Cement Masons Local Union 600

Patrick D. Finley

What is Unionism?

A trade union is like a bank. If you expect to get anything out of it you must put something into it. No union can honor the drafts of a member on its support, its confidence and its moral backing unless that member gives to the union his support.

The union run on any other principle goes bankrupt. The blindness of many men to these elementary principles accounts for the weakness of many locals and for the indifference of many who are or have been nominally union men. These men want to reverse all the laws of nature and of business keep getting forever and to give never. They want the union to stand by them in their demands, to assist them in sickness and to defend them in difficulties and when the union fails to do this they never stop to ask whether they are entitled from what they have put into the union to the help they ask at its hands.

If you wish the maximum return on your investment in organized labor, choose that investment wisely in all its parts. Give it your financial help-not grudgingly when your card is due, but gladly and generously when it must make a special appeal. Give it your moral support always-not as though its officers were seeking to take an unfair advantage of their position, but freely and frankly, as fellow craftsmen. Give it constantly encouragement-not merely on the floor of the meeting room, but in the shop, theater and among non-union men.

The poorest advertising organized labor gets is from its dissatisfied members. Give your union your presence and your counsel — not alone when the delegates to the Convention are chosen or the little "Plums" are awarded, but in the transaction of all its business. There are few "Plums" in the labor movement, as any officer of any local will tell you, but it is hard to make the rank and file believe this.

Give the union the same loyal faith you give your wife or your church, remembering that to some men you are a mirror of organized labor and that labor will be judged by you. The man who has not faith in a brotherhood to which he belongs is potentially a traitor to it.