152

p Growing opposition to the AFL-CIO top leadership’s policies aimed at thwarting the labour movement has come 153 not only from the rank-and-file and lower echelon leaders, but even from some high-ranking labour leaders. In 1966 and 1967, George Meany and the group of conservative labour leaders supporting him became the targets of strong criticism from the leadership of the UAW, headed by Walter Reuther. The reason for the conflict was Reuther’s strenuous objection to the AFL-CIO leaders’ actions in matters of foreign and domestic policy.

p In the summer of 1966, Reuther condemned Meany for ordering a boycott of a meeting of the International Labour Organisation in Geneva on the grounds that a representative of Poland was to chair the conference. The conflict was subsequently aggravated because of Meany’s stance regarding relationships with trade unions in socialist countries. And in August 1966, when the AFL-CIO Executive Council announced its wholehearted support of the Johnson Administration’s aggressive policy in Vietnam, Reuther called that decision "intemperate, hysterical, jingoistic, and unworthy of the statement of a free labour movement".  [153•1 

p At the beginning of 1967, Reuther announced his resignation from his position as vice-president and member of the AFL-CIO Executive Council and sent a letter to all UAW locals explaining his reasons.

p The letter, signed by Reuther and his deputies, Emil Mazey, Leonard Woodcock and Pat Greathouse, who had also withdrawn from the AFL-CIO hierarchy, sharply criticised the activity of the AFL-CIO top brass, stressing that the issues involved "extend far beyond considerations of international affairs and go to the heart of the fulfilment of the fundamental aims and purposes of the American labour movement”. The letter noted that "AFL-CIO—as the parent body of the American labour movement—suffers from a sense of complacency and adherence to the status quo and is not fulfilling the basic aims and purposes which prompted the merger of the AFL and the CIO".  [153•2 

p The AFL-CIO Executive Council was criticised for failing to undertake efforts to draw millions of unorganised 154 workers into trade unions, for its lack of a national wages policy and for its unwillingness to tackle problems stemming from automation. It was also reproached for insufficient participation in the civil rights struggle and the struggle for equal rights for black workers within the labour movement itself, for its unwillingness to launch an effective struggle against poverty and in defence of economic and social justice for millions of impoverished American citizens and mercilessly exploited agricultural and migrant workers. And, finally, the Executive Council was charged with violation of democratic principles and the AFL-CIO constitution.

p In April 1967, the actions taken by the UAW leaders received the overwhelming approval and support of representatives of the union’s locals at a special convention called to work out the terms of a new contract soon to be up for negotiation. In December 1967, underscoring its rupture with the Meany group, the UAW refused to send a delegation to the 7th Constitutional Convention of the AFL-CIO.

p The emergence of sharp contradictions between the UAW and the AFL-CIO leadership was not something accidental. The conflict clearly showed that under the pressure of circumstances, even some top labour leaders who had formerly been distinguished for the inconsistency of their positions, had now soberly assessed the sentiments of their membership, were calling for a re-examination of the AFL-CIO’s bankrupt course, and were moving in a direction that was largely consonant with the interests of the working class. The Meany group, meanwhile, found itself increasingly isolated both at home and abroad, and many conservative leaders’ positions in the labour movement were being challenged. As noted at the 18th National Convention of the Communist Party of the USA, "in some instances, established leaders are adapting to the new situation in the labour movement. In others, fresh leaders are replacing those who fail to react.”  [154•1 

p Speaking at a meeting of the National Committee of the Communist Party of the USA on June 10, 1967, the Party’s General Secretary, Gus Hall, underscored the trend toward 155 a polarisation of forces in the labour movement. "The UAW leadership,” he noted, "recognises that it is impossible to continue along the groveling Meany-Lovestone-Dubinsky path in the face of the developing labour-capital confrontation. The UAW leaders do not explicitly say so—and most likely are not fully conscious of it—but they reflect the fact that the war orientation has exposed the bankruptcy of a trade union policy tied to the politics of big business."  [155•1  This was a very important opening, Hall stressed, for all who want to take part in the revitalisation of the labour movement.

p The events of 1967 showed that the initiative of the UAW opened up possibilities for consolidating the forces opposed to the reactionary domestic and foreign policies of the AFLCIO leadership.

p The conflict between the AFL-CIO leadership and the UAW reached a critical stage in early 1968. In March of that year, Reuther and his deputies sent a letter to George Meany calling for the convocation of a special AFL-CIO convention to make a thorough re-examination of that organisation’s action programme with the aim of revitalising the stagnating labour movement. Two months later, a UAW convention in Atlantic City approved the action taken by the UAW leaders and passed a resolution to suspend payment of its membership dues to the AFL-CIO ($96,500 a month) until such time as the Executive Council agreed to call a special convention. In response to that resolution, George Meany announced on May 16, 1968 that the UAW was expelled from the AFL-CIO, thus making the split official.  [155•2 

p Shortly thereafter, in late July 1968, at the initiative of the UAW (1,600,000, members) and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Warehousemen and Helpers, the nation’s largest non-AFL-CIO union (about 2,000,000 members), a new organisation was formed—the Alliance for Labour Action (ALA). An official statement on behalf of the new organisation, signed by Walter Reuther and vice-president of the International Brotherhood of 156 Teamsters Frank Fitzsimmons, noted that the ALA’s efforts would be directed toward reviving the militant traditions of the American labour movement in order to satisfy those urgent demands of the US working class that were consistently ignored by the AFL-CIO leadership.  [156•1 

p The ALA outlined a number of important objectives, such as drawing millions of unorganised American working people into unions and organising the jobless and the poor into community unions; strengthening labour’s collective bargaining positions and, in particular, achieving "maximum co-operation, co-ordination and mutual assistance" among unions negotiating jointly with monopoly conglomerates. The new alliance also planned to set up a "special fund" large enough to give financial aid to workers during strikes; to work toward a more active involvement of labour in the civil rights struggle; to press for improvements in social legislation; etc. The ALA leaders announced that the organisation would pursue a policy and implement programmes that would enable the labour movement "to repair the alienation of the liberal-intellectual and academic community and the youth of our nation in order to build a new alliance of progressive forces".  [156•2 

p Fearing the growth and consolidation of the ALA and its development into an independent labour centre, Meany and his associates took prompt preventative action. The AFLCIO Executive Council warned all AFL-CIO affiliates that any contact with the Alliance for Labour Action would entail expulsion from the AFL-CIO.  [156•3  But despite the threat, several AFL-CIO unions, including the International Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers Union and the United Rubber Workers of America, came out in support of the new organisation. The progressive and independent United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America and International Longshoremen’s and Warehousemen’s Union of the West Coast also welcomed the formation of the ALA.

p The founding conference of the Alliance for Labour Action was held in Washington on May 27 and 28, 1969. 157 Five hundred delegates from the country’s two largest unions—the United Auto Workers and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Warehousemen and Helpers approved the statement of goals and principles of the ALA and adopted its constitution. In accordance with Article 1 of its constitution, the ALA is open to any union wishing to participate in joint action to achieve the goals of the organisation.  [157•1 

p In addition to adopting the constitution, the conference also adopted a number of resolutions on questions of vital interest to American working people (on uniting unorganised workers into unions, on tax reform, on improvements in the system of medical services, on resolving the housing crisis, etc.). The basic aim of all these resolutions was to create a uniform programme for the struggle of rank- andfile union members against the monopolies’ attack on their interests and rights.

p The conference also devoted considerable attention to the government’s foreign and military policies. As reported in the progressive press, never before in the history of the American labour movement since the Second World War had such a large segment of organised labour spoken out so strongly against the foreign and military policies of the government. The delegates emphatically condemned the Vietnam war, militarism and the arms race and called for cutbacks in the military budget, urging the government to divert the billions of dollars being spent for military purposes to education, social welfare, housing, etc.

p Shortly after the ALA conference, the 110,000-member International Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers Union announced its decision to join the new organisation. The Rightist leaders of the AFL-CIO responded to this by pressuring delegates to the Eighth National Convention of the AFL-CIO, held in October 1969, into approving the expulsion of the chemical workers’ union from the AFL-CIO. This move, the American press noted, only aggravated the crisis in the AFL-CIO. An indication of the ALA’s growing prestige was seen in April 1970, when another union—the 158 50,000-member National Council of Distributive Workers of America—joined the new organisation.

