Note 138 — Part III GROUP ORGANIZATION DEMOCRACY’S METHOD (continued 3)

Yet perhaps the trade-union has been one of the truest groups, one of the most effective teachers of genuine group lessons which we have yet seen. Increased wages, improved conditions, are always for the group. The trade-unionist feels group-wants; he seeks to satisfy these through group action. Moreover the terms of a collective bargain cannot be enforced without a certain amount of group solidarity. In strikes workmen often sacrifice their own interests for what will benefit the union: the individual—I may prefer his present wages to the privations of a strike; the group-I wants to raise the wages of the whole union.