A fine essay on the rail unions false hope and aristocratic dreams. A key practical problems for the U.S. workers’ movement, one closely connected with organizing the unorganized, is the division among unions in workplaces and industries. The old craft vs. industrial union debate was only partially resolved by the C.I.O., as many unions retained the philosophy, if not the form. Perhaps the industry most impacted by those divisions has been rail. The situation became critical after one of the largest strikes in U.S. history as 400,000 workers, or around half of the 16 rail unions, walked off in a massive and militant strike on July 1, 1922. One of the responses, in the hope of preventing another near-general strike, was the Watson-Parker Act, supported by the bosses and the unions.

‘Trade Union Capitalism Undermines the Brotherhoods’ by Jack Kennedy from Workers Monthly. Vol. 5 No. 8. June, 1926.

TWO dangers confront America’s skilled railroad workers. By far the worse is that which is arising in their very midst; the financial oligarchy which is in open and unashamed control of one great Brotherhood and in thinly veiled dominance over two others. The other danger lurks in the direction of the cool, calculating and very able railroad executives, and that is the menace of company unionism and company loyalty. Needless to say, this effort to set up company loyalty in the place of union loyalty, would never get to first base did not the first and greater danger already exist.

The Degradation of the Railroad Brotherhoods.

The Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen, the Order of Railroad Conductors and the Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen–these are the Big Four which in other years have constituted the most direct threat to American capitalism. Now they seem tamed and even domesticated, so much so that every organ of business and finance goes out of its way to acknowledge the respectability, the “Americanism,” nay, the humble supineness of these same four big unions. Once they negotiated together, presenting an inspiring united front of 500,000 workers in wage and hour demands. Those were the days when congress trembled and a president of the United States obsequiously obeyed. They were distinctly the cocks of the labor walk.

And now?

These four Brotherhoods negotiate separate contracts with their employers. They are afraid of being seen together in wage conferences. “What will the public think?” is the pitiful response of their bourgeois-minded leaders when impatient rank and filers demand united action. With one breath they dictate pitiful letters to the railroad executives asking trifling wage increases in order to keep the “boys” from grumbling too much–and a minute later they are explaining to Wall Street newspaper reporters their undying patriotism, their unflinching loyalty to the “public interests” and their devotion to capitalism as the crown and glory of all civilization.

In short, the officialdom of the four great Brotherhoods has abdicated all power to the bourgeoisie; they have even served as their own Delilahs in shearing themselves of their strength in order to install themselves in the ante-chambers of Wall Street.

The Officialdom and the Rank and File.

Who is to blame? Is the rank and file utterly indifferent or oblivious to what is happening in their “grand offices?” By no means! A powerful undertow of sentiment–as yet unorganized–is in motion and may, if carefully directed, engulf the labor financiers in the midst of their financial maneuvers. The Brotherhoods must be stripped of all the impediments which now prevents them from being on the march, ready for action against the united army of railroad bosses.

RAILROAD FACTS.

Profits in 1925 $1,137,000,000
Profits per Employe $638
Workers Employed 1,800,000
Workers Unionized 800,000
Average Wage (monthly) $130
Engineer’s Wage (monthly) $250
Trackman’s Wage (monthly) $72
Railroad Unions 20

Your average labor official is a routineer. His very ordinary mind may be sharpened a bit by his wider contacts, but in 99 cases out of a hundred, he is willing to stick to routine, grab the per capita and pray for good luck. In the Brotherhoods, organization problems have been reduced to formulae; nearly all the men in the craft have been organized and–“Well, we’ve got everything we want, ain’t we?” your typical Brotherhood “executive” asks.

Right there the petty bourgeois mentality of the railroad labor leader halts short.

The world is conquered, he assures himself. Higher wages are out of the question, unless the union strikes, and a general strike is about the worst nightmare an “executive” can suffer. A shorter working day is impossible for the same reason, for only vigorous, aggressive fighting will gain such an objective. The typical labor executive has no stomach for fighting. He prefers negotiation across the green-topped tables; when he is whipped in the conference room all fight is gone out of him.

So our labor leader turns for new worlds to conquer. In the old days he either went into business on the side, using his prestige as a labor leader for capital, or quit the union cold to join, quite definitely and openly, the ranks of the capitalist class. But right after the war Warren S. Stone, able, aggressive, but burdened with a typical small businessman’s mind, found himself lord of all labor creation. Backed by 500,000 railroad men spoiling for a fight, he had poked his fist in the face of congress and told President Wilson where to get off. His union had won a “fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work” and the eight-hour day as a basis for calculating that pay. His mind crippled by the usual limitations of the American labor leader, he could not see he had barely begun to scratch the ground he had set out to plow. He might have outlined a program like this for his union, the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers.

