Page:William Ernst Trautmann - Industrial Unionism (1908).djvu/25

decided at once to cut the shovels half an inch, and work with these cut shovels, which they did; and, with the protestation, "Short pay, short shovels," they forced the contractors to restore the former wages. These and similar methods are known under the compound name "Sabotage."

On the same lines was the eight-hour movement conducted in France in 1907. The workers in the different industries where industrial organizations had been formed would quit their jobs after a day's shift of eight hours, and resume work every morning, only to quit every, day after eight hours' work was done; thus forcing ultimately a large percentage of employers to grant the eight-hour day as a universal workday for all workers in the plants or industries where these passive-action methods had been resorted to.

The General Strike as a means to demonstrate the power of organized discontent is an excellent method, if carried on on the principle that the workers should not necessarily abandon for any length of time their places of employment. A general strike, presupposes that the propaganda for redress of actual wrongs perpetrated by the capitalists and their agencies has aroused sufficient wage earners to join in a compact, demonstrative movement, the cli-