One, for instance, may be the financier,
another the strike agent, another the organizer, another the
agitator. With such a group of virtual specialists around a
chieftain, a union has the immense advantage of centralized
command and of highly organized leadership. The tendency,
especially among the more conservative unions, is to reelect
these officers year after year. The president of the Carpenters'
Union held his office for twenty years, and John Mitchell served
the miners as president ten years. Under the immediate
supervision of the president, an executive board composed of all
the officers guides the destinies of the union. When this board
is not occupied with the relations of the men to their
employers, it gives its judicial consideration to the more
delicate and more difficult questions of inter-union comity and
of local differences.
The local union is the oldest labor organization, and a few
existing locals can trace their origin as far back as the decade
preceding the Civil War. Many more antedate the organization of
the Federation. Not a few of these almost historic local unions
have refused to surrender their complete independence by
affiliating with those of recent origin, but they have remained
merely isolated independent locals with very little general
influence. The vast majority of local unions are members of the
national trades union and of the Federation.
The local union is the place where the laborer comes into direct
personal contact with this powerful entity that has become such a
factor in his daily life.
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