The Threat to the Labor Movement/Section 17
Strikes—the Achievements of Right and Left Wings Compared.
BEFORE an answer is given to these questions it should be noted that there have be,en only four strikes of any consequence this year—the anthracite strike, the furriers' strike, the Passaic strike and the cloakmakers' strike. As Woll does not mention the anthracite strike in his indictment we may conclude that the Communist influence was not an important element in this strike and that Woll therefore has no criticism to make of the outcome.
It will be interesting to compare the methods and results of three strikes which Woll charges the Communists with "trying to capture and direct" with the method's and results of the anthracite strike under direction of one of the most bitter opponents of militant unionism—John L. Lewis.
In the first place the fact that a strike occurred under such reactionary leadership is sufficient proof that even in this period of "prosperity" strikes cannot be prevented except by surrender on the part of unions. Surely Vice-President Woll will not charge that John L. Lewis, a member of the National Committee of the republican party, called the anthracite strike as part of a revolutionary plot against the government which in 1919 he said "we cannot fight."
But Woll, and all the other apostles of "worker-employer co-operation," are insistent that militant unionism in the garment industry, the fur industry and the textile industry has nothing whatever to do with wages, hours and working conditions but is simply the result of the activities of Communists who are trying to stir UP trouble. The New York Times and other capitalist organs make the same categorical statement.
These spokesmen of the bosses go farther and say that Communists do not care whether the workers win strikes or not, that the strikes in the fur, garment and textile industry were unnecessary. They then try to prove their assertions by claiming that the cloakmakers have won nothing, have in fact suffered a defeat. The New York Times makes the same statement about the Passaic workers.
These statements have been shown to be without foundation in another part of this pamphlet and here we wish only to ask why the self-appointed saviors of the garment workers, fur workers and textile workers do not apply this same test to the anthracite strike.
This is a strike that was lost if ever a strike was lost. After five months of struggle by 150,000 miners, during all of which time Lewis allowed the maintenance men to work and keep the owners' properties in better condition than ever before. Lewis signed an agreement with the coal operators which does not provide for the closed shop (the check-off) the union previously had and which accepts exactly those arbitration methods (participation of other persons than representatives of operators and the union) which the United Mine Workers have hitherto refused to be bound by.
These statements may be denied by friends of President Lewis but President Coolidge, whom President Lewis supported for election, knows otherwise. In his recent message to congress Coolidge says:
No progress seems to have been made within large areas of the bituminous coal industry toward creation of voluntary machinery by which greater assurance can be given to the public of PEACEFUL ADJUSTMENT OF WAGE DIFFICULTIES SUCH AS HAS BEEN ACCOMPLISHED IN THE ANTHRACITE INDUSTRY. (Emphasis, Mine.)
The miners are bound by a five-year arbitration agreement and the president is therefore pleased.
The Mining Congress Journal also states that the coal operators believe they have won a victory, in its issue for December:
The operators claim that it (the contract) PROVIDES FOR A RECIPROCAL PROGRAM OF EFFICIENCY AND CO-OPERATION, which will be the basis of arbitration for any disputed points hereafter. (Emphasis mine.)
Here is "efficiency unionism" again—a magnificent "victory" for miners after a five months' strike. Under the brilliant leadership of Lewis, the arch-foe of the left wing, the anthracite miners won the right to work harder for the coal barons.
The wage scale of the anthracite miners is not even guaranteed by this Lewis "victory.". The Mining Congress Journal further states:
It is presumed that on January 1 some operators will ask for a reduction in the wage scale and thus test out the matter.
If such a condition prevailed in the fur, cloakmakers and textile workers' unions, after the left wing leadership had failed to use the full power of the unions as Lewis did, then the worker-employer co-operationists would have a slightly better case.
As it is, facts show that the only strike that was lost this year was the anthracite strike, led by John L. Lewis, in a section of industry where the Communists did not have sufficient membership at the time to be a decisive factor.
The campaign of the reactionary trade union officialdom, the socialist party, the bosses, the various agencies of the government and the capitalist press appears as a drive on the Communists and the left wing in the unions. Where Communists are numerous and active, strikes are won.
Actually it is a drive against the right to strike and therefore a drive against the whole working class.