ABSTRACT
Labor banks were originated as a means of defense against non-labor banks. The first labor bank was organized by the Machinists at Washington in 1919, mainly to strengthen the unions in their wage-struggle— and that remains to-day a primary object of every labor-union bank. Investigation has disclosed the fact that in a number of cities banking institutions have used their banking facilities to compel employers to assume an attitude toward trade unions which would weaken if not destroy the organizations of the wage-earners. Labor regards the labor banks as a mobilization of the capital of wage-earners— a mobilization of capital corresponding to the mobilization of labor in the unions. Organized labor is not tempted from its course by the new corporation policies, no matter how sincere they may be nor how carefully worked out by employers and their experts nor how beneficial in some ways.
