‘Data entry technician,’ ‘information specialist,’ ‘records administrator’; you are a clerk, and you still work as you did a century ago.

‘Status of the Clerk to the Labor Movement’ by E. Gatobas from Solidarity. Vol. 7 No. 322. March 11, 1916.

Much has been said about the relation of various professions and trades to the labor movement, but the clerk has received scant attention. And yet the clerk is a man (or woman). He requires food, clothing, and shelter, the same as any other worker, he seems to be a misfit in the labor movement. Other workers put no dependence in him and there is a spirit of enmity between him and the rest of the working class. Nevertheless, his importance is underestimated. His close relationship with the Boss, while it arouses enmity and contempt in the minds of the manual workers, places him in a position to know the plans of the boss, and with such information, it is much easier to forestall the acts of the boss against the workers. If the clerk is not now a positive factor in the labor movement, we must not overlook the fact that he can be a powerful negative factor. The first consideration for the labor organizations is to counteract the negative influence and enlist his sympathies and energies on the workers’ side, and next to develop his positive influence by propagating the idea of unionism among his fellow workers, and developing solidarity among the clerks as a craft.

The possibilities of the “Wooden Shoe” in the hands of a clerk are manifest. In any large industry everything is governed by written instructions. These are followed implicitly by those under authority. Even an act of carelessness or simple mistake are sometimes costly. Imagine what could be accomplished if the mistakes were made intentionally and with studied precision. Invariably mistakes are found out, but are often too late to rectify, or result in heavy loss and bad reputation with the business world. An error in a message can send a train off the tails as easily as an open switch or a loosened rail. A carelessly constructed order can send two trains crashing together, resulting in thousands of dollars loss of property and perhaps loss of life. While such acts purposely committed are unjustifiable, inasmuch as they accomplish no purpose and jeopardize the lives of other fellow workers, it serves to illustrate the extreme possibilities that are within the hands of the clerk. In a commercial institution, such as a factor or wholesale house, a few misquotations in prices may cause no end of trouble, and make it difficult to explain to customers, and can cause the loss of trade and reputation among their patrons. Again valuable documents may be unostensibly misplaced and place the manager in an embarrassing position. Access to the files of a corporation can disclose certain information and practices that would discredit them in the eyes of the public and patrons as to be ruinous to their successful operation. These are a few of the instances where the clerk could become an important factor in the class struggle.

The next question is how to secure this ally. The clerk as a rule does not know his own status. He hates his boss as much as the manual worker. He is subject to more humiliation than any other class of labor. He may be skilled in being familiar with the affairs of the company for which he works, but his skill is of the head and not the hand, and anybody with ordinary intelligence and education can soon work up to the average clerk’s position under the guidance of other clerks. The public schools turn out in profusion young men and women, who naturally fall into a clerkship and are willing to accept any salary to get a start and experience. It is from this eager army of aspirants that the employer selects the best at a paltry salary and discards the rest. This surplus of labor serves as a drug on the clerk’s position the same as the unemployed reserve army on other crafts. It is this situation that takes the independence out of the clerk, deprives him of action. Those who were discarded, get any sort of work they can and are soon disgusted with their much vaunted education and kick themselves for wasting their time in school when they might have been learning a trade and command a more decent salary.

The ethics of the graduate from school is at variance with his real station in society. He has always been taught that there is always room at the top, but he soon finds that the top will only accommodate a few and it is invariably crowded. He is filled with the idea that a man of education is superior to the manual worker and to be successful, he must mount upon the backs of others. He aspires to be a business man some day and does not know or care that success in a business way means appropriating something that has been produced by the manual laborer he scorns. His close relationship with the boss blinds him to their diversity of interests and makes him a ready ally of the boss. Here is where his importance comes in. In the event of a strike of the shop workers, he sticks to his post and assumes additional work in an effort to show his loyalty to his employer. He is even ready to doff his collar and don his overalls to go to the factory and take his place as a strike breaker and prides himself in his patriotism, and manfully endures the blisters on his tender hands. He may watch the parading strikers from the office windows as one would view a dog fight and consider himself as far above the striking workers as a spectator the dogs he watches. The taunts of the strikers fail to cause a blush of shame to come to his face. The clerk as a rule receives much less than the wages of the factory worker, and he is ever complaining with his fellow clerks of their meager salary. In view of this, it is quite beyond understanding how he flies to the rescue of the boss when his fellow workers have the courage to strike. So much for the clerk as he is and now for what he might be.

As stated above, the importance of the clerk and office forces are underestimated. Suppose in case of a strike in a large factory, the janitors would quit. The cuspidors would soon be running over, waste baskets would soon become full and cover the floor. Nothing could be more degrading than for the clerks to have to clean out their own, and others’ cuspidors and carry out the rubbish that accumulates. Even if they did, through heroic loyalty to the boss, their time would be taken from their work and they might as well be on strike.

