i. e., a skilled trade, as marking them off from the unskilled mass.
The trade unions were formed really in defense of the property of the particular craft in which the associated members claimed special skill. The protection is two-fold. First, against the employer, and seeks to regulate the wages and hours in the special craft, to make special arrangements with respect to the conduct of business, sanitary conditions, lighting, method of collecting wages and a host of other matters which necessarily arise in the course of the production of commodities. Second, against the unskilled mass on the outside, by the regulation of apprenticeships, both as to number and duration, the imposition of a high initiation fee, and the payment of a comparatively large sum as dues. Besides in some of the more highly specialized organizations there has always been a marked tendency to crowd out competitors even in the ranks of the unions themselves, so as to give the remainder a better hold on the jobs—in other words, greater security of property.
Protection at the hands of the employers has been sought by entering into contracts for the security of the union position during an agreed period of time, and, in the case of the more highly specialized unions, frequent conferences and gentlemen's agreements have taken place in order to prevent the outbreak of hostilities and the declaration of strikes and lockouts.
In all this it will be noted there is no approach to that revolutionary attitude on the part of the proletariat predicted by Marx; on the contrary, there is no sign of proletarianism here at all. The laborer comes on the scene, not as a proletarian, but as the possessor of a specific property, to-wit: specialized skill. This property he has more or less protected by cornering the market, and he offers this property for hire or sale just as the employer offers his property. In fact, there is a labor market and there can be no labor market without the existence of objects of exchange, that is property on both sides.
