A Serious and Crucial Conflict
By L. A. S.
From the point of view of the New York Sun, the year 1905 seems likely to bring no diminution of the conflict between capital and labor, but may possibly, on the other hand, witness a more severe and crucial stage of the contest than has yet been seen. There are indications that the union labor forces are preparing for a decisive struggle over the question of the open shop. To establish the union or closed shop is regarded by them as vital to the success of the union movement, and for this the labor organizations will fight as they would for their own existence. The Sun reports that of late employers have been posting notices on their establishments that after a specified date these would be run on the open shop system; that the unions, in view of this movement, have been laying counter-plans, and that “indications multiply that a conflict, which may prove serious and crucial, is impending. Reports of both kinds,” says the Sun, “come from all over the Union, from Boston to San Francisco.” Just now there is a cap makers’ strike in New York City, which followed the posting of a notice on one establishment there that after December 26 it would be run as an open shop, that employees would be engaged according to their behavior, and that the employers reserved the right to discharge employees for cause when they deemed it necessary. The strike was the union’s reply to this announcement. “This strike,” says the Sun, “is a preliminary skirmish in what may become a wide-spread industrial conflict for the determination of a question which unionism has come to regard as vital to its organization.” This, however, is not the most serious indication in the present outlook. The Sun says:— Another and far more important skirmish, for it may well reach the dimensions of a battle, is indicated in the decisions reached on December 23 by the “general executive board” of the Carriage and Wagon Workers’ International Union. It is said by the committee that this will involve sixty thousand men, forty thousand of whom are organized unionists. The general secretary of that union has made this explanation:— “We are necessarily on the defensive at first until we see what the employers are going to do, and how far the open shop movement is going to spread. We have arranged to spend a great deal of money, and send a large force of organizers into the field, to get as many of the twenty thousand non-union men into the union as possible.
“When we have organized the trade as thoroughly as we can, we will demand the closed shop in all open shop factories. If this is refused, we will order strikes.” From this the Sun concludes that “an extensive movement for the closed shop seems therefore to be on foot, and the issue between the open shop and the closed shop is likely to be fought out during the coming year, or, at any rate, the battle will begin sooner or later.” The fight will be one to determine whether employers or employees shall control the industrial affairs of the nation, and with such an issue at stake the contest will necessarily be long and bitter. Thus the outlook continues to be prophetic of more and more strife among men, until the coming of Him who shall make wars to cease unto the ends of the earth.
L. A. S.