live in a country that has vast natural resources, that for long had a frontier beyond which lay enormous stretches of unoccupied land, that was favor- ably situated to take advantage of modern inventions and discoveries, a country where accordingly money was to be made, where it was possible for a good many to get rich quick, to get rich as a result of speculation, luck, cleverness, rather than by slow, plodding work. Now, although there were always many to whom life meant hard, cruel toil and poverty, and many more who by hard work made only a comfortable living at best, nevertheless, the rich and quick rewards that fell into the hands of some who rose to the top and dominated the rest, tended to create a speculators’, gamblers’, get-rich- quick psychology all the day down the line, tended to make everybody excited about “results” and indifferent as to the means by which these results were achieved. So, among the workers if a man makes good, if he gets there, if he “cops the money,” even spying and selling out are not regarded as such dastardly crimes as they would be and are in civilizations where other conditions prevail.

3. Important also is a factor mentioned at the very beginning of this article. For centuries class lines in Europe have been very closely drawn and people have lived and died in the class in which they were born. In such conditions if a man does pass into another class it is a tremendously big event, everybody knows about it, notices it. Actually to leave the employ of a workers’ organization under such conditions, and to enter the employ of an organization engaged in fighting against these workers becomes practically impossible. In America, however, class lines have not been thus rigidly drawn. There are all the time people who rise from obscure and humble positions to places of wealth and influence, people who emigrate from one social group to another. In such circumstances the passing of a labor leader to the other side is much less of an event, less of an abnormality, and except where there seems to be a direct and flagrant betrayal of the union he has been serving, public opinion thinks none the worse of him.

Lack Labor Psychology

4. This leads directly to another observation. In the face of conditions such as obtain in the mine fields of Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia, and which at the very moment that I am writing have called together several hundred of the foremost leaders of the American labor movement for a conference in Pittsburgh, it is ridiculous to argue that we have no class struggle in America. Nevertheless, for reasons already mentioned and others that might be touched upon if space permitted, workers in America are not for the most part class-conscious, they do not have a labor: psychology. The worker considers himself just as good as the next fellow and perhaps a little better. He has much the same outlook in politics, economic, social, and religious ‘matters as his middle class or capitalist neighbor. In fact, as economists such as Tugwell, Soule and others have pointed out in recent utterances, there is a lot more class-consciousness today among industrial and financial interests in this country than there is among the workers. Now, of course, a leader or member of the labor movement deeply imbued with a labor psychology, feeling that the employing and financial interests are in some real sense the enemies of labor, certainly not its ardent friends and protectors, will find that his “conscience” will not permit him to go over to the other side, and that if he does, he will be so despised both by workers and by employers, openly by the one, and secretly by the other, that life will not be worth living. Where no labor psychology obtains he will face no such problem. The development of a labor psychology and morale is, however, a subject in itself, and its treatment is reserved for another article. Obviously, it is not a job that is going to be accomplished over night.

5. Finally, in a country where the labor movement has large and well developed trade unions, where it has a labor party requiring many party workers, giving an opportunity for people with labor sympathies to be elected to school boards, city councils, legislatures, etc., where there are co-operative institutions retail and wholesale, labor banking and insurance enterprises, perhaps, giving scope for business talents, where there is a workers’, educational system, workers’ sports activities, a workers’ theatre, workers’ schools for children, etc., in such a country the energies and talents of all kinds of people can be used and paid for, and there is no reason whatever why people born in the working class or sympathetic with it should seek outlet elsewhere. Indeed, it may happen that idealists from other ranks of society interested in scientific, constructive, aggressive social enterprises come to the labor movement so that the migration from class to class is completely reversed! In a country where the labor movement is not thus thoroughly developed in many directions, such conditions of course do not prevail. In other words, the development of a stronger and more inclusive labor movement would automatically solve some of the problems which we have been discussing, but this again is not the work of an hour or day.

Labor Age was a left-labor monthly magazine with origins in Socialist Review, journal of the Intercollegiate Socialist Society. Published by the Labor Publication Society from 1921-1933 aligned with the League for Industrial Democracy of left-wing trade unionists across industries. During 1929-33 the magazine was affiliated with the Conference for Progressive Labor Action (CPLA) led by A. J. Muste. James Maurer, Harry W. Laidler, and Louis Budenz were also writers. The orientation of the magazine was industrial unionism, planning, nationalization, and was illustrated with photos and cartoons. With its stress on worker education, social unionism and rank and file activism, it is one of the essential journals of the radical US labor socialist movement of its time.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/laborage/v16n12-dec-1927-LA.pdf