Amalgamation

“Amalgamation” argues that the principal weakness of the American labor movement is its fragmentation by craft (trade) unions, which limits the workers’ collective power. Fox contends that the path forward requires the amalgamation (bringing together) of existing unions into industrial unions (one union per industry) rather than maintaining separate craft unions or forming rival unions. He writes that the class struggle is inevitable under capitalism, and the workers’ strategy should be to reorganize their institutions (the unions) to match the realities of industrial production—rather than remain stuck in older trade-craft models.