October 23, 1937 SOCIALIST APPEAL Pacific Sailors Fight More Locals Endorse To Preserve Militancy Chicago Convention Against Assaults he CIO AFL Unity (Continued from page 1) Desperate but futile efforts are on the party constitution and all being made by the LaGuardiathe principles of party democracy Socialists in control of the naby ignoring the demands of tional party machinery te halt party locals for referendums and the sweeping progress of the left By Glen Trimble a special convention to register wing. The expulsions of left SAN FRANCISCO. The recent decisions of the Sailors Union of the Pacific are the will of the party member wingers who refuse to betray ship. The Local decided to join their socialist principles for calculated to steer an independent and genuinely progressive course which may go far the other revolutionary socialist membership book in the Thomas to extricate west coast labor from the storm that has been precipitated by Stalinist organizations in endorsing the Tyler clique, continue throughout: CIO leadership and reactionary of counter attack.
call for the special convention. the country, without, however, First the Sailors have called a coastwise conference of seamen sailors, firemen active militants in the steel in tion or the activity of the mi. The Local is composed largely of affecting either the determinaand cooks and stewards to dustry and the steel workers litants.
meet October 15th for the organizations won majority sup agriculture is feeble and largely union.
Now, according to the Call, purpose of uniting the three port in every state federation unsuccessful. The standard motion Austin Hits Traitors Roy Burt, who has been in.
and almost every city and county in local Labor Councils (just seagoing crafts in a single council up and down the coast. prior to expulsion) is not one for charge of directing the work of union. Second, it has brought Even the ultra reactionary Los a drive to organize the millions Similar action has been taken, splitting the party, is leaving on the question of national af Angeles Labor Council could not of unorganized but one for a re by unanimous vote, in the Austin, a western tour in a hopelese filiation into the open by a in the face of the unassailability regardless of their national or which has been active in the ormuster a majority for expulsion ferendum of all organized locals, Minnesota, local of the party, effort to mend the broken fences the right wing. Starting with public statement of their of this program. unassailable international unions, on CIO or ganizing work of the packing Minneapolis And St. Paul, Burt.
own position and a demand because the program was actually of affiliation. While this house workers of that locality. is scheduled to tour through the on both the CIO and the AF of being practiced. Substantial pro blunt policy of local and craft raids Aline Ollman, Local Secretary, Northwest, returning by way of for a clear and unequivocal gress was made in organizing the has a thin democratic sugar reports the adoption of a reso California, Utah and Colorado public reply.
unorganized; the organized crafts coating, the democratic argument lution endorsing the call for an Virtually all the territory Third, the Sailors have strong with, they were gaining member increasing bureaucracy from top were not only not being interfered is given shocking rebuttal by the emergency party convention for plans to cover is solidly left wing.
purpose throwing out the Nobody can envy Burt the receply condemned, by unanimous vote. Ship, and strength as a result of to bottom of the West Coast Cio. traitors, determining the will of tion he is certain to get from the the tactics of both sides in the the general advance. No wonder, In this process the Lewis hench the party membership on all im Locals he intends to visit. practicurrent Teamster. Longshore then, that practically every West men, trained in the United Mine portant party problems and re cally all of which have already, men jurisdictional fight und Coast delegate to the 1936 Workers school of bureaucracy, establishing the party on the voted to attend the special conhave adopted a policy which will of convention was pro CIO and are outdone by the swarm of Sta: foundation of revolutionary 80 vention of the revolutionary 90leave us in a strong position to opposed to the Executive Council. linists who are gleefully carrying cialism.
cialists in Chicago.
help the rank and file workers This general trend involved in this dispute, and leave until about May of this year. The trade union field.
continued their adventurist game into the us free to act as a unifying force program and practice of CIO in the labor movement.
strengthened not only its own Bridges Line Fatal Spearhead of Militancy sive in both of and CIO position but that of all progresThe essence of present West The importance of these deci unions. Many reactionaries were Coast CIO policy under the West sions and their relation to the on the skids, others were forced Brophy Lewis appointed (Continued from page 1)
total west coast picture can be to whistle a progressive tune or Coast director, Harry Bridges, is stead of fighting organizations shown by sketching in the back maintain a cagey silence. Yet dual union war on the of fact that the active militants in concerned with defending the inground of that picture. Histor today the California State Fede leadership and membership in a the unions are faced with a job terests of the workers, they be ically the waterfront workers tation of Labor has just comp showdown struggle for power. that urgently calls for action. It come transformed, as in the case and, more particularly, the sailors leted its most reactionary con The original cio programmatic is the job of organizing inside of the Amalgamated Clothing have been the spearhead of mi vention years. The CIO affi slogans are trotted out from time the unions, both CIO and AFL, Workers, into instruments for litant trade unions on the Pacitic. liates and suspects are being to time for what they are worth for the advancement of the ideas guaranteeing profitable indus Organized in 1885, the expelled up and down the coast. but it is transparentely clear to and practises of militant, class tries to the employers.
brought together the first Cali Red baiting is more open and both the of leadership unionism and of union democracy.