p American Communists and representatives of other progressive trends welcomed the formation of the ALA. The emergence of the ALA, whose stated objective was to bring the labour movement out of stagnation, clearly reflected the major shifts taking place in American trade unions, and was, as Gus Hall described it at the Moscow Meeting of Communist and Workers’ Parties in June 1969, "a direct challenge to the infamous, reactionary Meany-Lovestone AFL-CIO leadership".  [158•1 

p With all its positive aspects, however, the ALA showed some very serious weaknesses from the very beginning. These include, above all, weak communication with the great mass of rank-and-fders in the labour movement and also the existence in its documents of a number of statements and cliches indicating that the leadership of this organisation has not yet divested itself of anti-communism. In organising the ALA, wrote the Daily World "the initiative came from the top, but everybody knows that the underlying force for that initiative was widespread dissatisfaction in the ranks of labour over the lack of leadership and the policy of stagnation in recent struggles. Many of them were spontaneous, but they showed a militancy that can be channeled for a wide and vigorous new upsurge of labour".  [158•2  Therefore, noted the Communists, success of the ALA’s generally interesting and promising programmes for revitalising the American labour movement depended on whether the ALA leaders were able and willing to support and organise this upsurge of militancy in the labour movement and establish close and effective contacts with the mass movement of rank-and-file workers and with the progressive trends in the unions.

p In 1970 and 1971, after the death in an air accident of UAW president and initiator of the ALA Walter Reuther and the return to the ranks of the AFL-CIO of the International Chemical Workers Union, the capitalist press began predicting the early disintegration of the ALA and the 159 return of the unions affiliated with it back into the AFLCIO.  [159•1  At a meeting of its Executive Committee in March 1971, the ALA leaders officially refuted such speculations, stating that the ALA was "a lively, viable organisation, and can have an important role in labour and social affairs for a long time to come”. The Executive Committee adopted a resolution to set aside $500,000 for social-action grants to such organisations as the Leadership Conference for Civil Rights and the National Student Association and mapped out plans for a voter registration campaign among 18- year olds and also a campaign to step up efforts begun earlier to draw unorganised workers into unions. This "positive action”, said Leonard Woodcock, Walter Reuther’s successor in the UAW, should demonstrate the ALA’s " intention ... to help find answers to the most urgent problems facing the labour movement today".  [159•2 

p However, despite the efforts of the UAW leadership to preserve the ALA, by mid-1971 that organisation had essentially ceased its activities. The top bureaucrats of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters who had grouped around Fitzsimmons gave full support to the Nixon Administration’s policy on wage freezing, thereby openly repudiating principles that had been enunciated when the ALA was founded.

p The events of 1967 to 1969—the fission in the AFL-CIO —had a serious effect on relations between the upper echelon of the American labour bureaucracy and the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions. These relations had been worsening in recent years because of growing opposition to the AFL-CIO leadership’s attempts to convert the international labour organisation into an instrument of US imperialist policy. The AFL-CIO Executive Council, fearing that a dangerous precedent might be set if the UAW’s request for admission to the ICFTU were approved, announced in late February 1969 its own withdrawal from the Confederation. The reasons given were that the ICFTU had departed from its “initial” anti-communist positions, sought a “rapprochement” with the Confederation Generale du Travail (General Confederation of Labour), and allegedly 160 interfered in the affairs of American trade unions.  [160•1  Meany’s decision to pull the AFL-CIO out of the ICFTU, said president of the Confederation Generale du Travail Benoit Frachon, is not only an admission of his own failure, the failure of his policy of anti-communism and anti-Sovietism, but also a sign of the failure of the capitalist system as a whole—a manifestation of one of those crises that plague and undermine it from within. This also applies, Mr. Frachon said, to the biggest capitalist country, which only recently bragged that it was guaranteed against such troubles.  [160•2 

p Finding themselves isolated in the international arena and realising that their policy of threats and pressure was not producing the desired effect, Meany & Co. began behindthe-scenes negotiations on the possible return of the AFLCIO to the ICFTU. The Rightist American labour leaders sought—as their terms for re-entry (and consequently, the payment of over $360,000 a year in dues to ICFTU treasury)—guarantees that the Confederation would pursue a stiff anti-communist policy.

p After the disgraceful failure of their crude attempts at blackmail to usurp the leadership of the ICFTU, the Meany group launched a new campaign, this time against the International Labour Organisation. In the summer of 1970, after the appointment of a representative of the USSR as an assistant to the director general of that international organisation, the AFL-CIO president accused the ILO of steady departure from its original goals and soon thereafter succeeded in getting the US Congress to stop the payment of membership dues to the ILO. Commenting on this congressional action, the US press noted that it was taken in return for the services rendered by Meany & Co. in supporting the government’s aggressive foreign policy increasingly unpopular in the country.

p An important and urgent problem facing the American working class was, and continues to be, the problem of unity in the labour movement. The merger of the AFL and the CIO in 1955, although it was a progressive step opening 161 up real prospects for labour unity, did not produce the results hopefully anticipated. The widely advertised plans and programmes devised by the AFL-CIO Executive Council, in which lip service was paid to the need for including all labour unions in the new federation, were not backed up by any consistent effort to implement them. In fact, the reactionary top leadership of the AFL-CIO headed by Meany did everything it could to isolate a number of prominent unions and to keep them out of the country’s main labour organisation. This discriminatory policy was directed above all against progressive unions that had been expelled from the CIO during the cold war on charges of "communist domination".  [161•1  Also discriminated against was the nation’s largest union, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Warehousemen and Helpers, which in terms of its economic achievements and membership growth stood in the first ranks of the American labour movement.  [161•2 

p The effects of this policy are evident. Although quite a few years have passed since the AFL-CIO merger, the American labour movement is still to a large extent disunited. Figures for 1968, for example, show that of the 189 national and international unions then active (with a total of 18,774,000 members), 126 (with a total of 14,369,000 members) were AFL-CIO affiliates. The remaining 63 162 unions, with a total of 4,405,000 members, were independent. In addition, there were over 1,000 independent local labour organisations (475,000 members) unconnected with AFL-CIO or other unions.  [162•1 

p The experience accumulated by the labour movement since the merger of the AFL and CIO has shown conclusively that the struggle for unity can be successful only when it is connected with struggle to strengthen the class character of the labour movement, and that there can be no unity based on accommodation to the policy of class collaboration pursued by Meany & Co. The senselessness and futility of this kind of unity were demonstrated by the events of 1967 to 1969, which culminated in the split of the AFL-CIO and the formation of the Alliance for Labour Action.

p The 19th National Convention of the Communist Party of the USA, held in the spring of 1969, laid stress on the need for conducting a more resolute struggle for labour unity. In his report to the Convention, Gus Hall said: "The negative consequences of the merger of the AFL and CIO are not an argument against trade union unity. Rather, they provide lessons on how such a struggle must be conducted. Because of the encrusted character of the top AFLCIO Councils, the trade unions need to find other forms, other centres for co-ordinating struggle, and the organisation of the unorganised.”  [162•2 

p The American working class’s determination to strengthen unity in its ranks has shown itself in recent mergers of parallel or related unions. This trend is growing despite the resistance of the reactionary leaders of the AFL-ClO and a number of individual unions who do not want to see any changes in the status quo.

p Of great note were the mergers, one in 1966 and one in 1967, of two independent progressive unions, each of which had been expelled from the CIO, with large unions 163 close to them in worker profile. In December 1966, the independent and progressive American Communications Association joined the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, and in July 1967, the International Union of Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers joined the United Steelworkers of America. These notable events showed that the long struggle by reactionary labour leaders to isolate and eliminate militant progressive unions had failed. By uniting with a larger union, yet preserving their own positions (the Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers’ Union became an autonomous local of the large United Steelworkers of America), the progressive unions had a chance to form an effective labour coalition during contract negotiations.

