Labor Day, 2019

Today is Labor Day. We remember all work: wage earners, independent contractors, entrepreneurs, managers, clergy, and non-profit semi-volunteers. Work is done under a variety of organizations: unions, professional, and none at all. There are multiple paths to success and multiple ways to measure it.

Let’s consider this analysis reprinted from History of Trade Unionism published in 1920.

from Chapter 8, The Trade Union World (1890-1894)
By Sydney and Beatrice Webb

The Trade Union world was, therefore, in 1892, in the main composed of skilled craftsmen working in densely populated districts, where industry was conducted on a large scale. About one-half of the members belonged to the three staple trades of coalmining, cotton manufacture, and engineering, whilst the labourers and the women workers were, at this date, on the whole, non-Unionists.

But the influence of Trade Unionism on working-class life cannot be measured by the numbers actually contributing to the Union funds at any one time. Among the non-Unionists in the skilled trades a large proportion have at one time or another belonged to their societies. Though they have let their membership lapse for one reason or another, they follow the lead of the Union, and are mostly ready, on the slightest encouragement from its members, or improvement in their own position, to rejoin an organization to which in spirit they still belong. In the Labour Unions the instability of employment and the constant shifting of residence caused the organization, in 1892, to resemble a sieve, through which a perpetual stream of members was flowing, a small proportion only remaining attached for any length of time. These lapsed members constitute in some sense a volunteer force of Trade Unionism ready to fight side by side with their old comrades, provided that means can be found for their support. Moreover, the Trade Unionists not only belong to the most highly-skilled and best-paid industries, but they include, as a general rule, the picked men in each trade. The moral and intellectual influence which they exercise on the rest of their class is, therefore, out of all proportion to their numbers. In their ranks are found, in almost every industrial center, all the prominent leaders of working-class opinion. They supply the directors of the co-operative stores, the administrators of clubs and friendly societies, and the working-class representatives on Parish, District, and Town Councils. Finally, we may observe that the small but rapidly increasing class of working-men politicians invariably consists of men who are members of a trade society. We may safely assert that, even in 1892, no one but a staunch Trade Unionist would have had any chance of being returned as a working-class member to the House of Commons or elected to a local governing body as a Labour representative.

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