Honolulu Record, August 18, 1949, vol. 2 no. 3, p. 8

frank-ly speaking

By Frank Marshall Davis

VI. Depression and War: Labor Weakens Itself

I have been forced, reluctantly, to the opinion that when Franklin D. Roosevelt was buried, the intelligence of many of our most powerful labor leaders was laid to rest with him. That is the kindest explanation I know for the suicidal folly that is now official policy of the top national CIO leadership. When the CIO was created about 15 years ago, it was believed that its aggressive, realistic program would liberalize the hidebound AFL conservatives. For a time this was true, but today we find Phil Murray and Co. slipping into the same thought patterns so recently condemned, as typical of Bill Green and associates: This has been a deep disappointment to those of us who looked upon the CIO to give real guidance to the working people.

Currently, the CIO officially backs the double-talking Truman administration with its program for World War III, if necessary, to bail Big Business out of a depression. Murray and his boys have allied themselves with the gigantic trusts and monopolies, thus strengthening the hands of those who have been organized labor's bitterest enemies. At the same time, the CIO has been sinfully weakened as the alliance became stronger. It just doesn't make sense. For it is impossible to strengthen reaction and at the same time fight it. Had the CIO leadership held to its original principles instead of virtually offering the organization as a sitting target for the powerful union busters who have master-minded the nation's brink-of-war program, we would have no Taft-Hartley law nor the divisive Red-baiting tactics which so weaken organized labor that it cannot adequately protect itself from outside attacks.

The Wagner Act came into being in 1935 under Roosevelt. Its purpose was to prevent employers from using their economic power to keep their workers from organizing. As for the strength of Big Business, the Temporary National Economic Committee of the U. S. Senate, set up in 1938, reported: "Corporations in modern times are economic states with power in many instances fully as great as that of political states of the American union." Remember, this report was made prior to World War II, which saw mergers and the creation of new financial empires far more powerful than any which had previously existed. Unions basically, are the allies of the general public in keeping these "economic states" from growing so strong they can defy all efforts toward public control. Here in Hawaii the ILWU is the barrier to complete dictatorship over the Territory by the Big Five, but on the Mainland many right-wing unions have lost the will to resist. They have forgotten they cannot side with both the "economic states" and the public. So the top leadership of organized labor backed the Truman doctrine in Greece and Turkey and then the Marshall plan based upon the continuation of colonial slavery by the ruling classes of Western Europe, even though imperialism, through the exploitation of cheap labor, lowers the living standards of workers in capitalistic countries. Today, production and real wages in the Marshall plan countries are still below pre-war levels and there is rising unemployment in Western Europe as well as America. Meanwhile, profits remain terrifically high.

By going down the line with the bi-partisan warmongers and swooning at the proper times to the slick siren songs of the Truman gang, labor is now saddled with Taft-Hartley, which got its ideological leadership from White. House anti-union action in the threatened rail strike of a couple of years ago. The witch-hunting of the federal government set the pace for witch-hunting within the CIO.

Last year, Wallace and the Progressive Party warned organized labor that it could expect no relief from Taft-Hartley or the excesses of Big Business if it supported the two parties of Wall Street, the Republicans and the Democrats. But those who had gone down the line for Wallace as Roosevelt's running mate in 1944 now would have nothing to do with him and tried to kick out those who backed their former fair-haired boy.

Since the 81st Congress went in last January, the prophesies of the Wallaceites have become painfully true. A GOP Congress passed Taft-Hartley and a Democratic Congress has failed to repeal it. The living standards of American workers have dropped and jobless ness has risen Management's key weapon of Red-baiting, which pits union brother against union brother, has weakened the whole trade union movement, thus automatically increasing the dictatorship of Big Business. Instead of leading the fight for peace and security and opposing profit-grabbing and world domination by the billion-dollar corporations, the top leadership of organized labor still swoons to the siren songs of the Truman gang.

But there are bright spots on the dark labor horizon Among them are the refusal of such unions as ILWU, Marine Cooks and Stewards, Farm Equipment United, Electrical Workers, Mine, Mill and Smelter, and a few others to march to self-destruction with Murray, Walter Reuther, Emil Rieve and the rest of the labor traitors.

There is also growing dissatisfaction among rank-and-filers who followed their leaders' advice and voted for Truman, only to have Taft-Hartley still chained to their necks, the warmongering Atlantic Pact, a continued high cost of living and layoffs. Those who have gone along and eliminated the so-called Communists from leadership have learned the hard way that management is no more inclined to give a living wage to a "purged" union than to one which will have no part of the anti-Communist hysteria. How long the mentally feeble leadership, under these conditions, will be able to keep its errand boy job for Wall Street is a matter for conjecture. Truth is, the Bill Greens and Phil Murrays no longer have the psychology of labor. They think like corporation presidents, peddling labor instead of autos or radios. Yet, if we are to have peace, prosperity, equality and real democracy, organized labor must reject the aid to imperialism given by Green, Murray and Co. and become militantly independent. (to be continued)