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From New Militant, Vol. II No. 2, 11 January 1936, pp. 1 & 4.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for the Encyclopaedia of Trotskyism On-Line (ETOL).
The convention held in Pittsburgh last week of federal local unions, representing about 50,000 workers in radio and refrigeration manufacture, decided to demand from the A.F. of L. Executive Council that it be given an international charter guaranteeing the industrial form of organization. The delegates assembled apparently had no difficulty in making up their minds on this question. At the same time it is reported, that the delegates also decided to align themselves with the aims of the Committee for Industrial Organization, headed by John L. Lewis.
Both of these decisions are important and indicative of the present trends in the trade union movement. Once again they prove that under modern industrial conditions the most elementary questions of union organization bring forward from the outset the disputed progressive issues. They are not injected artificially. They grow out of the problems that arise and and thereby become necessary measures for the movement to adopt. Once the trends, now beginning to take form around the progressive issues, get to a solid basis they can be expected to sweep the trade union movement like a prairie-fire.
Like the unions in other mass production industries the federal locals in radio and refrigeration manufacture found their first real obstacle to organization in the multiple jurisdictional claims advanced by various craft unions. Building on that foundation would simply mean no real progress in organization, not to speak at all of offering serious resistance to the powerful employers’ corporation. These federal locals learned by their own experience that only the industrial form of organization could provide an effective union.
On the other hand, the decision of the delegates from these federal locals to align themselves with the aims of the Committee for Industrial Organization, shows that the emergence of the Lewis bloc of “progressives” is becoming the stimulus for a genuine movement. A necessary critical attitude to the Lewis’ bloc must at all times take this into account.
Due to this stimulus already given to the progressive trends the bureaucratic trade union top officials are in a dilemma. Even the questions that they settled at the recent A.F. of L. convention are returning to plague them. The demand from the federal locals in radio manufacture is to come before the Executive Council meeting in Miami, Florida, this month.
Naturally Green-Woll and company fear such demands. These demands come into conflict with the vested interests of the craft union officials and to give way to them will undoubtedly mean to strengthen the opponents. At the same time the failure to react to the most elementary needs of union organization only increases the struggle for the progressive measures.
Among the organized automobile workers the struggle now goes on in the somewhat concealed form of sparring for positions. In the maritime unions it is already an open clash and in the Northwest the attempts to purge the unions have so far resulted in a complete rout of the reactionary forces.
There need be no doubt that the movement for amalgamation of the three independent automobile workers’ unions, the Associated Automobile Workers, the Automotive Industrial Workers Association and the M.E.S.A., has been greatly stimulated by the developments in the A.F. of L. The amalgamation is not yet completed. Negotiations with A.F. of L. representatives have not yet brought positive results due, in the main, to the reactionary and specific craft union obstacles thrown in the way by the latter. There are not yet any tangible signs of direct intervention by the Lewis bloc to make good on its professed claim to promote the organization of the mass production industries on an industrial basis. But one small indication of which way the wind is blowing is afforded by the meeting projected for Lewis to address the auto workers’ unions in Cleveland. The Cleveland Federation of Labor has gone on record to endorse this meeting. Here is the first concrete sign of the trade union movement of one city being pressed in the direction of support of progressive issues, at least to the extent of supporting what appears to be a step toward industrial unionism.
In the New England states, due undoubtedly also to the stimulus of general developments in the A.F. of L., the progressive trends are in the ascendancy. The Boston C.L.U. is undertaking to establish a forum to discuss industrial unionism versus craft unionism. This, however, is climaxed by the recent elections of officers in the New Haven Central Labor Council. The progressive slate won in the contest for almost every office. And the candidates made the run on a progressive program containing such points as: trade union democracy, industrial unionism, independent political action by labor, and the organization of the unorganised.
Everywhere these developments denote the sharpening conflict between the progressive tendencies and the outright reactionary forces. As said before, in the maritime unions this is already an open clash.
Centering around the question of the Maritime Federation, taking in all the unions operating in the marine industry, which was organized some time ago on the Pacific Coast, the clash is avowedly an assault by the whole of the bureaucratic officialdom, particularly in the seamen’s and longshoremen’s international unions, upon the militants of the Pacific Coast. The issues have become clear cut. The international officials plead for the enforcement of the contracts with the ship owners, charging the Maritime Federation with violation of these contracts. But they are particularly alarmed at the spreading of the idea of a maritime federation. On the Gulf Coast, where the longshoremen and other maritime unions have conducted a protracted but vigorous strike, plans for the setting up of such a federation have gained considerable support. These plans are to be given further consideration at a conference to be held this month by the unions of the Gulf ports.
Of course, the setting up of a maritime federation does not mean a change to an industrial form of organization. But it is a distinctly progressive step, particularly in view of the fact that it serves to coordinate the actions of the unions in this field; it serves to strengthen their feeling of solidarity and gives a much better opportunity for the local union progressive forces to assert their leadership. The international officials look upon this as an obvious and serious threat to their positions and they have declared war on the whole idea of a maritime federation, while this is not aimed directly at the official “progressive” bloc headed by John L. Lewis, it is, in the light of general developments, definitely a part of the conflict between the reactionary and the progressive tendencies.
The trend that gravitates in the direction of a uniform progressive movement is now showing some unmistakable signs. It is equally clear that the Lewis bloc provides an important stimulus in this direction. This does not mean that this bloc should be accepted uncritically as the already established authentic leadership to which the progressive movement must be subordinated. A good example of how not to approach this question is the attitude of a blanket endorsement given to this bloc by the Stalinists, adding only the plea that Lewis go on record for a labor party. However, the political position of Lewis is already very clearly expressed in his proposal to the recent anthracite miners’ convention to get “100 percent behind President Roosevelt and his policies.”
Leaving all other considerations aside, it is, of course, impossible to accept the supporters of Roosevelt’s policies as leaders of a real progressive movement in the trade unions. Much is yet to be done toward the building up of this movement. But the important thing is to utilize every opportunity. The first step should be for the militants to get into the stream that is now in motion in the direction of progressive organization.
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