p As a result of the unification of the progressive International Union of Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers and the United Steelworkers of America, 80 per cent of the workers in non-ferrous metallurgy now belonged to the same organisation. During the negotiations preceding the merger it was noted that the achievement of unity could be the " beginning of a fresh historic chapter" in the struggle of the workers of the metallurgical industry; it would "help create a new atmosphere and a fresh spirit in the labour movement of America".  [163•1  Shortly after the merger, a strike (that was to last for nine months) broke out in the copper industry (workers in the copper-smelting industry formerly belonged to the International Union of Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers). That strike demonstrated the power of unity and the inexhaustible possibilities of working-class solidarity. With the active support of workers in the steel industry as well as of 25 other trade unions, the strikers were able to break down the resistance of the monopolies and force the employers to make substantial concessions.

p In the second half of the 1960s, there were a number of other mergers. The American Federation of Hosiery Workers merged with the Textile Workers Union of America; four railroad workers’ unions united into a single union (with a total of 250,000 members); two unions in the paper industry merged; and merging with the American 164 Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees were a number of parallel unions. The largest was the merger in the summer of 1968 of the Amalgamated Meat Cutters and Butcher Workmen of North America with the United Packinghouse Workers, to form the fifth largest union in the United States, with over half a million members.

p The drive for labour unity was also reflected in joint efforts by different unions in specific industries during contract negotiations. An outstanding example of this kind of effective co-ordination was the successful struggle waged in late 1969 and early 1970 by the workers of the electrical industry against General Electric, the fourth largest American corporation. This victory was of fundamental importance to labour, for it dealt a crushing blow to the tactics of union splitting and strike suppression, known as “Boulwarism” (after Lemuel R. Boulware, a former GE vice-president), which General Electric had used for over two decades.

p Boulwarism emerged in 1947, at a time when an unprecedented wave of strikes after the Second World War was causing serious alarm in the US ruling circles. Monopoly capital and the government not only set themselves the task of stemming the swelling tide of working-class struggle, but of launching a counter-offensive to force labour to retreat from positions it had already won. A leading role in the monopolies’ struggle against organised labour, and above all, against the progressive United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America, was taken by General Electric.  [164•1  In 1947, Lemuel Boulware, acting on company instructions, formulated a new doctrine for the war against the trade unions. The crux of Boulwarism was the corporation’s flat refusal to enter into any kind of collective bargaining with the unions; Boulware and his colleagues called such negotiations "eastern bazaar haggling”. Instead of negotiations as provided for by US labour laws, General Electric dictated its own terms as the management went 165 over the head of the unions and presented its own readymade and “final” version of the labour contract. At the same time, the corporation warned that neither the threat of a strike, nor a strike itself could make it retreat from its positions.

p To prevent possible strikes, Boulware developed a socalled communicative programme, under which specially selected and trained management representatives at every enterprise and in every shop undertook to brainwash, intimidate and misinform workers. Special attention was devoted to applying pressure and using blackmail tactics on the families of workers and to generate support for the corporation from local politicians, newspapermen, businessmen, the clergy, etc., that is, anyone who might be able to exert some measure of influence on the workers. If, however, despite all such preventative measures, a union called a strike, then General Electric would resort to other underhanded methods of struggle. It would promptly inspire separate groups of corrupt workers to request the National Labour Relations Board to determine, by holding an election among the workers, to what extent the striking union was authorised to represent the employees of the given enterprise. The company would make wide use of strikebreakers recruited from other parts of the country, and with the help of their votes succeed in depriving the union of its right to represent the workers.

p General Electric knew full well that Boulwarism could work only if the unions confronting it were weak and disunited, and that is why its main efforts were aimed at splitting the big United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America, to which an overwhelming majority of General Electric workers belonged.

p Immediately after the militant union was expelled from the CIO for "communist domination”, the company, jointly with the Rightist leaders of the CIO, began to exert maximum efforts to split and destroy it. To this end, a competing union, the International Union of Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers, was established in 1949 and placed at its head was CIO secretary-treasurer James Carey, who had entered into open collusion with the General Electric management. The company administration and the Rightist 166 labour leaders stopped at nothing to intimidate the members of the progressive union and get them to switch over to the newly created one. They made extensive use of the weapon of anti-communism as they blackmailed and persecuted workers. How charged with hate and hysteria was the atmosphere in which the offensive against progressive unions took place was illustrated, for example, by the following statement made by James Carey in January 1950 at a conference of anti-communist organisations in New York: "In the last war we united with the Communists to fight the fascists. In the next war we will unite with the fascists to fight the Communists.”  [166•1 

p Carey and his assistants, taking advantage of the situation characterised by unrestrained persecution of progressive labour forces, undertook to organise elections among workers for the right to represent them at enterprises which had contracts with the United Electrical Workers’ Union. As a result, the very first round of the 1950 election ended in a split of the working class, a split which widened in subsequent years. Whereas, previously, one union represented the overwhelming majority of the workers in the electrical industry, by 1964, there were 15 unions with numerous locals, representing workers employed at the various plants and enterprises of General Electric, Westinghouse, Sylvania, Radio Corporation of America and other companies.  [166•2 

p Thus, with the help of Rightist labour leaders, General Electric got the union fission it wanted and needed to make it easier to pursue its policy of Boulwarism. In 1948 and 1949, that is, at a time when the progressive United Electrical Workers Union was being persecuted from every direction, the corporation employed the tactic of Boulwarism during negotiations with the union for the first time. The considerably weakened union was in no position to countervail the power of General Electric and was forced to accept the contract terms imposed by the corporation. The terms were exceptionally cynical: the company described its categorical refusal to raise wages as "beneficial to the workers themselves”. A wage increase, General Electric maintained, 167 would only lead to a rise in prices and unemployment and, consequently, harm the "employees, customers, the owners of the business and the general public".  [167•1 

p In the beginning, when the General Electric Company was trying to destroy the progressive United Electrical Workers Union, it created the most favourable conditions for Carey’s divisive union. Carey himself was accepted in the "upper circle" of the corporation where he was flattered and fawned upon.

p But soon the situation began to change. During the 1950 negotiations Carey got a rather cold reception when he came to the conference room to discuss the terms of a new contract. The goal had been achieved, the unions were split, and the company no longer felt it necessary to do Carey and his union any favours.

p Throughout the 1950s a fierce struggle developed between the two erstwhile “friends”—the General Electric Company, on the one hand, and the International Union of Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers, on the other. Every time it came to negotiations, the same thing happened: the company would make its “final” proposals, and the union would reject them. But after General Electric easily succeeded in imposing its terms on unorganised workers and small rival unions, Carey’s union would be forced to go back on its word and accept the company’s proposals retroactively.

p The repeated defeats suffered by the union caused unrest and dissatisfaction among the workers. Finally, during contract negotiations with General Electric in the summer of 1960, Carey, taking the sentiments of his union’s membership into account, was forced to make a strike threat. The company, as always, flatly refused to make any concessions, and on October 2, 70,000 workers at 57 General Electric plants went on strike.

p The corporation’s main and most effective weapon against the strikers was the policy of Boulwarism, a policy to whose success the leaders of International Union of Electrical Workers had themselves contributed for a number of years. The company’s use of bribery and blackmail, 168 strikebreaking and lack of unity in the union itself, and the unwillingness and inability of the union’s leaders to wage a serious struggle, all this predetermined the outcome of the strike. In a matter of 20 days, the union gave up the fight and accepted the company’s terms. It was a serious labour defeat; it was "the worst setback any union had received in a nationwide strike since World War II”, wrote The New York Times.  [168•1 

p US monopoly capital cheered the General Electric Company’s great victory. The press began to call on other corporations to use Boulwarism in their labour relations. Immediately after the strike, the National Association of Manufacturers—the American monopolies’ headquarters— named General Electric’s board chairman Ralph T. Cordiner "Man of the Year for 1960”.

p After the 1960 strike defeat, the position of the International Union of Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers deteriorated even further. By 1964, it had lost 50,000 members. The agreement concluded with General Electric in 1964 was assessed as a fresh defeat. Furthermore, the fierce struggle for power that had been going on for several years within the union leadership between the president, James Carey, the secretary-treasurer, Al Hartnett, and others, completely destroyed the membership’s confidence in their leaders. With increasing frequency and boldness, rankand-file members criticised their leaders’ conciliatory policy, protested against the lack of unity among the unions representing electric, radio and machine workers and demanded that they be organised into an effective weapon against the monopolies. In the spring of 1965, Carey was ousted from the leadership of the electrical workers’ union.

