MIDDLE CLASSES

Evening Post, Volume XCVII, Issue 103, 3 May 1919, Page 11

MIDDLE CLASSES

ORGANISING OF WORKERS.

A very interesting development of the Trado Union movement a3 applied to middle-clasa workers, or perhaps it should bo reckoned . a reaction against Trade Unionism, has taken substantial form in tho London Professional Workers' Federation. Established in May last, it now comprises a number of well-organised professional bodies, including the National Union of Teachers, the Incorporated Association of Assistant Masters, the Association of Assistant Mistresses, tho Customs and Excise Federation, the Second Division Clerks'"Federation, tho Tax Clerks' Association, tho Federation of Women Civil Servants, the London County Council Staff Association, and kindred organisations, which represent in all 174,000 workers never before jointly organised to protect their special interests as citizens and consumers.

A 'trade union for members of tho profession has just been formed. The title chosen for it is "The Medico-Political Union."

"It was once the boast, of the middle classes that they wore tho backbone of tho country," says a London weekly in commenting on the movement as outlined above. "They now see themselves,, as it were, between tho nether and the upper millstones.

Tho middle classes complain little. They suffer, as a rule, in silence. Thb burdens of taxation are pressing moro and more heavily upon them, and they do not know whereto look for relief. Tfiey have ambitions that can never now be realised. They saved to give their children tho best education. They find they can no longer do so.

No State party cares for- them, as their votes do not detormine elections, although their_ public service is proportionate to their number more self-denying and constant than that of any class. Somehow they have been incapable of organising themselves, but the time is coming when they must do this in order to roceive justice from the State and the "working classes!!'!'!