“Higher wages and a shorter working week, by strike if necessary.

“Organization of the unorganized railroad workers on the right of way, in the shops and in the offices.

“Creation of an American Labor Party with a solid foundation in every division of the B.L.E., serving as a nucleus in every town and city of America with the Plumb Plan of union-technician control of the railroads as one of its immediate aims.”

The Hard Road of the Class Struggle.

To carry out such a program would inevitably have meant a consolidation of the Big Four into one big railroad union, very likely a general strike of railroad workers (there has never been one under Brotherhood auspices) and a constant aggressive battle with the press, the pulpit and the rest of the “molders of public opinion.”

The “Easy Path” of Trade Union Capitalism.

But Warren Stone’s ability and aggressiveness ran within the narrow limits imposed by education on a backwoods Iowa farm and a typically bourgeois outlook. And just because that outlook sees only money as a goal, so Warren Stone saw a vision of the financial power he could achieve by gaining control of the savings of all his members. For years he worked assiduously among key men in his Brotherhood implanting the germ of labor capitalism; finally due to peculiar economic conditions obtaining in 1920-21, he was able to drive his idea thru to fruition, and we have today the $150,000,000 financial structure of the B. of L.E., all founded on the spare cash in the pockets of the railroad “hogs.” (A railroad term for engineers.)

Stone’s success was a revelation to the rest of the “executives.” “What fools we are,” must have been the thoughts running through their minds as they saw Stone rearing one financial edifice on another. Immediately they got into the trough with all four feet. The swilling had begun. There follows a story which must be written soon for the warning of working men the world over; the story of private greed officials building themselves up as financial power on the backs of their members.

It is a disgusting narrative which perhaps reached its climax the other day in the columns of a Wall Street paper when President William B. Prenter of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers was introduced to its readers as “a banker who is also a labor leader.”

This is the gangrene which has infected the official body of America’s railway unions, rendering them valueless, nay worse than useless in their legitimate functions as the leaders of working men. The indictment against the ordinary trade union official, engineer of a machine and ruthless practictioneer of ward politics in his union; narrow, short-sighted, hopelessly middle class in his opinions and frequently corrupt; all this still holds, but in any event he was not striving by might and main to hook up his members as bag and baggage of the capitalist class. Nothing short of this however, is the aim of the money-mad labor official of today. This fellow pooh-poohs the demands of his union for higher wages by counseling thrift and investment. “Save part of your pay in our bank,” says this new official, “and you won’t need more wages. In a little while you’ll be living off capital and then maybe you can quit working.”

What an ideal for working men!

Is the membership drinking in this new “philosophy” of labor capitalism? It must be admitted that a small minority is swallowing the whole mess of swill–ideas offered them. But the very force of circumstances keeps the majority safe and rather sound–and that is the fact that they’re not making enough money to save anything beyond a few hundred dollars emergency fund. And back of that inert majority is an active group of railroad workers who are disgusted with the whole mess.

One may group them as:

1. Left wingers, who are opposed to labor capitalism and its palsying effect on union aggressiveness because they see the whole game clearly and mean to end it.

2. Embittered losers in the various stock promotions led by Warren Stone and the rest of the labor financiers. It was not in the cards that every “sure thing” would turn out right, especially when amateur financiers of the calibre of the labor executives went to dabbling in promotions. The inevitable happened. A big army–ever growing–of those who got skinned are out after the scalps of every labor financier they can catch.

3. Old timers, who can’t get it out of their heads that the main aim of a union is to fight the bosses for better conditions. These workers, lacking a more definite labor philosophy, feel that the present tendency is all wrong. They remember the union struggles of old and can’t accommodate themselves to the modern methods of capturing industry by saving your money.

4. The “outs,” who are ready to use any club against the “ins.” Right now they are busy capitalizing the widespread discontent in the railroad unions against labor capitalism, and will make it an issue in every convention until they get in power. Once in power, they are sure to follow the financial game, although they’ll probably do it in the old style of capitalizing their prestige in private ventures.

***

The Parker-Watson Joke.

SPONSORED by Watson, the notorious anti-labor Klansman senator from Indiana and Parker, a Republican machine rubber stamp in the House.

TO PREVENT general strikes in the railroad industry.

BACKED by General W. . Atterbury, the company union genius of the Pennsylvania and four-fifths of the railroad executives.

CONCOCTED by the brains–such as they are–of the railroad union officialdom.

