The Threat to the Labor Movement/Section 21

by William Francis Dunne

Further Steps Toward Unity of Reaction.

WHEN the demand for recognition of Soviet Russia became an issue in the labor movement, A. F. of L. officialdom found its most valuable allies in two places—among socialist trade union leaders and among the hard-boiled section of the capitalist class. It was socialist union officials who mouthed the most outrageous slanders of Soviet Russia and its workers' and peasants' government.

This united front of trade union and socialist reaction knit very closely the bond between the two.

The socialists, in their attack on the left wing, at first got only sympathetic. suport from the A. F. of L. officials. Without something more than this their attack resulted in a miserable failure, as in the struggle most in the New York section of the union in 1925. The A. F. of L. gave little if any organizational support to President Sigman and his henchmen on the joint board.

The struggle ended with the defeat of the socialist party leadership (in which can be included all the elements supported by the Daily Forward, whether actually members of the socialist party or not).

Then came the struggle in the furriers' union, which, likewise, ended in defeat of the Forward elements.

In both of these struggles the basic issue was worker-employer co-operation versus a policy of struggle, the abolition of gangsterism in the unions which had throttled all rank and file expression, and amalgamation of all unions in the industry.

There had been a number of struggles in the Amalgamated, but in this union the issues were less clear because of the split between President Hillman and the Forward gang, and the left wing never attained the strength it has in the other needle trade unions.