The Threat to the Labor Movement/Section 14
Evidences of Degeneration of Labor Movement.
IN their crass frankness the statements of President Green are a terrible tribute to the process of degeneration which is taking place in the labor movement under the, control of such labor agents of American imperialism.
Is it any wonder that the labor aristocracy is becoming utterly shameless? For instance, can anyone familiar with the labor movement in the prewar period imagine such a statement as the following appearing in the local correspondence section of a labor journal before the movement was debauched from the top down?
Read this from the Cambridge, Ohio, correspondence in the December number of The American Flint, official organ of the Flint Glass Workers' Union:
Walter Anderson is contemplating retiring from the glass workers and joining the Pinkerton detective force as he has already had some experience.
Cambridge, Ohio, and Coshocton, the home of President Green, are not very far apart. When Brother Green brags that under his policy "the workers' demands . . . . . have been restrained," and Brother Anderson announces in his union journal that he is joining the Pinkerton detective force as he has already had some experience," there is something more than a geographical proximity—there is a unity of stoolpigeonism from above and below so clear and complete that it cannot be mistaken. The main difference is that one gets paid by the labor movement better than the other gets paid by the enemies of labor. As in other occupations, there are high grade and low grade strikebreakers.
The chilling ooze of corruption from above seeps down thru every crevice of the labor movement.
"Partnership in industry" is another euphomistic catch-phrase used by both trade union officialdom and the capitalist press in describing the surrender of trade unions to the capitalists in pursuance of the worker-employer co-operation policy. The New York Times considers this phrase especially apt and never overlooks an opportunity to use it. This hard-boiled capitalist sheet is just as strong a supporter of "union-managment co-operation" and "partnership in industry" as are President Green and other apostles of "efficiency unionism."