The Threat to the Labor Movement/Section 10
The Official Trade Union Press.
IN the American Fed'erationist for December, President Green, in an editorial entitled, "Communists," delivers himself of the following (republished in the A. F. of L. press service for Dec. 2):
Let no union think it can tolerate Communist propaganda or compromise with Communist propositions. The difference between trade unionists and Communists are as diverse as the two poles. Communists are unalterably committed to destroy the trade unions. . . . . They are not interested in building better industrial conditions. . . . . They do not wish to co-operate in promoting union activities, but only to use the union for their own ends. . . . . THERE IS ONLY ONE WISE WAY TO HANDLE A COMMUNIST FOUND IN A UNION: MAKE PUBLIC HIS AFFILIATION AND EXPEL HIM.
IT IS UNWISE TO PERMIT COMMUNISTS ANY OPPORTUNITY FOR LEADERSHIP. THEY WILL LEAD TO DESTRUCTION.
The Communist method is to form a nucleus and let this group carry on extended activities. (Emphasiis mine.)
We have here a new principle laid down for the trade union movement—the principle that Communists per se (by the fact of their belief in the political and economic theories of the Communist Party), are ineligible to both membership and leadership in trade unions irrespective of the fact that they may be (and generally are.) working at the trade over which the union has jurisdiction.
There have been expulsions of Communists before this—on both a wholesale and individual basis. A number of unions have made membership in the Communist Party adequate grounds for expulsions, but for the most part these expulsions have been carried out under other pretenses and for alleged breaches of union discipline. But this is the first time that the head of the American trade union movement has made the categorical statement that the trade unions and trade union positions are dosed to Communist working men and women.
This is a denial or the very doctrine trade union officialdom is so fond of preaching (and which contrary to the general line of its statements is entirely correct) that is, that trade unions by virtue of the fact that they are working class organiations, must take in all workers of the craft, occupation or industry in which they operate.
The socialist party press and the trade union press are thus to be seen expressing the same policy which finds tactical expression as follows:
1. An effort to picture the Communists merely as disrupters, and as individuals who, taking orders from their party, care nothing whatever about the immediate victory of the workers in their daily struggles.
2. An attempt to convince the trade union membership and the working class at large that Communists are not workers but interlopers of a mysterious kind who wriggle their way into unions by other methods than the correct one of working for wages and joining the union for their occupation or industry in the regular manner.
3. The Communists—and the Communist Party—are working for the destruction of the trade unions instead of trying to make them effective instruments of the working class.
4. An effort to deceive the workers into believing that the Communists as a revolutionary political party are more of a menace to the trade unions than are the capitalist democrat and republican parties.
5. An effort to make the trade union membership believe that the Communists alone of all political groups form and hold caucuses to decide on what policy and methods they shall pursue and use in the unions.
6. An effort to convince workers that not difference in policy but Communists are responsible for internal union struggles which in all countries center around the same basic issues.
In this the phase of the campaign against militant trade unionism and militant trade union members mentioned above, the official trade union and socialist press is receiving the wholehearted support of such open organs of the industrial and financial lords as the New York Times.