DUKE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY THE OPEN SHOP and INDUSTRIAL LIBERTY by WALTER GORDON MERRITT * to any class for a mess of pottage. Lock-step is , bad. We are learning that servitude to a class or any private institut- ion may become as great a tyranny as servitude to a state. It shouh not lie in the power of any group of men to ma :e a commercial leper of any American citizen. \merican citizenship, like the Roman citizenship earlier centuries, must always carry c , n assurances, and Page Twenty-seven The Open Shop and Industrial Liberty among them are freedom to worship God a freedom to work, which are the basic resour _cs of human existence. From the rich her age of the past, no less than this must be retai rd, if the sovereignty and dignity of the f an being is to be preserved. INVOLUNTARY SERVITUDE Whatever else we do, let us shun yranny, cling to liberty, and strive to keep the doors of opportunity open for the develop .t of all classes of human beings, even the they be at times industrial dissenters i noncon- formists. That is the issue of he real Open Shop. If we protect freedom chis way, we shall have co-operative collect 1 vism but not coercive collectivism. /No state can tell a workman when and where he shall work or not work. T hat is involuntary servitude and a condition a gainst which he is protected by the Constitution of the United States. By what warrant, then, can we place such power in the hands of private societies which deny the right c law or government to review their affairs c to define their duties and obligations? By nat token of human nature can people be! ; e that such unlimited power over the li' of individuals will be exercised by those c anizations with modera- tion and restraint’' le entire course of human history is to the c m ary, and the short history of American Unionise does not modify the record. Page Twenty-eight The Open Shop and Industrial Liberty History has many times taught us that TYRANNY tyranny rests no more in the will of a monarch than in the uncontrolled spirit of a mob. In mediaeval times, when guilds controlled the right to work at given crafts, interlopers were burned at the stake, sent to the galleys, and had their establishments broken up by force. The theory of our government is to avoid all tyranny and despotism from any source, even though it be the majority vote of the citizens of our country, by protecting under our constitution certain individual rights which, while that constitution exists, cannot be en- croached upon by government itself, to say nothing of combinations of private indi- viduals. Among those rights none is more important than that of earning a living; and any combination of people attempting to wrest that right from all citizens and bestow it upon a favored class aims at the very genius of our free institutions. It is difficult to improve on the language of the United States Supreme Court as follows: “Monopolies are the bane of our body politic at the present day. In the eager pursuit of gain they are sought in every connection. They exhibit themselves in corners in the stock market and pro- duce market and in many other ways. If, by legislative enactment, they can be carried into the common avocations Page Twenty-nine The Open Shop and Industrial Liberty and callings of life, so as to cut off the right of the citizen to choose his avoca- tion — the right to earn his bread by the trade which he has learned — and if there is no constitutional means of putting a check to such enormity, I can only say that it is time that that consti- tution was still further amended.” And again the same tribunal says: — “The very idea that one man may be compelled to hold his life or the means of living, or any material right essential to the enjoyment of life, at the mere will of another, seems to be intolerable in any country where freedom prevails, as being the essence of slavery itself.” NO CHECK ON MISCONDUCT One does not like to dogmatize about the Closed Shop, but it has become a profound conviction with many people that a national Closed Shop system for which the unions now reach out would be a menace alike to economic and political safety. In forcing itself upon us by strikes, boycotts and social ostracism, to say nothing of more violent methods, it em- bodies more than the traditional evils of monopoly. The Closed Shop as it may grow naturally and voluntarily is quite a different thing from this realistic picture of the compul- sory Closed Shop, which aims artificially to protect the labor movement from all wholesome rivalry and to remove it beyond the natural or social laws of reward and punishment, and moral and legal restraint. The fundamental Page Thirty The Open Shop and Industrial Liberty incentives for good conduct are to be removed. It seeks the establishment of a single national union for each industry which the government shall leave unregulated and uncontrolled and then demands that society and employers must recognize and deal with that union regard- less of the contracts it flouts, and the injury it inflicts and regardless of the stupidity or selfish- ness of the management. The good and bad unions fare alike. Upon the rest of us the laws of nature and society pass judgment, and the judgment on our mistakes is loss or punish- ment, but organized labor is to hold its position by force rather than service. Reputation, honor and intelligence will count for naught. Why talk of collective bargaining under such circumstances? There is no bargaining with monopoly. It is “take it or leave it.” That has too often been the attitude of the employer in the past and it is well aped by the Closed Shop protagonist. A bargain implies an alter- native. Your national Closed Shop regime implies that the employer and society must do business with certain unions regardless of their terms. The Closed Shop is not new. It has made a record. All too frequently it develops certain well-defined but unfortunate tendencies. Among them are obstacles to efficiency, opposition to improved machinery and a useless increase in the cost of production which benefits no one. ECONOMIC ASPECTS Page Thirty-one CLOSED SHOP IN ENGLAND The Open Shop and Industrial Liberty It is futile to deny this. A prominent English manufacturer refers to it as a union crime which deprives laborers of a great unearned dividend which would be theirs if they operated efficiently. That economic heresy alone, if it continues, will inflict a mortal wound on any labor union or community which tolerates it. Because of this condition, industry often withers where the Closed