Employer Reaction
Employers have rarely failed to notice divisions or disputes among labor unions, and in 1912 The American Employer contracted for and gleefully reproduced a cartoon depicting the labor scene chaos of the period. Curiously, the Detroit IWW (which had been expelled from the Chicago IWW four years earlier, and would soon change its name to the Workers' International Industrial Union) editorialized that the cartoon was accurate from an industrial unionism point of view, stating (according to The American Employer),
"The labor movement of America at the present time could not have more aptly portrayed.
"Moyer is here seen following Haywood with a knife. Haywood is shown using sabotage on Samuel Gompers. The Amalgamated Society of Carpenters and Joiners are also after Sammy, as the Executive Council of the American Federation of Labor, revoked their charter. The two factions of the popularly supposed defunct K. of L. are busy soaking each other while the Detroit I. W. W. lands a right swing to the jaw of the Chicago bogus outfit. Standing aloof from the general melee are the various Railway Brotherhoods, aloof not only from the organizations and from the combatants, but aloof from each other, as the various strikes on the railroads have shown."
Read more about this topic: Labor Federation Competition In The United States
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