" In 1912
the American Federation of Labor sanctioned a plan for including
in one organization all the workers in the lumber industry, both
skilled and unskilled. This is a far cry from the minute trade
autocracy taught by the orthodox unionist thirty years ago.
Today the Federation of Labor is one of the most imposing
organizations in the social system of America. It reaches the
workers in every trade. Every contributor to the physical
necessities of our materialistic civilization has felt the
far-reaching influence of confederated power. A sense of its
strength pervades the Federation. Like a healthy, self-conscious
giant, it stalks apace among our national organizations. Through
its cautious yet pronounced policy, through its seeking after
definite results and excluding all economic vagaries, it bids
fair to overcome the disputes that disturb it from within and the
onslaughts of Socialism and of Bolshevism that threaten it from
without.
CHAPTER VI. THE TRADE UNION
The trade union* forms the foundation upon which the whole
edifice of the American Federation of Labor is built. Like the
Federation, each particular trade union has a tripartite
structure: there is first the national body called the Union, the
International, the General Union, or the Grand Lodge; there is
secondly the district division or council, which is merely a
convenient general union in miniature; and finally there is the
local individual union, usually called "the local.
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