Shop flourishes, and the cities of the Open Shop leap forward with vigor and prosperity, while cities of the Closed Shop lose their vitality. Los Angeles out- distances San Francisco although the latter had a big start and an immediate port. The growth of Detroit has been one of the wonders of our commercial advance and is attributed in part to its Open Shop policy. The growth of the hatting trade is not found in Danbury, of union traditions, but in outside cities where the union practices are unknown. And the differ- ence is not usually one of the workers’ earnings but in efficiency. And, just as Closed Shop cities fall by the wayside in any commercial rivalry, so will Closed Shop nations. England before the War was fast becoming a sacrifice to the demon- stration of this truth. It is the most highly organized of all the great commercial nations and therefore affords the best proof of this contention. A report of our Department of Page Thirty-two The Open Shop and Industrial Liberty Labor shows that the unions in Great Britain have opposed automatic or improved machinery and efficiency devices on the theory that men have a vested interest in the job which must not be imperilled by adopting improvements. Although before the War English workers received a third or a half of what American workers received, their labor costs were greater. When the War came with its demands upon British industries, everybody saw that the Closed Shop system was wanting, so the famous Treasury Agreement was executed between the Government and Organized Labor in which the Closed Shop and union restrictions were renounced for the period of the War. Even this did not prove entirely satisfactory, for Lloyd George had occasion to complain re- peatedly to the workers that the agreement was not being observed by them. He charged the unions with tying the hands of their native land while it was fighting for its life. In December, 1915, he said: “The next direction in which trade union- ists can help us is by suspending during the War all practices and customs which have the effect of preventing men turning out as much work as their skill and strength per- mit. If we had a suspension during the War of these customs which keep down the out- put, we could increase in some places by 30%, in other places by 200%.” The Open Shop and Industrial Liberty It was arranged by the Treasury Agreement that the restrictions on efficiency and machinery' should be removed and that the doors of industry which had been shut by the Closed Shop policy should be open to unskilled and female labor to do the work which they were thoroughly capable of doing. It was agreed, however, that all the union restrictions were to be resumed after the War unless the unions consented to their abandonment. Thereupon, all practices and customs tending to restrict production or the employment of any special class of persons were declared by law to be suspended, and any person who attempted to induce anyone to comply with any restrictive law was declared to be guilty of a crime. EXPERIENCE IN AMERICA These conditions do not generally exist in this country because it is largely an Open Shop country. In industries highly unionized such conditions do occasionally arise, as witness the hatting trade. Conditions in our unionized building trades show that Closed Shop unions and Closed Shop employers are penalizing the public by waste and inefficiency. In some cases, the unions fix a limit for the amount of work a workman may perform in a day. Among the Bricklayers, which is one of the strongest Closed Shop unions, the cost of labor has risen 800%. The Closed Shop monopoly in the Building Trades has destroyed the morale Page Thirty-four The Open Shop and Industrial Liberty of Capital and Labor. Both are working together with the clasped hands of co-operation, but, as in the case of monopolies, their other hands are in the public pocket. The Closed Shop system has brought chronic unemployment and underpayment to Great Britain, because of its insistence on uneconomic principles. We see what it has meant to some of our cities like San Francisco. We see what it has meant to some of our industries like Build- ing, and all of its defects and shortcomings are due primarily to the inherent vice of a monopo- listic system upon which mischief and misdeeds are bound to thrive. That is the inevitable result of any Closed Shop system which involves monopoly by compulsion and which maintains itself by force and not by service. In these times, no nation can endure in commercial well being without a large body of independent labor, unorganized, or organized into competing bodies, which will force unions to compete by service for public confidence. If society is to furnish an incentive for such service, the cause of human liberty must be protected so that any workman will not be seriously impeded in the exercise of his funda- mental rights of citizenship merely because he is not a union man. It is only when unionism is subject in some degree to the wholesome forces of competition on the part of these SOME INDE- PENDENT LABOR NECESSARY Page Thirty-five The Open Shop and Industrial Liberty employers and employees who may be abused by it, that the processes of moral restraint will be operative. The right of a man to a job must rest on his ability and not upon the power of his fraternity. MENACE TO POLITICAL SAFETY A national Closed Shop regime is likewise a menace to our political safety because it means the end of democratic government. Where the control of the opportunities to live are centered in one national organization, or group of affiliated organizations, that institution will rule this country and no other. Such a power would be as considerate of the rights of others as the Imperial German Government. If all the primary functions and necessities of society are unionized, the social questions involved in their operation will not be settled by orderly political processes but by the eco- nomic growth of the unions in control. The Adamson Act proves that in this country. The manner in which Great Britain and other European countries have been forced by threats of strikes to consider many matters proves it there. One can multiply illustrations. If unions control the entire printing industry, they may, as has been done in a few cases, place a censorship on printed matter. If your complete unionizaton spells a power stronger than society itself that power will not wait to hear the returns from the polls. Government Page Thirty-six The Open Shop and Industrial Liberty by strike will supersede government by