SOCIALIST APPEAL JUNE 1, 1940 Minneapolis Teamsters Fight Roosevelt Armament Program Dictatorship Governs In Great Britain Party for. Fifth Column Bunk In the World of Labor the early days of its campaign have since quit, most of them joining the AFL locals in the field.
SOCIALIST APPEAL It is not difficult to understand the reasons for the fallure of the CIO in the construction field. They are Vol. IV, No. 22 Saturday, June 1, 1940 roughly as follows: PubMehed Weekly by the While not 100 organized, the building trades SOCIALIST APPEAL PUBLISHING ASS are nevertheless among the best organized trades in (AN EDITORIAL)
at 116 University Place, New York, the country. They have been considered quite acTelephone: Algonquin 8547 curately the aristocrats of the working class, because Backed up against the wall, fearful of losing of the conditions they have enjoyed. The industrial NOT ONE CENT TO THE BOSSES WAR MACHINE all the booty that it accumulated in the course of Editorial Board: crisis, it is true, hit the building trades workers very many generations, the British Parliament adoptFELIX MORROW ALBERT GOLDMAN hard. For several years (1930 33) construction was at an almost complete standstill. Even now when conSmedley Butler has written that an invading While labor leaders of the stripe of Wiled a measure which grants it complete right to General Manager: struction is quite active, unemployment is a burning liam Green and John Lewis are scurrying to army would have to bring over a million men and do as it pleases with labor and capital.
GEORGE CLARKE problem. But workers do not entertain any illusupport Roosevelt armament program, genusupplies. The whole merchant marine of the worla Soft brained commentators proclaim the step sions that the CIO has any magic formula for solv ine trade union militants are refusing to line totals only million tons.
ing this problem. The AFL locals have been trying to as one which practically brings socialism to Engup behind the bosses and their government.
alleviate the situation through the six hour work day Day after day, speech after speech, one move Subscriptions: 00 per year: 00 for six months.
land.
Notable among the trade union militants are after another in the Pacific, in Europe, at home Foreign: 00 per year. 50 for six months. Bundle and a system of rotation of work among the members.
the famous Minneapolis teamsters unions. the President is hurtling this nation down the orders: cents per copy in the United States: centa The workers should clearly understand that The industrial form of organization which the Their answer to Roosevelt war drive was road that Wilson strode, to war.
per copy in all foreign countries. Single copies: centa the law passed by the British Parliament cannot CIO offers as naginst the AFL craft system is not as given in the following editorial, from the May vital to the building trades workers as it is to the It is false for Roosevelt to call his armaments in any way be designated as a step towards so28 NORTHWEST ORGANIZER, organ of the Reentered as second cla matter December workers in the mass production industries, where the Minneapolis Teamsters Joint Council. The ediprogram a Defense Program. The billions he cialism. Just as Hitler measures in controlling 1939, at the post omice at New York, under the CIO has had its greatest successes. Despite various Act of March 1879 asked for Thursday (and he has already upped it)
torial, entitled Not One Cent to the Bosses changes and simplifications that construction has capitalist industry cannot by any stretch of War Machine, follows in full: will be spent for aggressive imperialist warfare undergone, the industry depends on skill and craftson foreign soil to advance the interests of Amer imagination be considered socialist measures. Above all, let us stop this hysterical chatter manship.
ican Big Business. Roosevelt can no longer find it The foundations of socialism are laid when of calamity and invasion that has been running in him to ask for even one billion for the unemFight with the Socialist Workers The workers are not the only ones divided along rife these last few days.
the workers take over government power and craft lines, this holds for the industry as a whole. ployed but he can find billions and billions Colonel Charles Lindbergh was right when he for war.
mason, for example, works for a mason contractor, an take the industries away from the capitalists.
electrician for an electrical contractor, etc. But uncharacterized President Roosevelt war mongerIn his two terms as President, Roosevelt has Nothing like that has happened in England. The JOB AND DECENT LIVING FOR EVERY like the bosses, there is a painful lack of solidarity ing of the past few days as hysterical chatter.
