The Threat to the Labor Movement/Section 18
The Fight Is on the Right to Strike.
IF, as stated previously, the real objective of the united front offensive of labor officialdom, socialist party bureaucracy, capitalists and the capitalist press, aimed now at the left wing, is not for the purpose of supplanting militant struggle by the worker-employer co-operation policy and against the right to strike, why is the drive being made in precisely those unions which have not succumbed entirely to paralysis as a result of having this pol:icy of "efficiency unionism" foisted upon them—cloakmakers and furriers?
The burden of proving their superior loyalty to the workers and their superior understanding of the problems of the labor movement in this period of rising American capitalism rests upon the sponsors of the present campaign.
Nor only the New York Times but other powerful capitalist dailies which when the garment workers were struggling to build their unions, denounced them in much the same language as they use now in speaking of Communists, openly support the trade union officialdom. This is consciously for reasons which these sheets state frankly. The New York Evening Post says that the present reactionary campaign is:
. . . . one of the most hopeful events in the history of organized labor … THE WISEST LEADERS OF AMERICAN LABOR UNIONS ARE AWARE THAT THE VERY FOUNDATION STONE OF SUCCESS IS THAT THEIR AIMS AND METHODS SHALL BE IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE AMERICAN SPIRIT. AMERICAN WORKINGMEN ARE, FIRST OF ALL, AMERICANS WITH AMERICAN SPIRIT AND IDEALS. Some of their more important leaders, notably William Green … have taken pains to emphasize this fact. (Emphasis mine.)
So this is the old struggle for "100 percent Americanism" in a new form. It is interesting to note that in its defense of labor officialdom The Post manages to use the word "American" four times in two lines. In addition to being "the wisest leaders" the official elements are patriots of the purest type in the estimation of the capitalist spokesmen. The Post continues:
The local unions are to be congratulated upon their resolve to assume the aggressive against Communism within their ranks. When Communists, or other groups attempt to manipulate American labor organizations for political ends, there is only one course to take—open war.
No group of persons in this country can make it hotter for the Communists than the labor organizations. IF THE LOCAL ORGANIZATIONS GO INTO FIGHT WITH THE SPIRIT THEIR LEADERS ARE DISPLAYING, the battle will be over almost before it has begun.
But there is one drawback. It is that "the local organizations", that is, the workers, are not following "their leaders" in this fight.