Supposing the office boys would quit. The clerks would have to send out their own mail, do up their own packages, run er rands, and deliver packages. This would consume their whole time as it would take them twice as long because they would be unfamiliar with the work and where to get and put things.

Supposing the file clerks would quit. They could not find their correspondence, and anyone unfamiliar with the files would only make matters worse by endeavoring to locate what they wanted. No business could be contracted without constant reference to files.

Supposing the correspondence clerks would quit. The boss could not write his own letters, there would be no one to dictate to. The incoming mail would pile up unanswered. Patrons would become disgusted, and angered because of the inattention to their letters. Even should they be able to secure a new force of clerks, they would be worse than useless. They would be unfamiliar with the names of officers and patrons. They would have to be shown everything and there would be no one on hand to show them, as the boss has his own matters to handle and knows little of the routine duties of the clerks. The new clerks would know little or nothing about the goods they were handling and would make many and costly mistakes.

The fact that a clerk’s position cannot be filled on short notice, if recognized by the clerks, would be a powerful club to swing over the head of the boss, as no matter how skilled a clerk may be, he is only a burden until he becomes familiar with the work. In this respect, he has the advantage over the skilled mechanic, who can go from one shop to another and ply his trade without being discommoded by the change. This makes it easy to import skilled strike breakers, who can soon take charge and produce as much as the striking employes. The clerk is protected from the strike breaker from the very nature of his work.

What methods shall be employ to propagate the idea of the One Big Union and Solidarity among the clerks? The clerk must be conscious of the part he contributes to society by his labor power. As the clerk creates no tangible value, he usually has no idea of the value of his services. For the reason that no tangible value is created, he is paid a salary which barely covers the necessities of life. As a rule, the clerk in the beginning is a young man or young woman, with but few items of expense outside of what it costs to feed, clothe and shelter them. In many eases he or she receives support from the home, and their salary is used for spending money. This particular faction of clerks serves as a drug on those who, must support themselves, a family and sometimes their parents. As long as the boss can secure young, bright, schooled men and women to fill the position in the offices, with a salary that merely makes spending money, he will not voluntarily increase the salaries of those who have families and others dependent upon them. He may say, or think, that he is not running a charity organization. The clerk knows how hard it is to secure a new job and how hard it is to get familiar with a new job, and he accepts insults and humiliation, long hours, and pitiable salaries with a submissiveness born of discouragement. Yet withal this, his attitude towards the manual workers is one of superiority, although the man in overalls may be getting double the wages. The high collar seems to be an insurmountable barrier between the clerk. and his fellow workers. The higher the collar, the greater the gulf between them. If the clerk could get the idea that his interests were intertwined with the interests of the other workers, they could work hand in hand towards the common goal. The clerk must be made to see the discrepancy between the value of his labor power and what he actually gets. When this becomes evident to him, he will begin to recognize his class interests, and not until then, will he lean towards the manual worker in a spirit of solidarity. If the clerk seems haughty to the man in overalls, the man in overalls seems rude and uncouth to the clerk, and we must get a medium to bring these opposite poles together. Social intercourse must be generated between the two before a friendly spirit will be shown and this intercourse must be generalled by those free spirits who can take each man’s censure and reserve their judgment until an opportune time. Such individuals must be familiar with the life of a clerk and the life of a manual worker, in order to understand and bring together the opposing factions. The clerks must not misconstrue the methods of the unskilled workers in endeavoring to obtain their end. The unskilled worker cannot use the gentlemanly and respectable, tactics of the skilled workers. His position can be filled on short notice from the ranks of the unemployed that linger about the employment offices from day to day. The only recourse he has is by physical force and by installing fear into the hearts of the would-be scabs. This will explain in a measure, the difference between the so-called properly conducted strikes of the skilled crafts and the disreputable strikes of the unskilled workers. It is this lack of solidarity that holds the different factions of labor apart and prevents unity in their operation.

So then let us not consider the clerk a negligible quantity and unworthy of our notice, but let us direct our energies in this direction through the agency of the few who are able to understand and expound the idea of One Big Union and Solidarity among all workers.

E. GATOBAS.

The most widely read of I.W.W. newspapers, Solidarity was published by the Industrial Workers of the World from 1909 until 1917. First produced in New Castle, Pennsylvania, and born during the McKees Rocks strike, Solidarity later moved to Cleveland, Ohio until 1917 then spent its last months in Chicago. With a circulation of around 12,000 and a readership many times that, Solidarity was instrumental in defining the Wobbly world-view at the height of their influence in the working class. It was edited over its life by A.M. Stirton, H.A. Goff, Ben H. Williams, Ralph Chaplin who also provided much of the paper’s color, and others. Like nearly all the left press it fell victim to federal repression in 1917.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/solidarity-iww/1916/v7-w322-mar-11-1916-solidarity.pdf