p The growing militancy of the great body of union members, their unwillingness to follow reactionary leaders, and the long and dismal history of relations with General Electric and other monopoly giants—all this prompted the new leadership of the International Union of Electrical Workers to display a greater understanding of current problems and to announce a programme that to a certain extent reflected the wishes of the rank-and-file. An important shift in the 169 union’s policy was seen in 1966, when, at the initiative of its leaders and the AFL-CIO’s Industrial Union Department (then headed by Walter Reuther), an attempt was made during negotiations with General Electric to unite unions representing the various kinds of workers in the electrical industry with a view to giving an effective rebuff to Boulwarism.

p Instead of presenting their demands individually as they had done in the past, eleven AFL-CIO unions with locals at General Electric plants worked out a common set of contract conditions and appeared jointly at the negotiations with General Electric. Despite the company’s inflexible stand and the support it got from the Johnson Administration, the united front tactic paid off for the workers. For the first time in the history of Boulwarism, General Electric was compelled to make certain concessions to the unions.

p In the following years, as the cost of living soared and inflation got worse due to the war in Vietnam, the struggle between the unions and the company reached an exceptionally high level of intensity. In the fall of 1969, when the collective contract between General Electric and the unions expired, 150,000 electrical workers staged a strike to which the attention of the whole country was riverted for 14 weeks. Long before the strike broke out, the management of the company had laid careful plans to "teach the unions a lesson”; it had accumulated large reserve stocks of goods with the intention of holding out against the workers until they capitulated. The strike was of fundamental importance for the entire American working class since General Electric, supported by the White House and the Congress, was playing the role of monopoly capital’s big stick. Labour contracts covering over 5,000,000 workers were due to expire in 1970, and a General Electric victory would serve as the signal for a fresh offensive by big business against the rights and living standard of American workers. "On the outcome of the GE strike,” predicted Newsweek magazine, "will largely depend the shape of negotiations that will be coming up in some of the country’s biggest industries in the year ahead.”  [169•1 

170

p The only reliable weapon that could make the workers’ struggle maximally effective was unity. And for the first time in 20 years that unity was achieved to the fullest extent. Despite the differences dividing them in the past, 13 unions representing workers employed by General Electric (the 14th union joined them in January 1970) succeeded in forming an effective collective bargaining coalition. The foundation of this coalition was a joint action agreement made between the International Union of Electrical Workers and the progressive United Electric Workers Union, which, having withstood all the ordeals during the years of persecution and repression, was still going strong as the second largest union in the industry.

p Seeking at any cost to break the strikers’ resistance, the GE management undertook strenuous efforts to disunite the workers and split the union coalition. Following the traditional policy of Boulwarism, General Electric launched an intense campaign to recruit strikebreakers, used all kinds of dirty methods of psychological warfare against the strikers and their families, and did everything possible to discredit the leaders and activists of the unions.  [170•1 

p The serious danger hanging over the unions united the strikers even more closely. Support came from all the unions in the country—from progressive and independent unions, from the Alliance for Labour Action and even from the conservative leadership of the AFL-CIO, forced to take cognizance of the sentiments of the masses who regarded the strike as a test of strength for the entire labour movement. Throughout the country, General Electric products were boycotted and funds were collected to help the strikers and their families. The firm resolve of the workers to keep fighting until victory was won, the powerful support coming from so many other unions and the militant strike leadership finally broke down the resistance of the company: for the first time in twenty years, the strikebreaking policy of Boulwarism was dealt a crushing blow. General Electric was forced to sign a single collective agreement satisfying all of the workers’ fundamental demands, including their most 171 important demand for a sliding wage scale geared to the cost-of-living index.

p The important victory of the union coalition over one of the biggest companies in the United States and the second largest Pentagon contractor had wide repercussions. It dealt a serious blow to the anti-labour policy of the Nixon Administration and the monopolies, whose objective, as noted by General Secretary of the Communist Party of the USA, Gus Hall, is to destroy the unions as an effective weapon and to shift the burden of the crisis of American capitalism on to the shoulders of the working people. At the same time, the success of the strike demonstrated the power of working-class solidarity and the possibilities of a united labour front. As the labour magazine, Labor Today, wrote in early 1970, "resistance to the GE monopoly is not the end but the beginning for the trade union movement as the Nixon-Agnew Administration attempts to deliver on its pre-election promises to Wall Street. The process of coordinated bargaining will have to be further developed to effectively contend with the conglomerates. Maximum trade union unity is still in the making. A victory in GE will move it a giant step forward.”  [171•1 

p Looking back, an increasingly marked tendency could be observed over the past years for unions to combine forces for more effective action against the monopolies. The united front tactic, employed primarily by independent unions and unions included in the AFL-CIO Industrial Union Department, has enabled some sections of the working class to win significant victories. The Christian Science Monitor, expressing the concern of the ruling circles over unified action encouraged by the IUD, once wrote that "if it (the IUD— AM.} succeeds in unifying dissimilar locals negotiating with multiunion employers, and in holding them together until all settle satisfactory through a strike, labour troubles will reach into new areas".  [171•2 

p A vivid illustration of the growing movement toward joint and solidary actions in the struggle for the vital rights and interests of working people has been the successful 172 cooperation between longshoremen and seamen, between various unions in the printing industry, between unions representing various categories of airline employees, etc. Special mention should be made of the effective cooperation between the independent progressive International Longshoremen’s and Warehousemen’s Union (ILWU) of the West Coast and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. The foundations were laid in the spring of 1962, when these two former rivals signed an agreement to set up the Pacific Coast Warehouse Council through which they would jointly work out the terms for new collective contracts and ensure maximum worker co-operation in the struggle with the employers. More than once in the years that followed the workers, by putting up a united front during strikes, forced the employers to make substantial concessions. Solidary actions markedly strengthened the positions of these unions and created new favourable conditions for their further all-round co-operation. "Every effort should be made to continue and strengthen the alliance" between the ILWU and the Teamsters’ Union, declared a resolution adopted by the ILWU 18th Biennial Convention. "The alliance has borne fruit for the rank-and-file of both unions; it has paid off.”  [172•1 

p The successes scored by unions adopting the united front tactic had a big impact on other sections of the working class. In May 1968, 60 AFL-CIO unions with a total of about two million members formed the Transportation Conference, the aim of which organisation, as stated by its president C. L. Dennis, was "to strengthen inter-union ties between all transportation labour to protect the jobs and future of our members".  [172•2 

p Another tendency observed in recent years has been for American labour unions to strengthen ties and establish cooperation with foreign labour centres and to seek unity with them for purposes of collective bargaining with international corporations.

p The continued concentration and internationalisation of capital and the consequent growing threat that American 173 monopolies will use their foreign branches in the struggle against US workers prompts the major unions to seek new ways to effectively counteract the global power of the supercorporations. A development worth noting in this connection is the initiative displayed by the UAW, which has to deal with corporations owning plants in 64 countries.  [173•1  In accordance with a UAW proposal, a World Auto Workers Conference was convened in 1964 in Frankfort on Main, to discuss measures that could be taken to protect the interests of workers from different countries who were employed at plants belonging to the big auto corporations. The conference adopted a resolution to examine the possibility of setting up World Auto Councils within the International Metal Workers Federation (an affiliate of the ICFTU), and also established a strike solidarity fund.

p The Second World Auto Workers Conference was held in 1966 in Detroit, with representatives of 16 unions from 14 countries taking part. The conference set up the World Auto Councils and adopted a programme of common union collective bargaining demands. Among the major demands were: acknowledgement of the right to free union activity at all auto plants; introduction of a uniform international wage increase scale; guaranteed annual incomes for workers; “humanisation” of working conditions in production; reduction in working hours through a shorter workweek and longer vacations; a lower retirement age.  [173•2 

p As American monopolies penetrate on a broader and broader scale into the economies of other capitalist countries, other sections of the American working class—steelworkers, seamen and other groups—realise the urgency of strengthening international labour solidarity. Proposals were made at a Chicago convention of the United Steelworkers of America, held in August 1968, to establish close ties with similar unions in other countries in order to work out a joint 174 programme of wage increases in the steel industry. In addressing the convention many delegates urged the union leadership to take immediate steps in this direction and to invite representatives of steelworkers’ unions from other countries to take part in organising a world steelworkers’ council that would countervail the "world steel trust”.