In the CIO, no less than in the The fight for industrial unionfornia State Federation of Labor, vicious than it has been since and membership that they are launched the San Francisco Labor the Palmer raids. Union after not worth practicing. Bridges re AFL and even more so in some ism is not a fight for labor Council, and initiated the Wower union and city after city is torn putation for militancy was pretty of the industrial unions, the offi bureaucrats like Lewis, Hillmart.
ful Maritime Federation of the with labor civil war. The key thoroughly blasted in the 1936 cialdom has established a basic Martin and Bridges. It is only Pacific. Their victorious struggles stone of West Coast labor, the strike when he consistently op ally undemocratic regime which part of the movement to make maintained labor more efficient and effective have inspired the organization of Maritime Federation of the Pa posed both the strike itself and is bureaucratically thousands of uptown and in cific, is threatened with destruc every militant tactic for winning against the interests of the in its unceasing struggle against land workers, and their constant tion. Discredited and buried labor it. His reputation for being both membership and of the union its exploiters. Industrial wion faker have come insistence on rank and file confrom under a Stalinist machine man and an generally. Hand in hand with ism without a class strugglestrol has made their constitution their rocks enjoy a place in accomplished and ruthless bureau this pernicious system, goes the policy, a class struggle leader model that all other progress the sun. Genuine progressives in crat in his own right has, on the practise of labor employer coop ship, and democracy in the ranks, ive strive for. The Sailors emer both CIO and of are other hand, been more and more eration. which tears the very is like having a motor working ged from the 1936 37 strike with facing the techniques of slander, firmly established with the years. heart out of fighting unionism. on one cylinder.
closed shop, union hiring hall persecution and elimination de Autonomy, independent leader. The class collaboration policies The job of uniting the labor agreement superior to that of veloped in the Moscow trials and ship, democratic control, militan of Hillman and Lewis are not movement into a mighty and in any comparably large union in found equally useful by Stalin cy, these are all terms antitheti one whit different or better than vincible weapon lies with thesthose of Green and Frey.
the United States. At the close ist cIo commissars and frankly cal to Bridges Directorship.
By true progressives and the class of that strike the entire labor reactionary of pie cards.
As a consequence, the progres self reliance of the workers, Upon their unity and determina undermining the militancy and conscious militants in the ranks movement in this region was on the up grade and the decisive im CIO Leadership at Fault Sives in the of who de these policies end by petrifying tion depends American labor profended and fought for the CIO and paralyzing the unions.
portance of the waterfront workIn gress in the next period.
ers in this progress was admitThe responsibility for this al program and against splitting the ted by employers and workers most complete reversal lies di labor movement find themselves alike.
rectly with the CIO leadership. efuted at every turn by the actual The policy of reactionaries in the character of Bridges CIO on the Green Repulsed of has not changed; the West Coast. They may try to de fend what the CIO ought to be At that time (fall and winter ally that they have supplied reactionaries are successfully ralof 1986 87) the CIO was an in Green and Co scattered and lying the membership for the fluential factor in West Coast discredited generals The Cleveland local opened, meetings and which can accomo labor circles. Except for a few army and a complete arsenal of Inecessary task of fighting what scattered, isolated, and largely authentic war materials. This ar the CIO on the West Coast is their new headquarters on Sun date socials. This is the first time discredited 100 per cent reaction. ticle deals only with the Pacific ly splitting where and what it active workers conference. 40 Cleveland Socialists can boasts a disruptive force which is open day, October 17 with a statewide in more than seven years that ary Green supporters, the CO Coast, whether or not the shoe can and threatens to weaken and leading comrades from Akron, hall of their own. It is planned was not regarded as a dual or fits elsewhere am not in a po possibly destroy the economic Youngstown, Toledo, and Cleve. to open a bookshop, shortly.
rival organization. The unity of sition to judge. Here every funState Federation and Central damental of CIO policy has been ganizations on the coast.
power all existing labor or land participated in the discussion regular fortnightly forum Labor Councils which included both organiza will be started on Friday, Cabobert.
WAS unbroken rudely and abruptly reversed and (Concluded in next issue)
tional and political problems. 29th with Comrade Harry Milton and Green expulsion demands effect has inexorably followed were filed in the waste basket cause.
All reports pointed to increas as the opening speaker. Two reed growth and activity. Reports gular weekly classes will be with the sole effect of further Disorganization of the organi New Headquarters isolating the reactionaries and zed has supplanted organization were given by comrades repre held. One class in elementary strenghtening the progressives in of the unorganized in the practice The Socialist Appeal Office senting the steel, auto, rubber, Marxism will be led by comodehave moved to 116 University and truck drivers unions.
these bodies.
The Henry Clark, and another of the local CIO leaders. No Place, New York City. All second Sunday in November was strategy and tactics of the re The announced program of the union is too small or too far re correspondence should be mail. set aside for a continuation of volutionary movement will be led CIO organization of the unor moved from mass production and ed to this new Address. the conference for pre convention by comrade John Brahtia, ganised, concentration on indus basic industry to escape the at The local office of the New discussion, Plans are under way for a ce trial organization in the unorga tention of the CIO. Office work York Socialist Party (Left The new Cleveland headquart lebration of the 20th amiwersary níted mass production industries, ers, cleaners and dyers, butch Wing Branches) and the Na ers located at 737 Prospect Ave. of the Russian Revolution and preservation of economic unity iners, retail clerks, newsboys all tional Offices of the Young (room 305) in the heart of the for the holding of a gale stair local and regional labor bodies, the trifling odds and ends are Peoples Socialist League are downtown district, consists of a to acquaint the worloes of Cleand opposition to interference concentration points, while or now also located at this ad sizable office and a hall which veland with the new home of ree with or raids on casisting laborganization in oil, lumber, and drese.
can seat 100 for lectures and volutionary Socialism.
Cleveland Socialists Launched New Activity bolje they have so depotica Seren he meantime the other forbud After Ohio Conference ot Left Wingers