Page:One Big Union of All the Workers the Greatest Thing on Earth (ca 1919, Chicago).pdf/12

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10
ONE BIG UNION

and equal duties also, with all others in the management of the industry in which he or she serves in the process of production.

But the other purpose, equally important, is to organize the workers in such a way that all the members of the organization in any one industry, or in all industries if necessary, cease work whenever a strike or lockout is on in any department thereof, thus making the injury to one the injury to all.

Of course, this can only be accomplished when the workers organize on industrial lines. That is to say, the workers of any one plant or industry must be members of one and the same organization—no craft division lines. The capitalist institutions are today organized on exactly the same lines. The industries as they are grouped today, dovetailing into each other, furnish to the workers the basis for the construction of their organization for the struggles of today for better living conditions, and for the supervision and the management of industries in an industrial commonwealth of workers and producers.

DISTRIBUTION OF PRODUCTS IS PART OF PRODUCTION.

All natural resources of the soil, mines and water receive their first value when labor is applied to turn the products into useful things.

But all of these products have more social value when they are transported to places of manufacture and commerce, where they are transformed and converted into commodities for exchange.

The life of human beings will not consist of common drudgery alone when all the good things created are enjoyed by the workers.

For all purposes, present and the future, the functions of the public service institutions have to be defined, and people engaged in their maintenance must