NEWS

CONSTITUTION OF THE NATIONAL

BROTHERHOOD OF ELECTRICAL WORKERS

PREAMBLE 1891

In this great age of inventions men are so apt to be dazed by the material splendor which surrounds them that they forget the wage-worker, whose labor has produced it, and as a consequence the men who have placed our country foremost in material and intellectual progress are today poorer than ever before. And in this respect none have suffered more than the Electrical Workers. The men who carried the telegraph lines from ocean to ocean, who wove the web of telephone wires in every city and town, who erected the lights that transformed night into day, who constructed the machines and instruments by which this has been accomplished, who risk their lives daily that the community may have light, news, easy communication and protection, have been reduced year by year from their rightful position among mechanics, both in wages and social standing, they are Lower than any other trade requiring no greater amount of skill and manual effort, and for want of a strict apprentice system the trade literally swarms with unskilled men. While everywhere in the blind senseless competition for work, cheapness has almost become the prevalent rule, to the detriment alike of employers and journeymen, to the injury and danger of the public, and to the ruin and degradation of our trade.

Therefore, we, the Electrical Workers of America, in convention assembled, having seen the necessity of a thorough organization of our trade, and believing that a common cause and universal sympathy should exist among all Electrical Workers, have formed this National Brotherhood, having for its object the elevation of our social and moral standing, not only among other branches of industry, but in the community at large, and the advancement of material interests of our craft, believing as we do, that it will serve our employers, while it also elevates our condition.

We earnestly invite all men belonging to our trade to come forward, join our ranks and help increase our number, until such time there shall be no man working at our trade outside our Brotherhood, and as eternal vigilance is the price of liberty, so is a close attention to the duties of our Brotherhood the protection of our natural interests, a duty all the more compulsory on us, as our standing among our fellow mechanics demands that we shall not be backward in bringing our trade to an equal standing with any other in the land. And we know of no means to accomplish this than by organization. Therefore it is the imperative duty of every Electrical Worker to do all in his power to organize the men of his craft, and thus place ourselves in the material, social and moral position the dignity of our trade entitles us to.