The Threat to the Labor Movement/Section 3
Right Wing Leaders Hold Conference.
WITH 20,000 workers out of employment due to the unsettled condition of the industry after the settlement of the strike, when every effort was needed to enforce the new agreement, the right wing in the needle trades got busy. To its aid came the officialdom of other unions in which the left wing was showing strength—the United Mine Workers of America and the United Textile Workers.
A conference of trade union officials, attended by Vice-President Woll of the American Federation of Labor, was held in New York during the week of November 28. Plans were made at this meeting to start a new offensive against the left wing in the trade unions.
The next week a conference of officials which claimed to represent 35 unions was held in the Rand school. This meeting did three things:
1. It adopted a manifesto calling upon the labor movement to exterminate the Communists.
2. It formed a permanent organization calling itself the "Committee for the Preservation of the Trade Unions."
3. It arranged for a larger conference to be called a "General Trade Union Conference," to which all unions in New York are invited to send three delegates and which was held Tuesday, December 21, in Beethoven Hall, New York City.
The manifesto is too long to reprint here, but the introduction denounces the Trade Union Educational League as "an integral part" of the Workers (Communist) Party. It recites a number of alleged Communist misdeeds and states that the Furriers and Cloakmakers' unions in New York have Communist leadership.
The "Call to Action" concludes with:
The time has come when the preservation of the trade unions demands the expulsion of these elements from offices and control.
The unions must remain free from outside domination and from the interference of all political parties! Individually every worker may follow any religious or political creed, but the unions must remain independent of all.
We therefore call for war upon Communist disruption. We call for all workers in all unions to unite against the internal enemy, the disrupter, who is destroying the unions for the benefit of the external enemy, the capitalist. It is a common fight for all workers who believe that their protection lies in the preservation of their unions.
The division between the Communist adventurers and the trade union movement shall be definitely established! There shall be nothing common between these irresponsible elements and the trade unions. The labor movement shall lend no assistance to any undertaking which, directly or indirectly, shall include the Communists. It shall be war to their finish. Down with Communism! Long live the trade unions!
The "Call to Action" was signed by the following trade union officials:
Abraham Beckerman, Manager, Joint Board, Amalgamated Clothing Workers; Louis D. Berger, Manager, Neckwear Makers' Union; Samuel A. Beardsley, President, District Council, Jewelry Workers' Union; Morris Feinstone, Secretary, United Hebrew Trades; Rose Schndeiderman, Women's Trade Union League; A. I. Shiplacoff, International Pocketbook Workers' Union.
So much for the organizational preparation for "war"—it is the word used in the "Call to Action"—against the Communists and the left wing in the needle trades. It must be kept in mind in this connection that the left wing in the I. L. G. W. and the Furriers' Union in New York is actually the union itself, so big is its majority. The attack on the left wing, including the Communists, is really an attack on the union.