To the
organized workers the news was as welcome as to other citizens. But, had
they looked at the matter from a special trade union standpoint, they
would probably have found a longer duration of the War not entirely
amiss. For coal had been unionized already before the War, the railways
first during the War, but the third basic industry, steel, was not
touched either before or during the War. However, it was precisely in
the steel industry that opposition to unionism has found its chief seat,
not only to unionism in that industry alone but to unionism in related
or subsidiary industries as well.
The first three months after the Armistice the general expectation was
for a set-back in business conditions due to the withdrawal of the
enormous government War-time demand. Employers and trade unions stood
equally undecided. When, however, instead of the expected slump, there
came a prosperity unknown even during the War, the trade unions resumed
their offensive, now unrestrained by any other but the strictly economic
consideration. As a matter of fact, the trade unions were not at all
free agents, since their demands, frequent and considerable though they
were, barely sufficed to keep wages abreast of the soaring cost of
living.
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