Section 7a of the Recovery Act granted a definite victory to the forces of organized labor in this country, but for a time it seemed that that victory would be an empty one. Labor took the first oportunity of embarrassing business, at the beginning of a slight industrial upturn, and through its usual obstinacy and arrogance, failed to gain its ends, but winning instead the general contempt of the country. This has been the usual trend of labor difficulties in recent years, but the failure is due to the men who have dominated the organizations, and not to the laboring men themselves.

For years the A.F. of L. has controlled the field of recognized labor unionism in this country, enjoying a little oligarchy of its own. The idea of horizontal or trade unions has dominated the Federation, since the days of Samuel Gompers, often with little regard to the welfare of many of the workers. Such organizations were groups of men of one trade or craft, forming small closed units of their own, often cooperating little with those associated with them. The men of the more skilled occupations formed an aristocracy of labor which had little relationship with the other workers in the same industry.

Now the American Federation sees that the economic set up has changed from that which existed at the time of its foundation. With the greatly increased division of labor in modern production, the number of skilled workers has become a definite minority of those engaged in industry. In view of these changes the Federation finally endorsed in its recent convention the idea of vertical unions for all the workers in each industry. This means more power to unionism in this country, but it may sound the death knell of the Federation unless it changes the tactics which it has employed in the past and adapts itself to the requirements of this new type of organization.

Section 7a opens a wide now field for labor organization, and the growth of vertical unionism will give much more potential power to such organizations. The Federation must meet these new conditions and new problems in a new spirit, for unless negotiations with industry are carried on with a different attitude than that which has marked recent strife, a long and bitter period of industrial warfare is in prospect.