Our attitude towards the
non-union laborer must be determined by our opinion of the results of
his economic action. In the majority of discussions of the labor
question the non-union laborer is figured as the independent working man
who is asserting his right to labor when and how he prefers against the
tyranny of the labor union. One of the most intelligent political and
social thinkers in our country has gone so far as to describe them as
industrial heroes, who are fighting the battle of individual
independence against the army of class oppression. Neither is this
estimate of the non-union laborer wholly without foundation. The
organization and policy of the contemporary labor union being what they
are, cases will occasionally and even frequently occur in which the
non-union laborer will represent the protest of an individual against
injurious restrictions imposed by the union upon his opportunities and
his work. But such cases are rare compared to the much larger number of
instances in which the non-union laborer is to be considered as
essentially the individual industrial derelict.
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