p An exceptionally important factor in strengthening the American labour movement is the struggle for unity between white and black workers in the unions. In his report to the 18th National Convention of the Communist Party of the USA, Gus Hall stressed that "the very essence of working class unity, which is the key to social progress, is the unity of Negro and white workers".  [174•1 

p During the 1960s, which saw both a tremendous upsurge in the civil rights struggle and a marked intensification of labour union activity, there emerged a tendency for the two streams in the anti-monopoly struggle—the labour movement and the civil rights movement—to come closer together. The UAW, the Steelworkers’ Union, the United Rubber Workers, the Electric Workers’ Union, the ILWU, the Transport Workers Union, the American Federation of Teachers, and many other unions (primarily unions in the AFL-CIO Industrial Union Department) declared their support of the civil rights movement and actively helped in the black people’s struggle to abolish social discrimination. Numerous instances of joint action by white and black working people have clearly shown the growing unity between the black civil rights movement and the labour movement. There were the sit-ins and the freedom marches in the South in the early 1960’s; massive marches on Washington in 1963 and 1968; the strike protesting discrimination in wages against black workers at the Scripto factory in Atlanta in 1965; the militant strikes by city employees in Memphis in 1968, and of hospital employees in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1969; and many other examples.

p An important role in the fight against racism and the struggle to strengthen the alliance between whites and blacks has been played by the Negro American Labour Council (NALC), founded in May 1960 at the initiative of 175 Philip Randolph, president of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters and the only black member of the AFL-CIO Executive Council. The NALC has done important work in organising the struggle against racial discrimination in industry, in eliminating racist practices in unions, in drawing black workers into unions and providing for their representation in the union leadership. The NALC’s militant position on questions of racial equality and the growing understanding within the unions themselves that white and black workers have common basic interests has helped expand the movement to abolish racial discrimination and segregation in labour’s ranks. Many unions and locals set up special anti-discrimination committees, and provisions excluding black workers from membership were struck from the constitutions of many organisations.  [175•1 

p The upsurge in the struggle for equal rights for black people and the growing support of this struggle on the part of trade unions have had a definite influence on the position of the conservative labour leadership. The AFL-CIO Executive Council expressed its support of all legislation aimed at protecting the civil rights of black people, and in 1963 passed a special resolution prohibiting racial discrimination in labour unions. But despite repeated declarations about the need to "put our own house in order" and to abolish the last vestiges of racial discrimination within the ranks of the AFL-CIO, Meany and his supporters among the more conservative labour bureaucrats representing the old AFL craft unions in fact still pay homage to jimcrowism and undertake no effective measures to eliminate racial inequality.

p A manifestation of the shameful system of segregation is the stubborn unwillingness on the part of some labour leaders to admit blacks and representatives of other ethnic minorities into their labour organisations. For example, in 176 1969 (almost seven years after constitutional barriers against “coloured” workers were lifted), blacks still made up less than one half of one per cent of the membership in five key building trades’ unions with a total of 330,000 members. The situation was even worse in the plumbers’ union, where blacks made up only two-tenths of one per cent of the membership.  [176•1  How strongly racism is entrenched in certain craft unions was demonstrated by the disgraceful strike staged in the spring of 1964 by a group of privileged workers from New York’s Local 2 of the plumbers’ union (where, incidentally, labour boss George Meany began his career), protesting the hiring of one black worker and two Puerto Ricans.  [176•2 

p In the second half of the 1960s, the struggle of black workers against racism in industry and in the labour unions reached new heights. The most dynamic manifestation of this was the widespread emergence of black caucuses—a movement in which black union members conducted an independent struggle to abolish the various forms of discrimination. The emergence of the black caucuses was a militant response to the racist practices of employers and their influence on trade union life, an answer to the policy pursued by reactionary labour leaders who impeded the struggle for genuine racial equality. In assessing the significance of the black caucuses, Gus Hall stressed at the 19th National Convention of the Communist Party of the USA, that they constitute a vitally important form of struggle against conciliation in the labour movement, and open up new prospects for achieving unity between blacks and whites based on complete equality. "The high-level struggle of the black caucuses against racism,” said Hall, "is in the interests of the whole class.”  [176•3 

p An important aspect of the struggle of the black caucuses is their call for broad representation of blacks at all levels of union leadership. This is of fundamental importance in the struggle against racism because it hits at the positions of reformist leaders who have for years implemented 177 discriminatory policies. In June 1968, the Negro American Labour Council held its Seventh Convention at which over 1,000 black union members were present. Expressing the sentiments of the black caucuses, the convention sharply criticised the policy of the AFL-CIO Executive Council and called for changes in the structure of that organisation. In his address to the convention, NALC president Cleveland Robinson said: "The dynamic, progressive, demanding and dissatisfied voice of labour is nowhere present in the top echelons.... We believe that the time has come for change in the structure of the top body of the labour movement in order to make possible representation from the most oppressed, the Negro, Puerto Rican, and the Mexican American, in the highest councils of labour.”  [177•1 

p The vigorous efforts of the black caucuses to promote the nomination of blacks to leadership posts in labour organisations has led to definite changes in a number of unions. For example, in the course of the merger of the Amalgamated Meat Cutters and Butcher Workmen of North America with the United Packinghouse Workers, three black members were elected as vice-presidents of the newly created union.  [177•2  Blacks have also been elected in recent years to various union posts (presidents of locals, regional directors, members of executive councils) in the Auto Workers’, Steelworkers’, Electrical Workers’ and other unions.  [177•3  However, in many unions where racial prejudice is still strong (primarily the craft unions), blacks still find it difficult to get elected to official posts even where they make up a substantial part of the membership of a given union.  [177•4 

p As the events of the 1960s have shown, intensification of the struggle against racial discrimination in the trade unions makes a big impact on the labour movement as a whole. Despite all the complexities and difficulties caused by the influence of pernicious racist ideology on various categories of working people, this struggle is a militant school for 178 developing proletarian solidarity and paves the way for a genuine alliance of workers—black and white—on a class basis.

p Another trend observable in the second half of the 1960s was toward an increase in the ranks of the labour movement. This fact is of special interest because ever since 1955, that is, after the merger of the AFL and the CIO, American trade unions had been losing more members than they gained each year. During that same period, along with the absolute drop in trade union membership, the proportion of organised workers in the gainfully employed population also fell. In the period between 1956 and 1964, the overall drop was from 24.8 to 21.9 per cent, while in the most organised sector (non-agricultural), the drop was from 33.4 to 28.9 per cent.  [178•1  This drop in the relative number of trade union members occurred most of all in such areas as the coal mining, ore mining, textile, metalworking and railroad industries.

p There were three main reasons for the substantial drop in trade union memberships: layoffs due to automation and other technological improvements; the existence of antilabour laws which impeded trade union growth  [178•2 ; and sluggish efforts on the part of the trade unions themselves to draw in new members. Various membership recruitment projects adopted during that period by the AFL-CIO leadership never got further than the paper they were written on. Bureaucratic labour leaders failed to take any really effective steps to organise the millions of unskilled workers, and above all black labourers who make up the majority of this category of worker; the army of agricultural workers who labour under the hardest of conditions; and the growing contingents of white collar workers. In 1959, the AFL-CIO launched a 179 trial campaign to organise migrant agricultural workers in California. In 1961, when the campaign was just beginning to gain momentum, the Executive Council decided to call it off. This decision was reversed by an AFL-CIO convention, but thereafter no vigorous action to organise agricultural workers was undertaken.

