It has ceased to have fighting capacity because that for which it seeks to fight is already doomed.
A new form of organization is taking its place. This new form, called Industrial Unionism, implies more than the possession of a more effective weapon by the working class.
In fact the advent of industrial unionism brings us back to the fundamental Marxian thesis which was the starting point of our discussion.
III.
The new unionism is of necessity a revolutionary manifestation. This appears from an examination of its necessary structure.
It must include all the various kinds of labor required in a specific industry; labor of every kind which contributes to the production of the commodity for the making of which the industry exists; all the various factors which combine to form the marketable object.
By all the kinds of labor we do not mean merely all the crafts, but in addition factors which have been overlooked in the organization of crafts—factors which appear at each end of the productive apparatus—at the one end, clerks, salesmen, stenographers, telephone operators, telegraphers, and all the non-handworking staff which is essential to the practical handling of a great business, and at the other end the unskilled laborers who are equally essential but so far unorganized and unrecognized.
Both of these factors have been neglected by the trade union or rather have failed to come into the realm of operation of the union.
The former the union has so far been practically unable to affect, because, not being hand workers, they have looked down on the unions; the latter, the union has neglected because, not being craftsmen but merely unskilled hands, they have not been considered worthy of the recognition of the union.
