Q. In the Industrial Workers are you going to separate the different
trades, or has a man who joins the privilege of going where he chooses?
Mr. Debs: He joins the department that represents his particular trade
or occupation. The Industrial Workers is organized in separate
departments, so that the autonomy of the trade is preserved within the
organization. Take the men of a certain trade; they belong to a certain
department of the organization; they have jurisdiction over their own
trade affairs. They are subject, however, to the supervision of the
general organization. Take the machinists, for instance; they have a
grievance; it will be adjusted, primarily, if possible, within their own
department. If that is not possible then it becomes the grievance of the
general organization—the concern of all. Instead of merely the
machinists going out on strike as now, all their fellow-workers lay down
their tools and support them to a finish.
Q. Is it true that the Industrial Workers was organized because the
workers cannot gain anything by political action?
Mr. Debs: No, that is not true. The workers have never yet tried to get
anything by united political action. They will some time, I do not
doubt. The Industrial Workers was organized because under the old form
of organization they could get little or nothing by economic action. If
they had secured satisfactory concessions under the old forms there
would be no Industrial Workers. It has been organized because of the
failure of the old unions on the economic field. Now, if it can be shown
that they have succeeded, or even measurably succeeded, then there is no
necessity for the Industrial Workers. But if, on the other hand, it can
be shown that they have repeatedly and wretchedly failed, then there is
an unanswerable argument in favor of the Industrial Workers.
Q. What is a tradesman or a skilled worker? Why should there be any
distinction between a tradesman and any other worker in a shop?
Mr. Debs: That is not a very easy question to answer. There used to be a
great many skilled mechanics who are now common workers. In proportion
as machinery is improved the skill of the trade is transferred from the
worker to the machine; and the skilled labor of one day becomes the
common labor of the next. The locomotive engineer has always regarded
himself as a skilled worker, and he has refused to affiliate with what
is called the common laborer. Within the next few years the locomotive
engineer will probably become a motorman and he will then come off the
perch. The work will be so simple that almost any worker can perform it.
I have already referred to the coopers. In the town where I live there
used to be a number of cooper shops in which there were skilled men; and
they had a large and strong Coopers’ Union. All the coopers that worked
there belonged to it. And these coopers didn’t have anything to do with
common labor. They flocked by themselves upon the theory that they were
skilled men and could not afford to put their skill on the same level
with the common labor of unskilled workers. During the last few years
that trade has undergone a complete change. The skilled coopers have
practically disappeared and but a shadow of the old union remains.
Now, if you will ask that old cooper, who was a skilled man and belonged
to a union that represented skilled labor a few years ago—if you will
ask him who the skilled man is, I think he can give you a satisfactory
answer to your question. The skill of the trade is being gradually
eliminated, and we are taking cognizance of that fact. We Industrial
Workers recognize no aristocracy of skill. If any partiality were to be
shown, however, I would give the unskilled man the benefit of it,
because he needs it most. But there is no such discrimination in the
Industrial Workers. The workingman, skilled or unskilled, is a worker; a
man, and, whatever his occupation, has all of the wants and aspirations
and is entitled to all the rights and opportunities of a human being for
self-development. The machine is rapidly reducing workers to a common
industrial equality, making the unskilled man the productive equal of
the skilled man. The machine is the skilled man, and when he gets
through, that question will have answered itself.
Q. Does the Industrial Workers make any provision for a wage scale?
Mr. Debs: Yes; it is going to get all the wages for its members that it
possibly can, while the wage-system lasts.
Q. How are you going to prevent the leaders from being as bad as those
of the trades unions are today?
Mr. Debs: In the first place, there will be but a single organization.
There will not be a hundred different and conflicting organizations and
as many different sets of officers.
Q. Then they will have only one to buy; it won’t cost so much.
Mr. Debs: All the chances will be reduced to the minimum. Take the
railroad brotherhoods, for instance. If every locomotive engineer
running into Chicago voted tomorrow to go out on strike they could not
go out without the official sanction of the Grand Chief of the
Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, and he alone could prevent the
strike. That is, they might vote unanimously to strike, but the power of
one single grand officer would outweigh that of the entire organization.
With us it is the rank and file that decides and is the supreme power.
It is not likely they will sell themselves out. Besides, the Industrial
Workers is made up of a body of class-conscious industrial
revolutionists, who will not be sold out. They are wide-awake workers
who think for themselves, and that is why they are in the Industrial
Workers. The old trade unions are mainly run by the officers. Didn’t you
notice in the papers this morning that the coal operators who were here
in session declared that they proposed to deal, not with the rank and
file, the common herd, but with the national officers of the union? They
will settle things, and that is how they are generally settled in the
old unions; but that is not the way they will be settled in the
Industrial Workers.
This is an important point. Take a plant such as a brewery, for
instance; a score of different kinds of labor represented by as many
different organizations, and as many different sets of officers. Here
are temptation and opportunity multiplied by twenty. Here we have
wide-open chances and incentive to bribery, corruption and treachery.
Suppose now, that the same plant is organized in the Industrial Workers.
Instead of being parceled out among twenty different unions they are all
embraced in one. The men in one department have a grievance. That plant
has a general committee; and if the grievance fails of adjustment in the
department in which it arises, it is referred to the general committee
that has supervision of the plant, and if they fail to satisfactorily
adjust it, the matter goes to all the employes, as Industrial Workers,
for action. They vote to go out on strike and that settles it. In the
Industrial Workers no national officer and no set of national officers
have power to override the action of the rank and file. And when they
vote to go out, they go out and stay out, until they vote to go back.