United States’ Labour Troubles

Northern Advocate, 20 November 1941, Page 4

United States’ Labour Troubles

A DISTURBING feature of American news during recent weeks has been the frequency with which labour troubles have been reported. Strikes and threats of strikes have made a bad set-off to encouraging news of American determination to do everything possible to increase aid to Britain in the war against Hitlerism.

It was consequently cheering to read yesterday that the Congress of Industrial Workers, in convention at Detroit, greeted wth a thunderous ovation a motion for all-out support for president Roosevelt’s aid to Britain policy. No one, we are told, rose to challenge the motion, which was declared carried unanimously, though one delegate, representing the United Mineworkers’ Association, remained seated. The president seemed to voice the feeling of the delegates when he appealed for unity because “this problem transcends in importance any other before this convention.”

President Roosevelt made a fine appeal when he repeated portion of the message he addressed to the American Federation of Labour Convention- held recently. He said that “American labour organisations today have a great responsibility. Enslaved workers all over the world look to their American brothers for the production of weapons which will make them free again. American workers cannot and must not fail them in their hour of need, and our hour of need.”

The attitude of the Congress of Industrial Organisation is indeed welcome. It suggests that, despite the undoubted peril arising from strike threats today, the workers of America are being led in the right direction, for the Federation of Labour has already demonstrated its policy of all aid for Britain.

The direction of labour in the United States has been hindered by the existence of two controlling bodies, and the fact that the workers have not taken keen interest in their own affairs, leaving their wellbeing in the hands of leaders who have been actuated by divergent motives. Furthermore, it may be stated, only one out of every four American workers is a unionist. This apathy of the American worker largely explains the bitter hatred and rivalry between the two union organisations in the United States—the senior American Federation of Labour and the militant Congress of Industrial Organisation, which is an off-shoot of the Federation, from which it broke away some years ago. During the past six years earnest effort has been made to unite the two organisations, hut all in vain. Mr. William Green, a moderate man, but now aged, is president of the A.F.L., and Mr. Philip Murray, an English-born American, is president of the C. 1.0., having succeeded Mr. J. L. Lewis, who is an out-and-out opponent of President Roosevelt and Britain, and has lately been trying to get back into the. leadership he relinquished. Mr. Green has a clean record, but it is stated that many of his A.F.L. “bosses” are convicted criminals. Mr. Murray is not a Communist, but some of his C. 1.0. bosses are. It will therefore be realised that there are distinct differences of outlook on the part of the two organisations, hut it is held with some justification that commonsense and the suppression of jealousy and ambition on the part of the leaders would make it possible for the two opposing bodies to compose their differences and consolidate American workers.

Both the C. 1.0. and the A.F.L. claim 4,000,000 unionist members, but the C. 1.0. is said to be pushing ahead far more ruthlessly, vigorously and determinedly than the AiF.L. Its resolution passed yesterday is therefore the more significant. The C. 1.0. has succeeded in organising the rubber and textile industries, United States Steel, Chrysler, Ford and General Motors, all of which had been openly contemptuous of the A.F.L. before Mr. Lewis led the revolt in 1935 which culminated in the establishment of the C. 1.0.

Richard Hughes, who recently returned to Australia after a six months’ tour of investigation in the United States, told the Sydney “Daily Telegraph” that a responsible, intelligent and union-minded rank and file would end the present disunity and violent rivalry, if it had the will and resolution to do so, but nobody cares enough to do anything about it. “Nor does any one care enough to do anything about getting rid of such crooks as ‘Umbrella Mike’ Boyle, who is still secretary of the Chicago Electrical Workers, although he is a gaolbii'd who notoriously collects ‘protection’ money from employers; or stout Brother Max Caldwell, who can’t explain at the moment just what happened to £284,375 belonging to his Chicago clerks’ union; or Brother Nick Stirone, who directed a brutal terrorist campaign to force Pennsylvania farmers to subsidise his road-building union. “In these incredible conditions, you tend to lose surprise at the further discovery, for instance, that Brother Joseph Moreschi, president of the A.F.L. Hod-carrier, Building and Common Labourers’ Union, was never elected to that proud office by union members, although he has collected dues from 200,000 members for 30 years without publishing any statement of what happened to the money. “Brother Moreschi appointed himself in 1911, and now kicks out elected branch officials as soon as they displease him. “The hod-carrying boys pay their £6 to £l6 initiation fee, and their £l6 a year in dues, and don’t seem to worry about it at all. . . ” Mr. Hughes says that he met many C. 1.0. organisers on the West Coast. Most of them were big, tough, two-fisted muscle men, who made no secret of the fact that the purpose of their visit to San Francisco or Los Angeles was to organise strikes and stir up trouble. “You gotta be tough,” was their simple creed, which they based on the contention that labour can get no redress unless it uses tough methods. Violence begets violence, and it is in consequence of this immutable principle that labour in the United States is led into action destructive to itself and to the employing class, and, if continued during a period of crisis such as America is passing through, may place itself in permanent chains. At the present time there is being waged a fierce war by labour to secure adoption of the principle of the “closed shop,” which provides for collective bargaining and preference to unionists in the allocation of employment. Mr. Wendell Willkie, evidently* believing that first things should come first, has urged the workers to delay their fight for the closed shop until the struggle to win the war has been completed, and he has contended that labour should be directly represented in the small group upon which is placed the responsibility for winning the war. It would seem, from the decision of the C. 1.0. conference, that Mr. Willkie’s advice has not fallen upon barren soil, and that there is reason to hope for wholehearted co-operation in fulfilling the United States’ desire to provide the utmost help in the task of defeating Hitlerism.