TO PREVENT general strikes in the railroad industry

THE JOKE There hasn’t been a general strike on the railroads in this generation.

THEREFORE Why the need for the Parker-Watson Bill?

BEHIND THE SCENES The Parker-Watson Bill is just a piece of camouflage to cover the criminal inaction of the union officials while they are engaged in their financial schemes for personal aggrandizement.

BUT If the present gang is thrown out and the railroad workers take hold of their own unions, the Parker-Watson act will remain on the books as a direct threat against a general strike.

A CRIME Thus the Parker-Watson Act, concocted as a joke to make the rank and file believe the officials are working overtime in their behalf, turns out to be a black crime against the railroad workers themselves.

***

The Situation in the Brotherhoods.

Necessarily the foregoing remarks are aimed generally at all the four Brotherhoods. Nevertheless, each Brotherhood faces special problems which it is within the province of this article to list:

1. The Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers. It is in this organization that labor capitalism has reached its full bloom. Its officers are now regarded more as financiers than labor leaders. Sensing quite properly the new tasks before a Brotherhood official, they reorganized their executive staff at the last convention. The Grand Chief, formerly the supreme authority, was relegated to a minor position “in charge of labor affairs.” The Old Man of the organization is now the President, who is ex-officio president of all the Brotherhood’s financial outfits. He is assisted by two vice-presidents who supervise the financial and Florida real estate ventures of the Brotherhood. Down the list in fourth place comes the “grand chief,” a minor dignitary who takes care of wage negotiations and other side business of the union.

2. The Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen. The officials of this union are by all odds the most aggressive of the Big Four. They have not actively dabbled in finance, they have not given hostages to Wall Street in the form of co-partnership in far-flung financial schemes. But one cannot say much more for them.

Because they are not collaborating so closely with capital, the Firemen are leading the war on company unions and company loyalty. The last convention–Detroit, 1925– forbade any member to join company unions, company athletic groups, company insurance plans, veterans’ associations, company building and loan associations and all the other devices the clever railroad bosses are forging to tie the hands of labor.

Quite naturally, it is in this union that the opposition to labor capitalism is also most fully developed. The issue is to be fought out in the 1927 convention when a battle royal is promised. Both sides are digging in now for what will undoubtedly be the most bitter session in the 63 years of the union.

Nevertheless, very definite tasks lie ahead of this most hopeful of the Big Four. First, it must force amalgamation with the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers. It is ridiculous that the men in the engine cab should belong to different and even antagonistic unions. In every other country, the men on the right and left hand sides of the cab either belong to the same union, or to the general railroad men’s union. There is strong sentiment in the Engineers for amalgamation, although petty craft jealousies and differences over pay, etc., stand in the way of an easy union. The biggest differences–and one typical of selfish, narrow American individualism–is this: Both engineers and firemen hold their jobs thru seniority. But in slack times, seniority works all to the engineer’s advantage, for when his throttle job is taken away, he automatically steps back into the firemen’s seat. But the fireman steps back–off the cab and into unemployment.

Is it necessary to add that these are after all easily surmountable difficulties–given the will to amalgamate? The left wing in the B. of L.F. & E. must press harder on their officers for amalgamation with the B.L.E. as the first step toward a real Railroad Men’s Union, uniting every worker from the man at the throttle to the man on the extra gang.

It would be amusing–were it not so serious–to record that the Firemen are having trouble in convincing the Engineers that they too should go out after higher wages. The Engineers’ officers are so pre-occupied in high finance, so fearful of offending the powers that be, that they refuse to lead a movement for higher wages. Only when something resembling a revolt spread through the B.L.E. did the officers wake up and reluctantly consent to canvass opinion formally as to the desire for more money. The Firemen have been pressing on the other hand for a united front of the engine service men in the present wage negotiations, but the downright refusal of the Engineers’ officials at first to join in the movement, and their halting action now in allowing themselves to be forced into conference will have a deadening effect on the negotiations once they are started. The bosses know at the start that the Engineers’ officials don’t mean to fight.

3. The Order of Railroad Conductors. is the well-nigh hopeless section of the Big Four. Their officials sunk deep in finance and themselves almost irretrievably lost to the working class through their corruption by petty bourgeois elements, the Conductors present a pitiful appearance. One hesitates to call this organization of obsequious butlers to traveling businessmen a labor organization. They shrink from the title themselves, and pass themselves off anxiously as sort of Chamber of Commerce brass button bourgeois. Little else can be expected from men who brush elbows daily with their “betters,” who carry fond memories of conducting a prince of industry or finance on their own trains, who display proudly their Masonic coat emblems and boast of their membership in the local Chamber of Commerce.

