The times were ripe for the
opportunistic unionism of Gompers and the trade unionists.
These latter, having started in the seventies as Marxian socialists, had
been made over into opportunistic unionists by their practical contact
with American conditions. Their philosophy was narrower than that of the
Knights and their concept of labor solidarity narrower still. However,
these trade unionists demonstrated that they could win strikes. It was
to this practical trade unionism, then, that the American labor movement
turned, about 1890, when the idealism of the Knights of Labor had
failed. From groping for a cooperative economic order or
self-employment, labor turned with the American Federation of Labor to
developing bargaining power for use against employers. This trade
unionism stood for a strengthened group consciousness. While it
continued to avow sympathy with the "anti-monopoly" aspirations of the
"producers," who fought for the opportunity of self-employment, it also
declared that the interests of democracy will be best served if the wage
earners organized by themselves.
This opportunist unionism, now at last triumphant over the idealistic
unionism induced by America's spiritual tradition, soon was obliged to
fight against a revolutionary unionism which, like itself, was an
offshoot of the socialism of the seventies.
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