Page:William Ernst Trautmann - Industrial Unionism (1908).djvu/10

What an army of workers, if well organized on right lines and trained in the adoption of more effective methods, can accomplish was best demonstrated in the many irritation-strikes, notably so in Odessa and Lodz, Russia; but also frequently in the United States. In Lodz the textile workers, organized without distinction of crafts, ceased to work in the big factories of Poznansky's, Scheibler's and Geier's first, and they were followed immediately by the thousands of comrades in hundreds of other factories in the Pietrikow district. Approximately 80,000 workers could successfully carry on the conflict for many weeks without any visible means to support the strikers.

At a given hour, on a fixed day, all workers would suspend work Suddenly, stay out for a week and see the manufacturers make all kinds of preparations to break the strike, even with the aid of troops subjected to their orders by consent of the government authorities. And as spontaneously as the workers ceased to work they would return to their posts after a week or ten days' suspension; acting as if nothing at all had happened. The manufacturers, thinking that all trouble had blown over, would start to run the factories full blast, to make up for time lost, until again, at a moment's notice, every soul would walk out again, only to re-