But who has not seen the shabby conductor of the branch lines? His coat frayed about the collar and cuffs, his shoes run down at the heel, his anxious eyes looking fearfully into a blank future of endless “runs” from Podunk to Fostoria? A graduated trainman, he lives in mortal terror of going back to work on the swaying freight cars; and he fawns anxiously on the superintendent in the hope of eventual promotion. Nevertheless, it would be wrong to say that there is no balm in Gilead, even for these. Many a belligerent trainman, husky and able-bodied, rises to the rank of conductor and bull of the train without losing all sense of class loyalty. More frequently he will be met on the freights, but many an old passenger conductor will pat his union button and refer with pride to his Order. Yes, there is distinctly hope for them, but any promising activity in the O.R.C. must wait, evidently, upon more aggressiveness from the other three members of the Big Four team.

4. The Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen. This is the classic example in America of the power of a machine. If the foreign visitor to these shores were told of the existence of four skilled railroad workers’ unions, he would unhesitatingly name the Trainmen as being logically the most aggressive of all. And just there he would fall down, for he wouldn’t know old Bill Lee, the pal of hard-boiled railroad presidents, a business man on a large scale and the dictator of one of America’s most ruthless labor machines.

Just how this incubus of the railroad labor world fastened himself on a turbulent union of husky young brakemen is another story that should be told. From his pretty little seven-story copy of the 21-story Engineers’ Bank in Cleveland, he rules with an iron hand over 150,000 trainmen. He has agents in every union, and woe betide the Progressive who opens his mouth when Sir Oracle speaks. Nevertheless, old Bill’s days are just about over. His face slowly succumbing to an inexorable cancer, he foresees the time when he must hand over the reins of control to his understudies, a group of officials who understand well the secret of his power and mean to continue his domination.

Warren Stone told his men to achieve victory thru their savings–in other words, to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. D.B. Robertson leads a fight in congress for a meaningless rail labor bill. Old L.E. Sheppard of the Conductors doesn’t do much of anything except gumshoe around on financial ventures. But Bill Lee will be found fighting every day of the year–on the side of the bosses. Bill it was who led the campaign for higher wages for railroad presidents. “They don’t get nearly enough,” he cried. “A good president is worth $100,000 a year at the least. I hope they get it.”

Bill it is who broke the united front of the Big Four after the war. “The Big Four,” he said in effect, “is too powerful. It might do something some day somehow. The Big Four must be broken. I’ll do it.”

Bill did it. Now he negotiates with the Conductors, rigidly excluding the engine service men. He believes in avoiding even the appearances of “evil.”

Of course, there is strong opposition in the B.R.T. to all this impudent boss-psychology. The executive board is by no means unanimous in this craven submission to Bill Lee’s incurably capitalistic outlook while among the rank and file an impatient spirit longs for the moment when revolt will tear down the thick solid walls of reaction and give the B.R.T. back to the labor movement.

The Task of the Left Wing.

What is the job for the Left Wing in the Brotherhoods? First, and most important, to perfect its own organization as a rallying point for the mobilized sentiment against labor capitalism. The Brotherhood officialdom feels the throne tottering, and is in deadly fear. A good healthy shove by an intelligent, well-organized left wing will send that throne crashing down, throwing the financial kings and their damnable theory of labor as a mere savings-breeder for their ventures into the discard.

For this purpose, the rallying cry of “Down With Capitalism” should be the focus for opposition. Beyond that slogan though there must be a concrete program for the Left Wing either to force upon the officials, or in case of early victory, to carry out themselves. Among the cardinal issues are:

1. Amalgamation of the railroad workers into one fighting front.

2. Even above their own wage and hour demands, the skilled privileged workers of the Brotherhoods must insist that the unskilled and semi-skilled brother workers be allowed to organize. This involves the destruction of company unionism and will demand the most heroic sacrifices on the part of those already organized.

3. Creation of an American labor party, with the railroad unions for a numerical and financial nucleus.

4. Control of the railroad system by the workers and technicians in the industry with suitable representation for the body of other workers and farmers.

The Workers Monthly began publishing in 1924 as a merger of the ‘Liberator’, the Trade Union Educational League magazine ‘Labor Herald’, and Friends of Soviet Russia’s monthly ‘Soviet Russia Pictorial’ as an explicitly Party publication. In 1927 Workers Monthly ceased and the Communist Party began publishing The Communist as its theoretical magazine. Editors included Earl Browder and Max Bedacht as the magazine continued the Liberator’s use of graphics and art.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/culture/pubs/wm/index.htm