WORKER asked for and received over billions for arms.
capitalists are still there; they still own the facamong the workers of the various crafts. To overIt is all that and more all this talk about posBoth old political parties always united on this OPEN THE IDLE FACTORIES. OPERATE sible air or naval attacks on the United States is tories and they still run the state.
come the craft prejudices and to work for increased point and gave him all he asked for. Yet last THEM UNDER WORKERS CONTROL collaboration between the building trades unions and shrewdly utilized to frighten the people and gain week the President was told by the United States What has happened in England is that the TWENTY. BILLION DOLLAR FEDERAL their eventual amalgamation, is the task of the their support for taking this nation into the war. army that the army is so poorly equipped it is capitalist class is trying to run its industries more PUBLIC WORKS AND HOUSING PROGRAM progressive elements in the unions. This however can We haven the slightest faith that Colonel short of uniforms and blankets, that the air force Charles Lindbergh, a black reactionary, nor the be achieved only through the existing unions. The hasn one modern bomber, that the army is even efficiently for war purposes. THIRTY THIRTY 80. WEEKLY MINIMUM Republican Party to which he belongs will keep militants understand that any attempt to achieve the short of ammunition. Even making allowances Once more it is necessary to point out and to WAGE 30 HOUR WEEKLY MAXIMUM FOR this nation out of war any more than will RooseALL WORKERS ON ALL JOBS.
industrial form of organization over the heads of the for the customary enormous graft of Big Busivelt. But we do agree with the Colonel estimate ness, WHERE HAS THE 9, 000, 000, 000 GONE existing unions and against them can only create repeat over and over again that capitalism in de 30 WEEKLY OLD. AGE AND DISABILITY (and Lindbergh knows a great deal about air chaos and undermine the conditions the building cay is capable of organizing production only for PENSION.
TO? No wonder the big corporations, the steel and airplane and oil and ammunition manufactupower) that all talk of this nation being invaded the purposes of destruction, trades workers have won through years of struggle. EXPROPRIATE THE SIXTY FAMILIES.
is hysterical chatter.
rers announce they are 100 per cent back of the The United Construction Workers Organizing ALL WAR FUNDS TO THE UNEMPLOYED.
In Roosevelt talk last Thursday to Congress, President program.
Committee did not grow out of the existing unions PEOPLE REFERENDUM ON ANY AND in which he asked Congress to boost the bill for The President tells us his war budget will purIn spite of all the ballyhoo about the rights of but was counterposed to them from the outside.
the war machine to over 3, 000, 000, 000, Roosevelt chase 45, 000 planes, build up the world most for ALL WARS There has been no split in any of the AFL building stated: know that our trained officers and men the capitalists being curtailed, the fact remains midable naval fleet, increase the regular army NO SECRET DIPLOMACY, trades unions which would form an initial basis for know more about fighting and the weapons and from 230, 000 to 280, 000, outfit one million ground that it is the workers who will bear the brunt of 10. AN INDEPENDENT LABOR PARTY.
the CIO, equipment needed for fighting than any of us It is noteworthy that in the fields where the CIO troops with military equipment, anti aircraft the measures taken to save British imperialism.
11. WORKERS DEFENSE GUARDS AGAINST laymen.
guns, tanks, etc.
Every right that the British worker gained in VIGILANTE AND FASCIST ATTACKS.
emerged victorious, it first won over to its side the AFL unions and used them as the basis for great, Where can the President find a responsible mill This picture leaves us ice cold. One hundred 12. FULL SOCIAL, POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC many years of struggle against the capitalists is and thirty million American people haven one dramatic and highly successful organization drives tary man to agree with his claim that this nation EQUALITY FOR THE NEGRO PEOPLE.
now lost. He can be told where to work and he This was the case in Auto, Steel, Textile and Rubber. is in danger from invasion? There is not a re single penny invested abroad to defend and sponsible authority in this country who seriously mighty Mttle at home to defend.
In the building trades, however, the attempt has been must obey. His wages can be reduced. His hours made to start from scratch and to build a union believes that the United States is liable to a real We can think of better ways of spending that of work can be increased. His position is no betdanger of invasion from any foreign power or parallel to existing powerful unions. 3, 000, 000, 000. Three billion dollars will give jobs This false, disruptive initial step was of necessity combination of foreign powers.
to two million unemployed and leave enough left ter than that of the German worker.
coupled with reactionary methods. Having no access Hugh Johnson has stated: There is no great over to construct a quarter of a million 2, 500 As against the rights taken from the workers, to the building trades workers, Lewis cam power that could invade continental United homes for those now housed in rat infested firethe sacrifices of the capitalists are nothing at traps. phrase has already been coined with which paign was therefore directed to the bosses. He prom States.
all.
