I Had a Typewriter

Abstract

There had long been an industrial-union minority in the AFL advocating to organize workers in mass-production industries, the skilled and unskilled together, and in the early 1930s they increased the pressure. But the old-guard craft union advocates held fast. The comments of John P. Frey, president of the AFL Metal Trades Department, were indicative of the views of many labor leaders: “To mingle highly skilled and lower skilled into one organization is as impractical as endeavoring to mix oil and water, for the oil will persistently seek the higher level.”¹