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From The Militant, Vol. VI No. 30, 10 June 1933, p. 2.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’ Callaghan for the Encyclopaedia of Trotskyism On-Line (ETOL).
The policy of craft unionism into which the Stalinists are slowly pushing the Furniture Workers Industrial Union – as exemplified by the Newport strike (see Militant of April 15th, 1933) – has received the official approval of the Trade Union Unity Council in its decision finally rendered in burocratic fashion three weeks after the strike was over – almost two months after the Left wing appeal was raised in the union.
In presenting their conservative viewpoint in the form of a decision against the appeal of Sol Lankin, secretary of the union, it was necessary lor them to resort to childish distortions and falsifications on the Left wing proposals in order to vindicate themselves.
When the Newport framemakers, struck in April we immediately proposed “that no man in the shops which we control be allowed to upholster a frame which comes from the Newport Furniture Company and is made by scabs.” We don’t know exactly whether it was simply because we proposed it, or whether they are inherently against a Left wing policy, but at any rate, they quickly defeated our motion and carried a proposal for a mere “propaganda campaign” against Newport frames, leaving it up to the individual worker whether or not to work on these frames. Now every rebel worker knows that solidarity between the crafts of an industry is the ABC of industrial unionism. Unless this solidarity is manifested in action, the Industrial union forfeits its right to the name and starts back on the road that leads to the swamp of craft unionism.
It is because they felt the correctness of our viewpoint and the effect that our appeal for solidarity had upon the workers that the TUUC was obliged to distort our proposal into a utopian call for a “general strike of the industry,” and then proceeded with the fierceness of a Jeremiah to flay this alleged position of the Left wing.
“A general strike in an industry where our union has not yet control over the workers,” runs the postmortem strike decision of the TUUC, “can only be an empty phrase and secondly, cannot be carried out in a burocratic fashion due to wishes.” We are happy to see the apparatus men acknowledge that a general strike cannot be carried out by burocratic wishes. It marks a step forward. This does not prevent them, however, by burocratic wish, from striking out of the union records the proposals of the Left wing. The practice of striking out all defeated motions (minority proposals) from the records of the union is unprecedented even in the A.F. of L. and has no place in our ranks. Only by fighting against such non-democratic methods in the Left wing unions will the class conscious workers be drawn into the movement.
With naive indignation against the publicity appearing in the Militant on the question of the strike, the Trade Union Unity Council “further condemns the articles signed by Lankin in the Militant in which he accuses the union of craft union practices and which actually in its contents condemns the union leadership for refusing solidarity action and also for publishing this slanderous attack before even appealing to the TUUC.”
These charges are manufactured out of the whole cloth and once more indicate the need to cover up a false policy. It was not until after the appeal made in April was ignored and left unanswered during a strike in which every hour counted, that Lankin finally stated the Left wing point of view in the columns of the Militant (April 15th). This article sounded the clarion call of unity and solidarity of all furniture workers during a strike of one craft. The TUUC, on the other hand, did not see fit to act on the strike policy until three weeks after the strike was over.
The right to publish views on the strike and the movement generally in the working class press, and especially in the revolutionary press, cannot be abrogated simply because the facts in the articles do not complement the leadership. The logical outcome of that position would be to insist on the mechanical acceptance of Stalinism as a prerequisite for membership in the industrial union. Discrimination or persecution of workers who do not hold the same views as the leadership will not build the union. It
is a direct violation of the industrial union program, and would cut off all possibilities for the movement to broaden out. More than that, it would reduce it to even a thinner shadow of the official Communist party and its sympathizers. It is the aim of the Left wing group to prevent this and to help build a militant movement in the furniture industry.
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(Next week’s issue of the Militant will contain a report of the upholsterers unity negotiations.)
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