Major General Douglas MacArthur has called ised them a responsible union that would give them to justify every attack on legitimate militant laSo far as we can see, the 64, 000, 000 workers tax of 100 is levied on excess profits. It no trouble, with a cheaper wage scale and an eight an attack on American ports impossible.
in the United States, and their families, haven bor organizations by the government and by vighour day. The employers were no doubt impressed by The late Admiral William Sims said that no a single vote in Congress. BUT WE VOTE NO TO must be understood that it is not a tax of 100 ilante organizations. Even before this country the offer. The Feb. News and opinion, organ of foreign power or group of powers could operate ROOSEVELT ARMS BUDGET. NOT ONE on profits but on excess profits.
will officially be involved in the war every mili the New York Building Trades Employers Associa across the ocean and stand a chance in combat PENNY TO THE WAR MACHINE! ALL WAR At best that means that a capitalist will be tion, in commenting on the CIO proposition states: with forces operating from the home base.
FUNDS TO THE UNEMPLOYED!
tant worker runs the risk of being designated as This is indeed a proposition for employers suffering limited to the profits he made in peace time. And a member of the fifth column and physically under a six hour day and jurisdictional disputes. The assuredly that limitation will not reduce his attacked.
yearnings of the employers for the CIO proposition standard of living by bit; it compel increased when Lewis addressed them at a meeting With the invasion of Norway and the Lowhim to work longer hours and subject him to the which took place March 20, giving his offer in detail.
lands by Hitler, the term became popular and But the employers are practical men and they know speed up. Nor must one forget that besides the more or less applied to elements who were in the that buildings are put up by men and not by wishful profit, the capitalists usually draws a nice salary.
pay of the Nazis working for their victory. thinking.
They therefore decided: In all truthfulness, By Paul. Stevens Whatever sacrifices the wealthy are compell.
however, it must be said that the entire diséussion That the Nazis have paid agents in all coun of CIO agreement is academic at least until its British Imperialism Hitlerite poor white farmers were immediately revoked.
ed to undergo, are nothing in comparison to the tries, including the United States, is to be taken membership in all trades increases immeasurably.
On the day of the enforcement of the Native enormous sacrifices of the working masses. News and opinion, April 3, 1940)
for granted. But it is safe to say that there will Regime in the Colonies Service Contract Act thousands of Africans who be very few real Nazi agents who will be disThe increasing agitation to have the United had established themselves on private lands CIO Finds a Base in Small Homes States intervene on the side of Britain in the found themselves ruined and homeless. Overnight Naturally the masses are told that they must covered and punished.
But how is the CIO going to increase in membership present war must be answered by the continual these independent cultivators became serfs.
surrender their rights only temporarily, for The major blows will fall upon innocent peo immeasurably and in all trades. Certainly not at expose of the democracy in the British colonial. Under the terms of the new law every nathe duration of the war. The British workers ple of German extraction who have nothing to do the expense of the AFL. The offer of cheaper labor to empire. The following items from British labor tive living upon land owned by a European must with Nazi activities. And above all will the attack the employers only served to consolidate the AFL papers reveal the oppression under which indus work for his master for 180 days in the year. The must now fight for democracy for the future.
The British and also the French workers must be centered on every worker fighting against the membership. The CIO therefore turned to the only trial and agricultural workers in South Africa farmer has the right to decide upon which days opening it could find in the industry: the field of small live both in wartime and peacetime.
the native shall work. In order, therefore, to keep now fight for something they haven got. They bosses for better conditions and against the war. construction in the one family homes. These The paper of the Labor League of Youth, the black tied permanently to the farm, owners must accept a complete dictatorship of the ruling Everyone who will ask for higher wages, ev slipped out from under union control in recent years. militant organization of young revolutionary so usually spread the 180 days over the whole year.
