One Big Union (concept)
The One Big Union is an idea originating in the late 19th and early 20th centuries amongst trade unionists to unite the interests of workers and offer solutions to all labour problems.
As capitalist enterprises and state bureaucracies became more centralized and larger, some workers felt that their institutions needed to become similarly large.
In the 1911 pamphlet One Big Union, IWW supporters Thomas J. Hagerty and William Trautmann enumerated two goals: One Big Union needed to "combine the wage-workers in such a way that it can most successfully fight the battles and protect the interests of the workers of today in their struggles for fewer hours of toil, more wages and better conditions," and it also "must offer a final solution of the labor problem – an emancipation from strikes, injunctions, bull-pens, and scabbing of one against the other.
"[11] In North America, the most significant early impetus for the One Big Union concept came from the Western Federation of Miners (WFM) which was headquartered in Denver, Colorado.
The WLU's rebranding in 1902 as the American Labor Union (ALU)[12] was a direct response to actions by (AFL) President Samuel Gompers.
[19] Members of the WFM "... saw no advantage to huddling within their traditional crafts; they sought to mobilize all workers across a given industry to confront employers – and governments – with their aggregate clout.
With little stake in the status quo, they invested their faith in sweeping political programs to remedy the grim conditions in which they worked and lived.
[21] The IWW organized in the United States, Canada, Australia, and other countries, employed creative tactics, and advocated the general strike as a favourite method for workers to gain control of industries.
The revolutionary character of the OBU can be appreciated from a statement by the Brotherhood of Metal Workers' Industrial Union, a 1909 offshoot of the International Association of Machinists.
In 1919, this organization published the following, The workers, not only of America, but of all countries, are determined to get the full value of the price they paid and will yet pay.
[24] The Journeymen Bakers' and Confectioners' International Union of America (JBCIUA) came under suspicion for hosting a delegation of the IWW, and for forming a committee to explore a merger with the IFWHRLC.
[25] Investigators concluded that such events confirmed "the organization of One Big Union along I. W. W. lines to control all the workers in the food industry in this state, as well as in the greater part of the country.
[31] That Australian workers' organization went beyond industrial unionism to advocate the abolition of private ownership of the means of production.
[32] Because of recent history in Western Canada, an increasing acceptance of industrial unionism accompanied a growing appreciation of the general strike, and the need for an OBU to call it.
Lodges, trades councils, and provincial federations withdrew from their international organizations, and joined the OBU, culminating in a membership of nearly fifty thousand the first year.
This incarnation of the OBU movement was also attacked by mainstream labour, in the person of John L. Lewis[29] and other AFL officials.
So obvious was the current of thought that the Calgary Herald of Sept. 6th struck a warning note: "There is an element in Western Canada that is somewhat akin to the I.W.W.
of Canada or their imitators, beware lest the strong hand of the law does not stretch out and grasp them as it has their friends on the other side of the 49th parallel.
[41] In 1917, George Beeby, the labour minister for the New South Wales government, said in a speech, ... an important conference of Trade Unionists was held in Sydney to further the idea of one big union.
The men responsible for that gathering openly said that their object was to get the Unionists formed into a one big union organisation which, at any time, by the proclamation of a general strike, could stop all production and transport, and force from any government in office whatever concessions were demanded. ...
[42] An organization called the One Big Union Propaganda League (OBUPL) was formed in Brisbane on 10 September 1918, growing out of former IWW strongholds in the north.
[43] With help from IWW members, the OBUPL gained considerable support from the rank and file of craft unions, emphasizing job control and bottom-up organizing.
"[52] The change was intended to "check the spread of general strike sentiment and prevent recurrences of what happened at Seattle and is now going on at Winnipeg.
[54] In June 1919, the UMW revoked the charter of District 18, which included Alberta and British Columbia, for joining the OBU.
With One Big Union seen as the greater threat, employers agreed to require UMW membership on the part of all employees in and around the mines.
Bulletin for 23 October 1920 reported that the UMW had thirteen such injunctions issued, and had set aside a million dollars to fight the OBU.
"[55] The OBU felt particularly angry that the UMW invoked the aid of both the employers and a "ruthless capitalist government" in order to crush a rival union organization.
The OBU idea became popular in Australia at a time when some syndicalist-leaning labour leaders had started moving toward communism.
seeks to masquerade under the guise of industrial unionism while organized on a territorial plane, without sound foundations and building from the top down".
[59] The Industrial Union News also criticized the Canadian OBU for not providing for elections of officials by the entire membership.
