Thus an industry which had prohibited labor
organization for fourteen years was made to open its door to trade
unionism.[88] Another telling gain for the basic eight-hour day was made
by the timber workers in the Northwest, again at the insistence of the
government.
What the aid of the government in securing the right to organize meant
to the strength of trade unionism may be derived from the following
figures. In the two years from 1917 to 1919 the organization of the meat
cutters and butcher workmen increased its membership from less than
10,000 to over 66,000; the boilermakers and iron shipbuilders from
31,000 to 85,000; the blacksmiths from 12,000 to 28,000; the railway
clerks from less than 7000 to over 71,000; the machinists from 112,000
to 255,000; the maintenance of way employes from less than 10,000 to
54,000; the railway carmen from 39,000 to 100,000; the railway
telegraphers from 27,000 to 45,000; and the electrical workers from
42,000 to 131,000. The trades here enumerated--mostly related to
shipbuilding and railways--accounted for the greater part of the total
gain in the membership of the Federation from two and a half million
members in 1917 to over three and a third in 1919.
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