However, this is no small item. Right now there are cialists in England, prints this story in its May In lieu of wages the native is usually given a plot eryone who will demand better conditions, will class; they must accept a lower standard of livin the New York area 8, 400 small homes under conissue: of land on which to erect a hut and grow millet ing; they must suffer and die on the field of batbe immediately reported to the Department of struction, involving mortgage financing of more than On April 3rd British troops fired on a crowd and kaffir corn. Any breach of the Service Con tle and have faith that the capitalists will graJustice as a member of the fifth column. The 40, 000, 000. The bulk of this construction is being of Negro workers on strike in the copper mines of tract Act makes the native liable to criminal done in Queens, Nassau and Suffolk counties on Long foreign born worker especially will be hounded ciously return with thanks the rights that the Northern Rhodesia.
prosecution and imprisonment. Those under 18 Island where 5, 900 homes are under erection.
can be punished by flogging.
workers are now deprived of.
to death These miners had demanded a 25 rise in These small homes as a large scale development is But should the British and French imperialists. But the worst feature of this act is that wages to off set the increased cost of living folIt is very significant that Roosevelt decided comparatively new field, given impetus by the lowing the outbreak of war. The attempt of the no native can leave his job without the permission win the war, the workers will discover that whatto transfer the Bureau of Immigration and Na scheme of guaranteed mortgages. The AFL unions, divided as they are along craft lines with craft autonmineowners to work the mines with blackleg of his employer. If he runs away he can be ar ever rights they surrendered will not be given turalization from the Labor Department to the omy, did not get together for a concerted organiza(scab) labor had failed before the courage and rested by the police, sentenced to a term of im back so easily. All indications point to the conDepartment of Justice, notorious for its anti tion drive.
solidarity of the workers. When police charges prisonment as a vagrant and then returned to his and tearar gas proved unavalling, the mineowners master.
clusion that the period of capitalist democracy Here is where the CIO drive, which is disruptive radical and anti labor attitude.
is at an end.
and injurious to the interests of the building trades appealed to their agent, the Governor, for millLet the workers not be fooled by the hysterical workers in other respects, has one progressive featary assistance. Troops were rushed from Bulacry of fifth column. It is only another means ture. It brought home to the workers in the trade the wayo, Southern Rhodesia! 17 workers lost their Puerto Rican Section The tragic feature of the war is not the fact to destroy those who are active in the mpaign fact that the industry is not fully organized, that lives, 29 others were wounded.
failure to embrace all the workers in the industry and. In 1938, the copper companies produced Upholds Soviet Union Defense that the British and French and German workers against the desire of the rulers of this country giving them the benefits of organization, will bring profit for the British capitalists amounting to An official resolution of the Independent are compelled to sacrifice. What constitutes the to involve it in the imperialist war.
another union into the field. The CIO drive acted as a 3, 100, 000. But the total wages bill for 15, 000 black miners was only 500, 000.
Communist Party of Puerto Rico (Section of lever to lift the AFL unions, including the bureauc.
horrible tragedy is the fact that they are sacrificAgainst the war mongers and their suppresthe fourth International) states: ing for interests not their own.
racy, out of their lethargy and to undertake steps to Such fabulous profits are possible only be The Independent Communist Party of sion of civil liberties!
organize small home construction.
cause of the imperialist regime which has enPuerto Rico disavows and condemns the minTo surrender certain rights, to accept a reIn order to counteract the lower CIO wage scale, slaved the African Negroes, denying them every ority of the Socialist Workers Party for duced standard of living, to fight and offer up the AFL New York Building and Construction Trades human right except that of working for the Briabandoning the official program of the Fourth their lives if necessary, are not things which the Council decided to organize small construction on the tish capitalist class. In the din and slaughter of International on the question of the defense workers must recoil from if the emergency debasis of a secondary wage scale which approximates the world war, it is more than ever necessary for of the USSR by putting the Soviet Union in that of the CIO. This was approved by all the locals the working youth in this country to understand the same imperialist camps as the capitalist mands them. They must be ready to sacrifice evThe seventeen building trades international unions, affiliated with the council, with the exception of the that there is no difference between the methods countries which are fighting for the redivision embracing roughly a million members, constitute one of Hitler and the methods of our masters in their erything. for their own interests nothing for bricklayers.
of the most vital pillars upon which the edifice of the It can be expected two rival campaigns to orof the world.
suppression of the colonial peoples. They are not the interests of the capitalists.
AFL rests. These unions, organized along craft lines ganize small construction will now develop in New fighting Hitlerism; they are fighting for profits.
