By James Dugan

Organizing Methods in the Steel Industry by William Z. Foster offers a potent plan for organizing labor to confront not only their bosses, but Monopoly Capital. Written after Foster suffered a heart attack and received treatment in the Soviet Union; its 28 pages are an instruction manual for the resuscitation of organized labor for the establishment of industrial unionism.

Foster advises cooperation between progressive and Left-wing elements in the labor movement noting that “only these elements [ ] have the necessary vision, flexibility and courage to go forward with such an important project as the organization of the 500,000 steel workers in the face of the powerful opposition of the Steel Trust and its capitalist allies.”

Foster says “The organization movement must be industrial and national in character. That is, (a) it must include every category of workers in the steel industry, not merely a thin stratum of skilled workers at the top; and (b) the drive must be carried on energetically and simultaneously in every steel center, not simply here and there spasmodically in individual mills or steel centers.’ For workers to build a class-oriented trade union movement of an industrial character, they need to look no further than Foster’s work.

His emphasis on creating a mass movement of the steel industry, a nationally critical industry, balances comprehensive motivation with rigorous self-criticism, optimism, and determined organizational discipline. To accomplish this, Foster says, “Hard work and sobriety are basic essentials for success. Chair-warmers and irresponsibles should be made to feel unwelcome in the organizing crew.”

Foster’s plan includes specific tactics for outreach members of racial and ethnic groups, youth and women. Foster suggests how an Amalgamated Association (A.A.) or mass organization could be constituted using demonstration, print, and broadcast. Foster posits that this should be balanced with focused interpersonal and relational work for developing and defending the members and organization.

His strategy’s hallmark is its inclusivity and remarkable efficiency.  Foster is thoroughly defensive of the membership and its work of uniting each of society’s layers of preexisting strata, forming the A.A. from the matrix his plan forms within these. This plan integrates his era’s primary social institutions including fraternity and church, to form the platform and to give physical space from which to mount the overall effort.

Industrial unionism gathers membership by forming flexible alliances, overlaid by a firm organizational structure focused on growing the union at every level, industry wide. Rank and file members need to be empowered to actively recruit members and build the union. His methodology offers the most capable means for workers to defeat the trustified industries.

The post Organized Steel Defends Workers and Democracy first appeared on Labor Today.

The post Organized Steel Defends Workers and Democracy appeared first on Labor Today.