p Another unsuccessful venture took place in 1962, when the AFL-CIO Executive Council inaugurated a so-called co-ordinated organising campaign (in which many AFL-CIO unions took part) in Los Angeles. After four months, only 7,000 of the 500,000 unorganised workers in that city had been drawn into unions. Another AFL-CIO organising campaign in the Baltimore-Washington area produced similarly poor results.  [179•1 

p The first serious effort at organising unorganised workers was undertaken in the beginning of 1963 by the AFL-CIO Industrial Union Department, headed by Walter Reuther. It was originally planned as an 18-month campaign, for which $4,000,000 was allocated.  [179•2  The initial results proved to be rather modest; only 44,244 workers had joined unions in the 18-month period.  [179•3 

p In November 1965, an Industrial Union Department convention adopted a resolution calling for a new campaign, and outlined more effective measures aimed at organising millions of poor workmen, that is, that category of workers, which, as the newspaper, The Worker, pointed out, had always been largely ignored by the American labour movement. The convention’s decision reflected union rank- andfile’s growing dissatisfaction with the AFL-CIO top bureaucracy’s passiveness and inaction in this vitally important area, as well as the alarm felt by a definite portion of the country’s labour leaders with respect to the halted growth in AFL-CIO membership.

p The efforts of the Industrial Union Department and individual trade unions produced some tangible results; in 1966 and 1967, AFL-CIO unions signed up a total of about 180 1,500,000 new members. In 1965 and 1966, the United Steelworkers of America alone added 77,000 new members to its ranks as a result of the biggest membership drive ever carried out by that union.  [180•1  Between 1964 and the end of 1967, the Auto Workers’ Union grew markedly (by almost 300,000 members)  [180•2 ; and 44,000 new members came into the International Union of Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers between April 1965 (after the change in leadership) and September 1966. The latter union set up locals at 160 enterprises, 21 of which were in the South.  [180•3  In a span of two years (also after a change in leadership in 1965) the mechanics’ union increased its membership by 170,000.  [180•4  The American Federation of Teachers showed a 27 per cent membership increase between 1965 and 1967  [180•5 , and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees had a 60 per cent membership growth between 1964 and 1968.  [180•6  Even greater gains in this direction have been achieved in recent years by the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.

p A significant aspect of the overall trend has been the marked growth in trade union ranks taking place since the mid-1960s in the southern states. In Arkansas, Kentucky and Florida, for example, trade union memberships have shown increases of 65 per cent, 21 per cent and some 50 per cent, respectively.  [180•7  In all of the southern states (except Alabama), the rate of trade union membership growth between 1964 and 1968 was double that in most other states. This progressive shift in the anti-labour citadel of the United States, the racist states of the South, has been due to active cooperation between the labour and black civil rights movements.

p An especially successful campaign has been waged in recent years to organise migrant farm workers, the most disenfranchised and exploited working people in the 181 country. In the course of a fierce struggle with the monopolies and state authorities in California, Texas and the East Coast, the United Farm Workers Organising Committee, which had been set up in 1966, succeeded in organising thousands of farm workers, many of whom were blacks and Mexican-Americans. The labour victory scored in April 1967, after an 18-month strike headed by the farm workers’ union against the big Di Giorgio Fruit Corp. in California, lent impetus to a massive flow of farm workers into unions.

p A resolution of the 18th National Convention of the Communist Party of the USA noted that "the grape strike in California in which the farm workers, most of them Mexican-Americans, were supported by the trade union movement, the civil rights and Mexican-American organisations, marks an historic departure in the organisation of the farm workers.”  [181•1 

p In 1970, after five years of tense struggle, the United Farm Workers Organising Committee, headed by militant leader Cesar Chavez, finally won official government and employer recognition. On July 29, 1970, the union signed a collective contract, which provided for a wage increase and improved working conditions, with the owners of 26 big vineyards, the first such contract in the history of American agriculture. By early August, farm workers’ unions were recognised by 70 grape growers and contracts covering workers on 75 per cent of the state’s vineyards were signed.  [181•2 

p Of great potential significance for the entire labour movement is a new "massive organising campaign" announced by the Alliance for Labour Action, to take place primarily in the South. The first phase of this campaign was begun in Atlanta, Georgia state, where the objective was to draw 50,000 unorganised workers into unions and to encourage citizens in the poor districts of the city to take an active part in the struggle for their civil and economic rights.

p The complex and insoluble problems confronting the American working class in the struggle to protect its vital 182 interests have made many in the labour movement realise that labour must do more than make specific economic demands, that it must take an active part in the socio-political life of the country. The definite trend toward greater political action by trade unions observable in the 1960s was determined by a number of factors: the intensified struggle between labour and capital in the areas of job security and higher wages; the black civil rights movement; the movement against anti-labour laws; and the ever-growing protest against the war in Vietnam.

p Thus, contrary to the traditional stance taken by reformist AFL-CIO leaders, who try to keep the struggle of the masses within the bounds of primarily economic demands, an increasing number of rank-and-file trade unionists favour vigorous political action. More and more workers are coming to realise that many of the shortcomings in today’s labour movement can be overcome only by moving away from political passiveness and “neutralism”. Walter Reuther reflected these sentiments when, on the eve of the Fifth Constitutional Convention of the AFL-CIO, he stated that labour would not be able to solve the problems facing it as long as trade unions continue to regard themselves as narrow economic pressure groups and hold on to obsolete notions of pure syndicalism.  [182•1 

p Many unions have stressed the need for radical socioeconomic reforms that would satisfy the needs of working people, in particular, the need for government economic planning. At the Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Constitutional conventions of the AFL-CIO (in 1961, 1963 and 1965) and at conventions of some independent unions, resolutions were passed calling for the establishment of federal and state government planning agencies whose basic efforts would be aimed at ensuring full employment, with account taken of the growing labour force and higher labour productivity.  [182•2  In his report to the 19th UAW Constitutional Convention, Walter Reuther emphasised that "it is time we in the 183 United States conquered our fear of the word ‘planning’ in national affairs.”  [183•1 

p Increasingly frequent calls for the nationalisation of certain industries have come from within the labour movement in recent years. The llth Constitutional Convention of the Transport Workers Union of America, for example, recommended nationalising all rail, bus and air transportation services. The union’s president, Michael J. Quill, said at that convention: "The profit motive must be taken out of these most important public services.”  [183•2 

p In January 1965, twenty-two railroad workers’ unions, representing 700,000 workers, or 80 per cent of the railroad employees in the country, came out in favour of nationalising the railroad industry.  [183•3  The Railway Labour Executives’ Association issued a special statement explaining this demand: "When a public utility in the hands of private managers simply refuses to recognise its obligations to the public, government ownership of that utility appears to be the only way of meeting the essential needs of the people. Railroad labour believes that such a condition exists in the railroad industry today.”  [183•4  This position, taken by conservative union leaders who had been firm supporters of private ownership in the railroad industry for over 45 years, was a clear reflection of the dissatisfaction within the American working class, which is losing faith in the "free enterprise" system. Sooner or later, wrote The Worker in this connection, workers in the coal and steel industries will inevitably come to the same conclusion as have the railroad workers’ unions.

p The AFL-CIO leadership responded quite coldly to the proposal put forth by the 22 railroad workers’ unions. However, two and a half years later (after the White House and Congress twice intervened to stop a national railroad strike), even such a champion of "free enterprise" as George Meany had to take the prevailing labour sentiments into 184 account and speak in terms of waging a campaign for nationalisation. In August 1967, speaking at a convention of the International Union of Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers, the AFL-CIO president declared that labour should seek government ownership of any enterprise where a strike is outlawed on the grounds that it affects the national interest.  [184•1  Meany’s statement, unprecedented for the Rightist AFL-CIO leadership, is eloquent testimony as to the extent to which the contradictions between labour and capital have been aggravated.

p Labour’s determination to go beyond the narrow bounds of trade unionist demands (higher wages, shorter working time and better working conditions) manifested itself most clearly in the programme advanced by the Alliance for Labour Action. The May 1969 ALA conference adopted a resolution rating the existing structure of American trade unions as unsatisfactory and urged trade unions to become active "not only at the bargaining table, but, of equal importance, in the broad areas of national life where economic and social problems must be solved and community and national responsibilities must be met.”  [184•2  The conference outlined a programme of action for reforms in the fields of health care and taxation and for resolving the housing crisis, which is of unquestionable political significance.

