The 'Industrial Mendicant' and the Fight for Union Solidarity
A 1909 editorial lambasts workers who accept union-won raises while refusing to pay dues or support the organization.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
In a recent strike by women, the purpose was to secure an increase of wages from $8 to $10 per week. Several young women involved were conversing on the subject in a streetcar. The main idea of this group was how to secure the raise in wages and at the same time avoid paying dues to the union. To secure a raise in wages through a union and then refuse to support the union that secured the raise is not new, but this is the first time the writer ever knew of a plan being concocted to avoid all obligations to the union even before the raise had been secured. A wage earner who tries through a union to get advanced wages and who avoids giving anything to the union in return may properly be termed an 'industrial mendicant.' These industrial mendicants are very largely responsible for the fluctuations in the membership of trades unions. If all the wage earners who ever joined the unions remained true members, labor would be nearly completely organized. The industrial mendicants have made an unenviable record of being in and out of all unions many times, but loyal to none.
“A wage earner who tries through a union to get advanced wages and who avoids giving anything to the union in return may properly be termed an industrial mendicant.”
This piece highlights the perennial struggle of labor organizers to maintain membership levels against the 'free rider' problem. Even in 1909, the tension between individual self-interest and the collective strength of organized labor was a central theme in Everett's industrial landscape.
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