Status of the American Labor Movement

Report Outline
The Problem of Trade Union Organization
Post-War Obstacles to Trade Union Expansion
Post-War Policies of American Trade Unionism
Present Signs of Increasing Militancy
Special Focus

When the American Federation of Labor meets at Toronto, Canada, October 7, for its forty-ninth annual convention, the matter of ohief interest to the delegates will be the progress made during the last year in the Federation's campaign of trade union organization. At the 1928 convention at New Orleans a program to “double union membership” during the ensuing twelve months was adopted. Reports to be submitted to the Toronto convention will show an increase in paid-up membership during the year from 2,896,063 to 2,933,545.

The aim to double union membership has fallen far short of achievement, and little or no progress can be reported in organizing workers in such basic industries as automobiles, iron and steel, and electrical goods. The United Mine Workers, for long the largest single union in the Federation., meanwhile, has suffered severe losses in membership as a result of its final defeat in the protracted bituminous strike that began in 1927. On the whole, it does not appear that the cause of labor organization has been greatly advanced since the double-union-membership program was adopted.

New Injunction Policy of the A. F. of L.

Closely connected with the dominating problem of organization is the question of injunctions in labor disputes, for the extensive issuance of restraining orders by federal and state courts has seriously hampered the organization efforts and strike activities of trade unions. A new program for limitation of the use of injunctions was planned by the Executive Council of the A. F. of L. at its quarterly meeting at Atlantic City in August, and will be presented for the approval of the Toronto convention. President Green has announced that the Council proposes to have introduced at the December session of Congress a new bill “to regulate and limit” the use of injunctions in labor disputes, instead of prohibiting the issuance of injunctions altogether except for the protection of “tangible and transferable property,” as had been proposed in the Shipstead bill heretofore advocated by the Federation.