Trade Union Structure
body of members. Whether the post to be filled be that of assistant secretary at the head office or distrijcf delegate to act for one part of the_counil3!:,Jli£LJCn^jnber have jealously- retained'Therji^pl^^^ent^in-jh^^ nri3ie-foger trade iooeties" of fhe^ present day^lHF genera secretary finds himself, therefore, at the head, not of a staff o) docile subordinates who owe office and promotion to himself, but of a number of separately elected functionaries, each holding his appointment directly from the members at large.' Any attempt at a personal dictatorship is thus quickly checked. There is more danger that friction and personal jealousies may unduly weaken the administration. But the usual outcome is the close union of all the salaried officials to conduct the business of the society in the way they think best. Instead of a personal dictatorship, we have, therefore, a closely combined and practically irresistible bureaucracy. ^ Under a constitution of this type the Trade Union may attain a high degree of efficiency. The United Society of Boilermakers and Ironshipbuilders (established 1832; membership in December 1896, 40,776) is, for instance, admittedly one of the most powerful and best conducted of English trade societies. For the last twenty years its career, alike in good times and bad, has been one of continuous prosperity. For many years past it has dominated all the shipbuilding ports, and it now includes practically every ironshipbuilder in the United Kingdom. As an insurance company it has succeeded in paying, even in the worst years of an industry subject to the most acute depressions, benefits of an unusually elaborate and generous character. Notwith- standing these liberal benefits, it has built up a reserve fund of no less than ;^ 175,560. Nor has this prosperity been
1 Even the office staff ha^jjaeen, until quite recently, invariably recruited by the members from the members ; and only in a few unions has it begun to be realised that a shorthand clerk or trained bookkeeper, chosen by the general ' secretary or the executive committee, can probably render better service at the desk than the most digible workman trained to manual labor. The OperatiTe Bricklayers' Society, however, lately allowed their executive oommittee to appoint a shorthand clerk.
Primitive Democracy 29
attained by any neglect of the militant side of Trade Unionism. The society, on the contrary, has the reputa- tion of exercising stricter control over the conditions of its members' work than any other union. In no trade, for instance, do we find a stricter and more universally enforced limitation of apprentices, or a more rigid refusal to work with non-unionists. And, as we have elsewhere described, no society has more successfully concluded and enforced elaborate national agreements applicable to every port in the kingdom. Moreover, this vigorous and successful trade policy has been consistent with a marked abstention from strikes—a fact due not only to the financial strength and perfect combination of the society, but also to the implicit obedience enforced upon its members, and the ample dis- ciplinary power vested in and exercised by the central executive.^
The efficiency and influence of this remarkable union is, no doubt, largely due to the advantageous strategic position which has resulted from the extraordinary expansion of iron- shipbuilding. It is interesting, however, to notice what a perfect example it affords of a constitution retaining all the features of the crudest democracy, but becoming, in actuak practice, a bureaucracy in which effective popular control has sunk to a minimum. The formal constitution of the Boiler- makers' Society still includes all the typical features of the early Trade Union. The executive government of this great national society is vested in a constantly changing committee, the members of which, elected by a single district, serve only for twelve months, and are then ineligible for re-election during three years. All the salaried officials are separately elected by the whole body of mepibers, and hold their posts only for a prescribed term of two to five years. Though provision is made for a delegate meeti«ag in case the society desires it, all the rules, including the rates of contribution and
1 See the enthusiastic description of this organisation in Zum Socialen Frieden (Leipzig, 1890), 2 vols., by Dr. G. von Schulze-Gaevemite, translated as Socio! Peace (London, 1893), pp. 239–243.
30 Trade Union Structure
benefit, can be altered by aggregate vote ; and even if a delegate meeting assembles, its amendments have to be submitted to the votes of the branches in mass meeting. Any branch, moreover, may insist that any proposition whatsoever shall be submitted to this same aggregate vote. The society, in short, still retains the form of a Trade Union democracy of the crudest type.
But although the executive committee, the branch meeting and the Referendum occupy the main body of the society's rules, the whole policy has long been directed and the whole administration conducted exclusively by an infor- mal cabinet of permanent officials which is unknown to the printed constitution. Twenty years ago the society had the good fortune to elect as general secretary, Mr. Robert Knight, a man of remarkable ability and strength of character, who has remained the permanent premier of this little kingdom. During his long reign, there has grown up around him a staff of younger officials, who, though severally elected on their individual merits, have been in no way able to compete with their chief for the members' allegiance. These district dele- gates are nominally elected only for a term of two years, just as the general secretary himself is elected only for a term of five years. But, for the reasons we have given elsewhere, all these officials enjoy a permanence of tenure practically equal to that of a judge. Mr. Knight's unquestioned superiority in Trade Union statesmanship, together with the invariable support of the executive committee, have enabled him to construct, out of the nominally independent district delegates, a virtual cabinet, alternately serving as councillors on high issues of policy and as ministers carrying out in their own spheres that which they have in council decided. From the written constitution of the society, we should suppose that it was from the evening meetings of the little Newcastle committee of working platers and rivetters that emanated all those national treaties and elaborate collective bargains with the associated employers that have excited the admiration of economic students. • But its unrepresentative character, the
Primitive Democracy 31
short term of service of its members and the practical rota- tion of office make it impossible for the constantly shifting executive committee to exercise any effective influence over even the ordinary routine business of so large a society. The complicated negotiations involved in national agreements are absolutely beyond its grasp. What actually happens is that, in any high issue of policy, Mr. Knight summons his district delegates to meet him in council at London or Manchester, to concert, and even to conduct, with him the weighty negotiations which the Newcastle executive formally endorses. And although the actual administration of the benefits is conducted by the branch committees, the absolute centralisa- tion of funds and the supreme disciplinary power vested in the executive committee make that committee, or rather the general secretary, as dominant in matters of finance as in trade policy. The only real opportunity for an effective' expression of the popular will comes to be the submission oT" questions to the aggregate vote of the branches in mass meeting assembled. It is needless to point out that a ' Referendum of this kind, submitted through the official circular in whatsoever terms the general secretary may choose, and backed by the influence of the permanent staff in every district, comes to be only a way of impressing the official view on the whole body of members. In effect^ the general secretary and his informal cabinet were, until the change of 1895, abs^ut elv supreme .^ ._
In the case of the Boilermakers, government by an informal cabinet of salaried officials has, up to the present time, been highly successful. It is, however, obvious that a less competent statesman than Mr. Knight would find great difficulty in welding into a united cabinet a body of district
1 In 1895, after this chapter was written, the constitution was changed, owing to the growing feeling of the members in London and some other towns, that their bureaucracy was, under the old forms, completely beyond their control. By the new rules the government is vested in a representative executive of seven salaried members, elected by the seven electoral districts into which the whole society is divided, for a term of three years,