p In recent years, a number of unions, above all progressive and independent unions, have actively opposed the monopolies’ attempts to strangle the labour movement and undermine the working people’s struggle to defend their rights. For example, at the initiative of the country’s largest independent union, the Brotherhood of Teamsters, a conference was convened in March 1963 in Detroit to protest against attempts then being made to push new anti-labour laws through Congress. Taking part in the conference were thousands of delegates from independent unions as well as from unions affiliated with the AFL-CIO.

p As the threat of new anti-labour legislation continued to mount, many in labour’s ranks saw the need for united 185 efforts to thwart the monopolies’ plans aimed at “bridling” the labour movement. Teamster president James Hoffa gave expression to this growing conviction when he said, in the beginning of 1967, that "all of labour must prepare through its press, the public media and public mobilisation to defeat the wave of anti-strike bills this 90th Congress will receive and may try to pass”. A similar call for united action was made by the ILWU.

p Labour’s growing political activity in the 1960s was also seen in its broader involvement in election campaigns. During presidential and congressional elections, many unions conducted voter registration drives among their members and their families and urged everyone to vote. Unions worked especially hard and effectively during the 1964 presidential election, when the Republican candidate Barry Goldwater, representing the more extremist elements of that party, was running on a blatently reactionary and antilabour platform. The great organising work done during that election contest by the Committee on Political Education (COPE), the political organ of the AFL-CIO, helped make possible the fact that in 1964, 68 per cent of the congressional candidates supported by labour were elected (in 1962, 60 per cent of the candidates with labour support were elected, and in 1960, only 57 per cent).  [185•1 

p The situation in 1968 was more complicated. There was much indifference and political apathy in labour’s ranks, the result of disenchantment with the Democratic Administration, which had failed to fulfil its basic promises. Despite persistent appeals by the AFL-CIO Executive Council to support the Democratic Party candidate, Hubert Humphrey, and despite an intensive campaign conducted by COPE to get him elected  [185•2 , about 44 per cent of the trade unionists who voted in the election voted against the Democrats (Republican Party candidate Richard Nixon got 29 per cent of the labour vote, and 15 per cent went to the leader of the ultra-Rightists, George Wallace). These voting results 186 (including the unexpectedly large number of votes received by Wallace’s so-called third party) reflected, above all, growing voter dissatisfaction with the two-party system, which leaves working people with only the “choice” of voting for a bourgeois Democrat or a bourgeois Republican. It was no accident, therefore, that some unions—the ILWU and the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers, for example—seeing no difference between the candidates of the two bourgeois parties, had to recommend to their members that they not vote at all in the presidential election.

p Most labour leaders support the two-party system and have traditionally supported the Democratic Party. But there are signs of growing political independence on the part of unions. Recognising the fact that, working within the framework of the present political structure of American trade unionism, unions have no substantial influence on Congress and the White House in matters directly effecting labour, many workers and labour leaders are beginning to re-examine their attitudes toward the role of unions in the political life of the country. More and more people are coming to the conclusion that one source of weakness in the labour movement is the absence of independent political organisations and labour candidates, free from the control of the bourgeois political machine.

p Heard at union conventions in recent years (at conventions of the transport workers’, the auto workers’, the steelworkers’ unions, and others) have been many calls for labour to withdraw its weak-willed acquiescence to the twoparty system, to organise the labour vote into an independent political force and to nominate its own candidates who would be directly responsible to the labour movement. Addressing the llth Constitutional Convention of the Transport Workers Union, the union’s president, Michael Quill, said: "To achieve the goals of full employment, job security and an ever improving standard of living, the American people cannot depend on the present two-party system which plays footsie under the table with the lives, fortunes and destinies of all of us. The labour movement in America if it is to survive, must sponsor and lead a third political party—a party of working people—free and independent 187 of the present dominant political groups.”  [187•1  It is noteworthy that in recent years increasing numbers of working men and labour leaders have become involved in year-round political activity (not merely at election time), organising and participating in mass demonstrations, supporting important prolabour legislation and promoting the unification of the labour and the black civil rights movements.

p Another indication of labour’s drive toward a new level of political independence is the mounting struggle for peace, the growing organised opposition within labour’s ranks to the government’s reactionary foreign and domestic policies. In a statement issued on November 12, 1969, the Communist Party of the USA stressed that ever broader sections of labour are becoming aware "of the relationship between the struggle against imperialist aggression and racism, imperialist aggression and economic issues, imperialist aggression and democracy, between the struggle for peace and independent political action".  [187•2 

p For many years, Rightist labour leaders in America had given vigorous support to the government’s imperialist policies and endorsed all of its aggressive moves in the international arena. Top AFL and CIO officials, following the lead of the most reactionary circles of monopoly capital, supported the policy of cold war against the Soviet Union and other socialist countries and endorsed all of the government’s foreign policy “plans” and “doctrines”, the creation of NATO, the Alliance for Progress, the aggression against Cuba, etc.

p At the first escalation of the Vietnam war, the AFL-CIO Executive Council, in line with its traditional policy, adopted a resolution approving the barbarous actions taken by American troops against the people of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and announced its full support of the policy and actions of the government and the President of the United States.  [187•3 

p However, as later events showed, this apologist position 188 of the AFL-CIO leadership, headed by Meany & Co., came into collision with a growing movement within the ranks of labour to end the war in Vietnam and against the government’s militaristic foreign policy in general. Despite the AFL-CIO leadership’s efforts to win the support of all AFLCIO unions for the government’s aggressive course, many union activists, union locals and even entire unions called for a de-escalation of the war and a peaceful settlement of the expanding and dangerous conflict.

p In April 1965, the 16th Biennial Convention of the ILWU adopted a resolution demanding an end to US interference in the internal affairs of Vietnam. "Vietnamese have a right to resolve their own way,"  [188•1  the resolution noted. In April and May, similar statements were made by other influential unions, including the UAW, the AFT, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Clothing Workers Union, the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America, as well as the Negro American Labour Council.

p At the 5th Annual Convention of the NALC, held in May 1965, a resolution was passed which included an appeal that the war "be stopped in Vietnam and a negotiated peace be initiated" by the nations involved.  [188•2  Martin Luther King, Philip Randolph and other leaders of the black freedom movement played an active role in getting this resolution adopted. The position taken by the NALC was of fundamental importance, since condemnation of the aggression in Vietnam became the key factor promoting the tendency toward joint action by the two main anti-imperialist motive forces in the country—the labour movement and the black civil rights movement.

p In the summer of 1965, a group of labour figures in the State of New York set up a workers-for-peace organisation which began to take an active part in the anti-war movement: on its own initiative, the organisation arranged contacts between peace supporters and sponsored mass meetings. A big anti-war demonstration in New York in March 1966 189 included for the first time a column of workers representing labour unions. And in May of that year, representatives of 30 union locals in the New York area held a conference at which they announced the formation of the first Trade Union Division of the National Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy.  [189•1  The conference issued a political statement condemning the course toward "victory through escalation" and calling for negotiations in which all of the sides fighting in Vietnam would take part. The activity of labour activists in New York, sharply diverging from the policy of the AFL-CIO leadership, stimulated the growth in the number of active fighters for peace in the labour movement and sparked similar activity throughout the country.

p The years 1966 and 1967 saw many important union actions in defence of peace and for an end to the war in Vietnam. There was broad response, for example, to trade union conferences in Pittsburgh and Los Angeles at which regional divisions of SANE were founded; a conference was devoted to the struggle for peace, in which representatives of 32 unions from states in the Mid-West took part; the organised opposition of many unions to congressional candidates of both parties who supported the war in Vietnam. Trade Union Divisions of SANE carried on substantial antiwar explanatory work among union members and organised union participation in a number of anti-war demonstrations. Taking part in the largest of these—a massive demonstration in Chicago on March 25, 1967—were leaders of several AFL-CIO unions. It was a sign that some unions were rejecting the cold war approach to international problems that had prevailed in the labour movement for decades, a sign of a serious break with the reactionary policy pursued by the AFL-CIO leadership.