ballot. A Closed Shop system, maintained by militant unionism, means the perversion of democratic government and is, therefore, a menace to the political as well as to the economic safety of the country. Some of us are old-fashioned enough to believe in a government of the people, by the people and for the people and not a govern- ment by strike or economic assault on society. These things may be a long way off today, but change our laws as labor demands, to permit the compulsory unionization of all employees, and what we have experienced is but a fore- taste of what will be. Unions ask much of society and offer no hostages in return. They seek exemption from all laws which protect freedom of trade and commerce, which is the open door policy of American industry, and when Congress passed appropriations for the enforcement of such laws, have caused it to be written on the statute books that none of such moneys shall be utilized against them; they claim the right to blockade the channels of interstate trade as against any merchandise of which they disapprove; they insist upon the right to paralyze railroad transportation and bring suffering and distress to millions of innocent people, and when Con- gress proposes to fix railroad wages by a fair tribunal and at the same time abolish railroad PRIVILEGES DEMANDED Page Thirty-seven The Open Shop and Industrial Liberty strikes, they hurl defiance at the elected repre- sentatives of our sovereign people; they insist upon the right to unionize every coal mine in the United States and then to freeze our people by a national coal strike; and when the State of Kansas passes its Industrial Court Act, in the interest of all classes, because the sick in hospitals are suffering, instead of giving it a fair trial and fair consideration they decry and defy it and marshal their forces to prove it a failure; they reserve the right to engage in strikes against the government, including police strikes, which leave the community a defenseless prey to lawless elements, as in Boston, and again attack those who legislate against such assaults upon public safety; they oppose a state constab- ulary; they claim the right to prevent rail- roads, steamships and street railways from carrying non-union men and non-union merchan- dise; and they have been seeking laws which would legalize this. When the recent decision of the United States Supreme Court did not suit them, they declared that the Courts had no right to define the rights of unions, and called upon their five million members hereafter to resist all labor injunctions. When the Courts of Massachusetts protected the rights of members of a rival union to work as against the interfer- ence of one of the unions of the Federation, it was declared that labor was filched of its Page Thirty-eight The Open Shop and Industrial Liberty rights — filched of its rights to filch the rights of others; they object to any law which will bring the unions within the reach of legal process and answerable for their misconduct; and then they demand that all business shall function through recognized unions regardless of the mischief and misdoings of any particular labor union, and that the protection and dis- position of the right to work shall be transferred from governmental authority to these private societies. The Closed Shop would thus lodge sovereign power with private societies and remove the last vestige of public control over them. Suppose we force all the employees on the railroads, all the miners of coal, all the pro- ducers and distributors of bread and milk into disciplined labor unions, where the leaders may marshal them out against all society, under penalty of being driven from their trade, what assurance have we that they will not paralyze our commerce, freeze our hospitals and starve our babies? They cry out against tyranny and oppression on the part of one group and propose to cure it by a greater tyranny of their own. The frailties of human nature are not a monopoly of any class. Would they be kinder and more considerate towards the rights of the rest of us than our democratic state has been towards them? Since when has uncurbed DANGERS OF UNCURBED POWER Page Thirty-nine The Open Shop and Industrial Liberty NO SOVEREIGN POWER IN ANY CLASS LIBERTY human power stopped at the portals of justice? The only hope of the future lies in preserving the supreme power of the state and in guarding against a rival power in private hands. Socialism has much more to say for itself than the Closed Shop. It follows the principles of Christianity. Everybody is in on the ground floor. There is no one out in the cold. The Closed Shop too often denies the Brotherhood of Man. The outsider is a scab and an industrial outlaw. The insiders have special privileges. It encourages combat, bitterness and tyranny. Socialism entrusts peoples’ rights to the govern- ment as a neutral agency. The Closed Shop government entrusts the rights of its members and others to a class institution. Sovereign power must not be vested in any class institution. A democratic state functions for all classes of citizens and all classes of citizens are allowed to participate in its control. That alone justifies its exercise of sovereign power. Such a government is responsible to all classes of people and all classes of people are responsible to that government. Labor unions which function for one class only, and in which only one class participates, cannot be vested with the power of saying who shall and who shall not follow a trade. Liberty protected by public law is a lasting, Page Forty The Open Shop and Industrial Liberty earthly ideal. It is not a passing fantasy of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It is rooted deep in political practicality, a whole- some fear of the frailties of any form of govern- ment, and a deep, abiding conviction that the individual aspirations and incentives of each citizen may not be unduly suppressed. We must strive, that this liberty withstand the shock of all attacks, whether they emanate from the state or private citizens, the rich or the poor, a Czar of Russia or the Bolshevists of Russia. Unless this ideal survives as one of the primary concepts of modern society, cen- turies of human struggle have been in vain and the great inspirations which have led men on the battlefield of suffering and horror, have been false and wasted emotions. Page Forty-one Date Due Photomount Pamphiet Binder Gaylord Bros., Inc \ Makers v Makers Syracuse, N. * ■ PAT. JAH 21, 1908 S3 142 69984 331 Me rritt _ Or>e_n. SIiod. Ed Industrial Liberty ISSUED TO DATE P6S984