[ad. F. syndicalisme, f. syndical: see prec. and -ISM.] A movement among industrial workers having as its object the transfer of the means of production and distribution from their present owners to unions of workers for the benefit of the workers, the method generally favored for the accomplishment of this being the general strike.
See Sir A. Clay, Syndicalism & Labour, 1911; A. W. Kirkaldy, Economics & Syndicalism, 1914.
1906. Boston Evening Transcript, 14 April, 32/4. Of late years she [Madame Sorgues] has thrown in her lot with the National Federation of Work, which advocates ‘revolutionary syndicalism.’ That is to say, it opposes that trades unionism which seeks to obtain merely immediate material improvements, and in general is against parliamentary representation.
1907. Contemp. Rev., June, 778. ‘Syndicalism’ has a bad odour with the ‘respectable’ artisan.
1912. J. H. Harley, in Contemp. Rev., March, 342. Syndicalism, open or baptised under the name of Industrial Unionism, is one of the unsettling influences in the world of workers.
So Syndicalist [F. syndicaliste], an adherent or advocate of syndicalism. Also attrib.
1907. Nation, 23 Nov., 259/1. The Syndicalists urged a general strike, not only of the railways, but of all workmen, thus hoping to throw the whole country into anarchy.
1907. S. Dewey, in Atlantic Monthly, Aug., 276/2. The Syndicalist movement—a sort of revolutionary, as distinguished from political, trade-unionism.
1911. G. B. Shaw, in Times, 24 Oct., 9/6. The most dangerous rivals of the Parliamentary Labour Parties in France and England just now are the Syndicalists.