p Indicative of the increasing polarisation of forces within the labour movement was the National Labour Leadership Assembly for Peace, held in November 1967, in Chicago. Taking part in this assembly, which was organised on the 190 initiative of the leaders of the UAW, the Amalgamated Clothing Workers, the International Woodworkers of America, and the Amalgamated Meat Cutters, were 523 delegates from 50 national unions (including independent and progressive unions). Although the delegates held differing views on the ways and means of stopping the war, they were unanimous in their conviction that it had to be stopped. Many of the delegates who addressed the assembly criticised the pro-imperialist course followed by the Meany-Lovestone group in the AFL-CIO and condemned the Johnson Administration for waging an immoral war in Vietnam. The assembly adopted a Statement of Policy which noted that "despite the unwavering support of the administration’s Vietnam policy in the official councils of labour, this assembly has demonstrated that there exists at all levels in our unions the same disquiet, frustration and opposition that characterise the American people as a whole.”  [190•1  The assembly urged unions to work toward a rapid and just cessation of the Vietnam war "so that we may devote our wealth and energies to the struggle against poverty, disease, hunger and bigotry".  [190•2 

p The Chicago National Labour Leadership Assembly for Peace attracted broad public attention; it was the first time, the press noted, that such a large group of labour leaders had adopted a clear-cut anti-war position. In his book, American Labor and the Indochina War, the well-known Marxist historian and outstanding expert on the history of the labour movement, Philip S. Foner, stressed that the assembly had "destroyed the impression of a monolithic labour structure in support of the war in Indochina".  [190•3  The assembly thus marked an important change in the social spectrum of the anti-war movement; unions were now an integral part of it.

p The development of union participation in the movement was given added impetus by the resolutions passed at the founding conference of the Alliance for Labour Action in May 1969. The conference, representing the biggest unions 191 in the country, expressed its open opposition to the basic trends in the government’s foreign policy and condemned the positions taken by the AFL-CIO Executive Council with respect to the war. October and November 1969 saw the largest anti-war demonstrations in the country’s history. Among these were a massive march on Washington in which tens of thousands of union members took part, and huge demonstrations and meetings in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Detroit and other cities. An active part in these events was played by the Alliance for Labour Action and many individual unions, representing a total membership of over 5,000,000 workers.

p The invasion of Cambodia by American armed forces in April 1970 stirred up a storm of indignation throughout the United States. The anti-war movement rose to a new level, and labour’s participation in it reached unprecedented proportions.

p The administration’s reckless policy in Southeast Asia was sharply condemned by the ALA, by many independent unions, and by rank-and-file members, middle echelon leaders and even some top leaders of AFL-CIO affiliated unions. Labour’s growing opposition to the war was for the first time reflected in the AFL-CIO Executive Council. Although Meany’s group, as usual, came out with a statement expressing its unequivocal approval of the administration’s aggressive war policy, some members of the Executive Council finally spoke out against it. This split in the top organ of the AFL-CIO was not accidental; it was the direct result of the growing pressure by anti-war rank-and-filers on their union leaders. Butcher Workman, journal of the Amalgamated Meat Cutters and Butcher Workmen, summed up the situation in May 1970, when it wrote that approval of the Cambodian venture by the AFL-CIO leadership was out of line with the sentiments of the 13 million members of this federation. Rank-and-file union members did not support President Nixon’s policy. Anti-war resolutions adopted in trade union organisations in May and June 1970 called for the immediate withdrawal of American troops from Southeast Asia and stressed that the deteriorating economic position of the American working people, the rising cost of living, the growing tax burden, the constant 192 growth of unemployment, as well as the wave of repression against democratic forces in the country, all stemmed from the "dirty war" in Indochina.

p A new militancy appeared as labour’s involvement in the anti-war movement grew. Work stoppages occurred in many plants during 1970 as an expression of opposition to the war. In Detroit, the US auto manufacturing centre, such stoppages occurred at about 20 plants.  [192•1  Some union locals urged the AFL-CIO leaders "to call a nationwide general strike of all AFL-CIO members in protest against President Nixon’s actions to continue and expand the war in Southeast Asia".  [192•2 

p There was also a growing realisation within the labour movement of the need for unity with other anti-war forces. In many demonstrations workers marched side by side with students. A Labour-Student Coalition for Peace was organised in New York and similar organisations sprang up in other parts of the country. On the national level, the trend toward establishing a firm alliance between labour and student groups and other anti-war organisations was reflected in the establishment in the fall of 1970 of a National Coalition for a Responsible Congress. The new organisation had on its board Leonard Woodcock, UAW president, Jerry Wurf, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees and other eminent labour figures.

p The wide and vigorous upsurge of labour opposition to the war was extremely disquieting to the ruling circles and their "labour lieutenants”, the top AFL-CIO leaders.

p The forces of reaction tried to inspire the more politically immature and conservative elements of the working class to stage counter-demonstrations against the anti-war forces, with the idea of demonstrating that unions were “patriotic” and supported the government’s foreign policy. In May 1970, several hundred helmeted construction workers, armed with crowbars and lead pipes, attacked the participants of a peaceful anti-war demonstration. Similar attacks occurred in St. Louis and elsewhere, though on a smaller scale. The 193 big-business press, which usually gave scant attention to anti-war actions by trade unionists, heaped front-page praise on the pro-war “patriots”. The outrages committed against the anti-war demonstrators were widely reported as being spontaneous, unorganised actions by rank-and-file workers, although it was soon revealed that construction firms and pro-imperialist racist union officials had joined in promoting and encouraging what came to be known as the hard hat demonstrations.  [193•1  After a pro-war rally on May 20, organised by Peter J. Brennan, president of the Building and Construction Trades Council of Greater New York, Brennan and other pro-war union officials were invited to the White House to receive the personal thanks for their “work” from President Nixon.

p Schemes to encourage other unions and the more politically backward strata of workers to take similar pro- administration actions failed completely. The hard hat rampages aroused widespread indignation within the labour movement and in many construction union locals, as well. It soon turned out that construction workers, deceived by the monopolies and reactionary union leaders, were among the first to feel the burdensome economic effects of the war. In a matter of only a few months after the widely publicised pro-war demonstration the Republican Administration, stepping in to support the big construction firms, declared a "state of emergency" in the building trades industry and ordered a ceiling on wage increases for construction workers. The government’s actions evoked bitter resentment among the workers and put an end to the inglorious love affair between the Republican Administration and the construction workers. By March 1971, The New York Times was to write: "With hard hat construction workers marching, for their own economic reasons, side by side with anti-war protesters, there is no longer any easy White House appeal to the ’silent majority’ in fact.”  [193•2 

p Labour’s participation in the anti-war movement reached proportions unprecedented in the post-war decades. During a three-week campaign for peace in April and May 194 (in which millions of people participated), unions took an active part in organising demonstrations in Washington, San Francisco and other cities. In San Francisco, for example, following a decision by the San Francisco Labour Council, all unions supported a massive march on April 24 against the war in Indochina. These mass demonstrations (as well as public opinion polls which showed that from 64 to 73 per cent of the country’s trade unionists demanded US troop withdrawal from the countries of Southeast Asia)  [194•1  indicated that a substantial part of the American labour movement was disassociating itself from the pro-imperialist policy of the top AFL-GIO Rightist leadership.

p The Communist Party of the USA has highly assessed the upsurge and growth of the labour-for-peace movement. Political Affairs, the party’s theoretical organ, has noted that, for the first time in the nation’s history, important and perhaps even crucial sections of the labour movement have come out publicly against the imperialist military policy of their government. This movement for peace helps strengthen the tendencies toward trade union independence in all spheres, and above all, in the sphere of foreign policy, for support of the foreign policy of the ruling class has, in the past, been one of the chains that bound the trade unions to the two-party system.

p The new trends in the labour movement stem from the intensified class struggle in the United States in the sixties and the failure of the reformist policy pursued by Rightist labour leaders in the face of the monopolies’ offensive against the vital interests and rights of the working class.

The changes that have taken place and are now taking place in the position of the working class and in the trade union movement anticipate labour’s liberation from the bonds of "class collaboration" and its disintegrating consequences. As noted in the New Program of the Communist Party, USA, "Once liberated from the bonds of ’class partnership’, once labour asserts its political independence and confronts its corporate enemies as a class in the political arena, once the organisation of added millions is a reality, 195 labour can fulfil its destiny as the leading and most dynamic force in a new anti-monopoly alignment of the people of the United States, and as that force which will lead them to socialism.”  [195•1