Without the cooperation of the working masswith prohibitive initiation fees and high dues, are the York. The AFL unions have of course the greater ades the imperialists would be unable to carry on most conservative influence within the AFL Indusvantage. They have powerful, long established unions trial unionism was opposed most bitterly by the and control of most of the construction field. Workers Serfdom Decreed by British French Dictatorship Imitates Hitler their wars. That is as certain as night follows bureaucracy of the building trades unions. This was will naturally be far more eager to join the AFL un As Way of Life of Natives In Creating Concentration Camps day. That is why Major Attlee, one of the leadsymbolized most dramatically by the fist fight which ions. But this will not be achieved without an aggresThe following excerpt is taken from a letter took place at the San Francisco convention between George Padmore, Negro militant from the West ers of the Labor Party, was chosen by the Brisive campaign, welcoming the unorganized workers John Lewis and Hutcheson, President of the CarIndies, now in London, describes the conditions sent to British friends by French comrades, and into the unions and not treating them as second class tish ruling class to introduce the law which places penters Union. Last August the CIO initiated a much citizens, as is the tendency in some of the locals.
of the agricultural worker in South Africa in the published in Workers Fight, May issue: the British workers in practically the same posipublicized campaign to wrest control of the building April issue of the Call, another British labor paThe CIO will make headway only where the AFL The military and police dictatorship estab tion as the German workers.
trades from the AFL. Lewis, brother of John per.
unions are not on the job organizing the unorganized.
lished in France, even prior to the war, now Lewis, was placed in charge of this campaign.
For the British workers there is only one path The unorganized, working under the most appalling. Before 1913 Africans who could find no wages a relentless persecution against soldiers, How far did the CIO get in the construction field home in the Reserves (land set aside for cultivaconditions, anxious for organization, will not wait workers and peasants alike. The military adto choose in order to defeat Hitler, and that is after nine months of effort. number small submuch longer. They would welcome the AFL, but they tion by natives, and usually unsuitable for agri ministration usurps the functions of all local and not the path of surrendering all their rights to sidized locals of the Construction Workers Organizing will also accept the CIO rather than have no union cultural and pastoral purposes were al civil administrations. Parliament meets only to the British imperialists.
Committee have been set up throughout the country. at all.
lowed to rent or work land as sharecroppers. acquiesce to the Government decrees. The But despite the fact that there is no initiation fee re It is significant that in New York City borough of. But as industry developed the big agrariTo take power into their own hands, to free all vicious attack on the Stalinist deputies is now quired to join the union and the dues are 50 per Queens a group of militant building trades workers ang on the one hand and the mining companies on extended to all militants and trade unionists. At the British colonies, to call upon the French and month very low, considering the AFL standards. who were left out in the cold by the refusal of the the other, discovered that the system of share least 10, 000 are already in concentration camps. the German workers to overthrow their masters, all these locals still embrace only a few thousand. recent decree imposes the death sentence AFL to organize them took the second best choice cropping kept thousands of natives off the labor workers.
to call upon the freed colonial peoples to help and formed a local of the CIO. They are row carrying market. In February, 1932, the landowners for preparing, furnishing or storing Communist These have been recruited mostly from the ranks on a militant drive to organize small construction. adopted a Resolution calling upon the Govern literature. For possessing a pamphlet by Marx, them in this struggle against Hitler this is the This example will be multiplied unless the AFL acts ment to make a law to the effect that native of the unemployed who had hopes for jobs through Engels, Lenin or Trotsky, the worker is liable to only road to victory over Hitler.
the CIO. But the CIO has no job control. Consequently quickly and aggressively.
shall have no right to reside on the land of a the extreme penalty. Special Commissions have This road will demand sacrifices but they the turnover in membership has been great, and The workers who are at present in the CIO will white person otherwise than as a laborer. Under ejected from the factories about 30, 000 workers among those remaining there is growing dissatisfac most assuredly come into the AFL if the AFL will pressure from these big agrarians the Govern who were previously exempted on account of their will be worthwhile sacrifices, for they will be in tion with the failure to get any results. group of undertake an organization drive without any further ment began to legislate against the squatters. special qualifications. Their crime is that they the interests of the working class and not of the plumbers in Queens who formed a local of the CIO in delay. All existing contracts between natives and have shown oppositional tendencies. British imperialists sa CIO In Building Trades