Marxists’ Internet Archive: ETOL Home Page: Trotskyist Writers Section: Farrel Dobbs
Source: Socialist Appeal, Vol. 4 No. 46, 16 November 1940, p. 2..
Transcription & Mark-up: Einde O’ Callaghan for the Encyclopaedia of Trotskyism On-Line (ETOL).
On November 18, the CIO convention will open at Atlantic City. The AFL gathering will convene on the same date at New Orleans. The main issue before both bodies is the question of the renewal of unity negotiations with strong pressure for unity coming from the White House.
Now that the Third Term election is out of the way, Roosevelt is moving more, swiftly than ever toward war. Therefore, complete regimentation of the trade union movement has become more imperative to him. The main instrument for this job of regimentation is the patriotic trade union officialdom.
However, the conflict between the AFL [and] the CIO creates conditions which are dangerous to Roosevelt’s war program. He must have a maximum of harmony among the class-collaborationist trade union leaders. Hence the strong pressure for the unification of the AFL and the CIO.
The AFL approaches the negotiations with a cocky attitude. The Executive Council feels that the craft unionists are in a very strong position. George Meany reports a current AFL membership of four and one-quarter millions. This is an increase of 50 percent over the membership figure after the CIO was suspended. While the Executive Council, through Green, officially proclaimed “neutrality” in the presidential election, a big majority of the AFL officials supported Roosevelt. This, they feel, gives them an edge over the CIO at the White House because of Lewis’s support of Willkie. They add to these factors the internal conflict now raging within the CIO which cannot help but weaken it in the unity negotiations.
The CIO, on the other hand, is in great turmoil, A realignment is taking place in the leadership, a section of which has come out strong for unity with the apparent intention of deserting the CIO if the impending unity negotiations break down.
It is clear that Lewis lost much of his influence by supporting Willkie. This weakened him in the CIO, not only among the Roosevelt supporters, but also among the many CIO workers who agreed with his criticism of Roosevelt and hoped against hope that he would declare for an independent labor party. Lewis’s threat to resign, however, gave the rabidly pro-Roosevelt Hillmanites just what they needed.
The Hillman forces have been moving rapidly in the direction of labor unity “in the interests of the national defense” and at whatever cost to the industrial union movement. They now demand the elimination of Lewis under a threat to bolt the CIO. What they really mean is that they will bolt unless the CIO makes peace with the AFL regardless of the terms. The attack on Lewis is mainly a cover for this policy. If Lewis does resign and unity does not follow, Hillman ana Company will more than likely leave the CIO anyway and follow Dubinsky into the AFL.
The prestige which Lewis has lost in his own union, the miners, creates a new situation in his personal machine. His principal lieutenants did not follow him into the Willkie camp. Instead, they continued in support of Roosevelt. While some emphasized that they were also for Lewis, the fact remains that they did not follow, his political line. It was only second string men who went over to Willkie along with Lewis.
The Stalinist-inspired “draft Lewis” movement has found very little echo among; the Lewis machine men or for that matter in any union not Stalinist dominated. Instead, the Lewis men are quietly making their preparations for the CIO convention with an ear to the ground to see what Lewis is going to do. It is doubtful that there is anyone among them who considers himself strong enough, even under the new conditions, to fight the “chief.” If Lewis decides to fight to hold the CIO presidency, he will probably retain the support of most of his personal followers.
It is most likely, however, that he will withdraw. If so, Phillip Murray is the most probable successor. Hillman could find Murray acceptable, provided that he negotiates unity with the AFL. Murray, as CIO president, would continue to lean heavily upon Lewis who would, therefore, in a large degree remain the actual “chief.” The Stalinist backing of Lewis is predicated on their hopes to retain the special position in the CIO which Lewis has accorded them and his opposition to Roosevelt’s foreign policy.
The CIO unions go to Atlantic City fighting with their backs to the wall to preserve their industrial form of organization. The Roosevelt administration is bringing strong pressure to force unity. The AFL, still basically a craft union organization, is very confident of its strength and will attempt to drive a hard bargain. The CIO is weakened by internal conflict. There is grave danger of a capitulation on some of the basic premises of industrial unionism. There is almost the certainty of a split in the CIO if the AFL terms are found inacceptable and refused by a majority of the CIO.
The evil fruits of machine domination in the trade unions have fallen upon both the AFL and the CIO workers throughout the entire period of the split. Cowardly leadership, uncontrolled by the workers, has frequently capitulated before the pressure of the bosses, thus depriving the workers of the gains that they could have made through their unions. With the mass of the workers, both AFL and CIO, prepared, to establish unity on a fair and proper basis, this uncontrolled leadersliip has arbitrarily stood in the way of labor peace. Now, under pressure from the War Deal, these same officials place the hard-earned gains of the workers in great jeopardy by putting the industrial unions on the block in a head-long rush towards unity.
These are the evils of the wide gap between the top leadership and the membership in both the AFL arid the CIO. The AFL workers, who do not desire the decimation of the unions of the mass production workers, will have little voice in deciding the AFL terms. The CIO workers on their part are placed in double jeopardy by the crisis in the CIO leadership. Here then is a situation which may provide the impetus for a rank and file uprising to reduce this terrible gap between leaders and members and restore the policy-making powers of the trade unions to the membership where they rightfully belong.
The industrial unions are composed of the most exploited layers of the industrial proletariat, the most militant sections of the trade union movement – the auto workers, miners, steel workers, rubber workers, etc. The mass production workers know what will happen to them if they lose their industrial unions. The AFL workers also realize that if the industrial unions are weakened this will be the signal for an anti-union drive by their employers as well.
The workers want unity, the complete unification of the labor movement – AFL. CIO and the Railroad Brotherhoods. But unity must come only on the basis of full guarantees for the preservation and extension of the industrial union method of organization.
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