Morris Sigman’s 1923 coming to power in the International Ladies Garment Workers Union was with the support of the right wing of the Socialist Party around Cahan’s Forward. Sigman immediately began expelling Communists and T.U.E.L. supporters who were driven from most of the union, except for the mighty Local 22 of New York City. Harrison George reports on the struggle to the summer of 1924. The fight withing the I.L.G.W.U. would continue for another decade and more.

“Socialist” Union Wreckers’ by Harrison George from Labor Herald (T.U.E.L.). Vol. 3 No. 5. July, 1924.

THE International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union has been made the private property of the Sigman-Cahan “socialist” reactionaries. It is an absolute monarchy, a perfect picture of despotism. In many particulars it duplicates the “socialist” dictatorship of Germany under Ebert and Von Seeckt and parallels the unprincipled, union-wrecking leadership of the German trade unions.

It will be noted that the German unions under similar leadership have been nearly ruined and are being deserted by their betrayed membership. But just as conditions force the German workers to organized resistance, and the Communists to continue and redouble their efforts to win the rank and file of the unions to left wing leadership, so the vital needs of the workers in the ladies’ garment industry are compelling resistance by the union in spite of all the obstacles to effective action placed in the way of the membership by the Sigman monarchy. And just as in Germany, so do the Communists and all left wing elements in the I.L.G.W.U. fight against the impulse of the masses to leave the union; they continue and redouble their work to win the rank and file.

Facing the New York Strike.

From the beginning of the expulsion policy it was recognized that the motive of the officialdom was the desire to conceal their own programless bankruptcy in face of the crisis in the industry. Behind the turmoil and disruption which they created by the expulsion attack on the left wing, they hoped to restore their lost hold on the membership. To maintain a semblance of struggle for union conditions, they could not expel the left wing and ignore the trade demands at the same time. So the ten demands, originally made by the left wing, were taken up by the officials and a pretended fight made to put them into effect.

The result of the disruptive expulsion policy is seen now that the New York cloakmakers, driven by the most crying needs to face the crisis of a great strike, are dependent for official direction upon these black reactionaries, upon Sigman and his gang who are doing all in their power to obstruct, compromise and de- feat the efforts of the membership.

Few unions in the world are dominated by such black reaction as the I.L.G.W. This is illustrated by the disgraceful Boston convention the high point of which was a demonstration against Soviet Russia. In the hands of such officials have been and are the negotiations with the New York manufacturers for demands long ago formulated by the left wing.

It must be reiterated that the left wing has long agitated for these demands being made a part of the union program. A forty-hour week, unemployment insurance, guaranteed employment for a minimum number of weeks, increase of the minimum wage scale, limitation of the number of contract workers, etc., have been and remain trade demands of the left wing. It shall continue to fight for them and other demands not yet adopted by the union, and only by the energy of the membership inspired by left wing leadership can they be won. Any victory will be won only by the rank and file smashing all the obstacles laid down by Sigman, and by vigilant punishment of all treachery and compromise.

It is a fact which condemns the officialdom that just as the union is about to face the terrible crisis of a great strike, a strike for demands which are required by the very life needs of the workers yet which the officials have always neglected if not opposed, the left wing, which agitated for these demands, is expelled and the union tragically weakened by provocative tactics of the Sigman bureaucracy. It is a clear case of defeating the demands and helping the bosses disrupt the union.

Premeditated Class Treachery.

The rank and file have no reason to trust the officials; they have every reason to be closely vigilant over their conduct in this strike. The provocative expulsion policy, clearly intended to create internal trouble and disrupt the fighting ranks as they approach battle with the bosses, could benefit nobody but these bosses. Moreover, a revolt against the outrageous expulsions at the time the union faced a strike, could be used as an excuse by the official gang for playing traitor and accepting defeat. A settled policy of benefitting the bosses at the expense of the membership is behind all this policy of expulsion. It is the fixed policy of renegade socialists in the unions both here and abroad. The expulsions are only part of a premeditated policy of class collaboration with the capitalists against the workers. For months it has been known that a fight would have to be made in New York. Weeks passed after the bosses refused to discuss the demands. Yet no adequate preparatory measures were taken at any time, and even the make-shift measures now effective were not taken until days after the old agreement expired. Meanwhile Sigman dilly-dallied with apologetic letters to the State Industrial Commissioner who, in spite of his chatter of how “parties to this controversy should sit around a table and discuss differences” has no rebuke for the bosses that declared the demands “undebatable.’ Besides, the officials propagate defeatism by cautious talk of the “grave event” and the “honorable means” and “peaceful methods” it uses to dodge a strike against greedy exploiters whom it servilely calls the “virile and living factors” in the cloak industry.

The militants will not allow Sigman’s desired disruption to succeed. Neither will they allow him to avoid complete responsibility for the strike situation. They will continue, as in the Boston and Chicago strikes, to fight for the union and union demands. With the backing of the membership they will fight for the New York demands against both the bosses and the treachery of Sigman. They will not allow themselves to be separated from the masses even for a single day.

Officials Renounce Class Struggle.

However, stupid and ruthless though the Sigman-Cahan machine was at the Boston convention, it cannot but defeat itself by such means as were used to wipe out the last vestige of workers’ democracy in the union. These “socialists” went over to capitalism so completely as to strike out the whole I.L.G.W. preamble, which contained a recognition of the class struggle and an endorsement of a “system of society wherein the workers shall receive the full value of their product.”

This renunciation of struggle against capitalism was fittingly accompanied by a typical Fascist-reactionary assault on the left wing. Those who struggle against capitalism and try to realize the society the preamble described, were unseated, and membership in the Trade Union Educational League declared illegal. Moreover, the constitution was so altered that the present officials are self-perpetuated, made absolute despots, and all methods of the membership removing them by constitutional means were carefully cut out. Like the Supreme Court of the United States, the Sigman gang are practically ruling for life. The I.L.G.W. is, to all intents and purposes, Sigman’s private property.

The Lesson of History.

But history has proven the failure of such tactics. The Communists in the German unions have shown how to combat such treachery. They have found a way to stay in the unions in spite of expulsions and rapidly win the masses away from just such “socialist” traitors as Sigman. Rickert, in the United Garment Workers, also tried the same game that Sigman is trying, also with the help of Gompers–but he failed miserably. Sigman’s failure is only a matter of time.

No matter how successful Sigman might think he is in eliminating the organized left wing as a factor in the immediate life of the union, the deep needs of the workers toiling in the sweatshops, the needs of the struggle itself, make inevitable in one form or another an organized expression of opposition to capitalism and its agents in offices of the union. Sigman cannot abolish the class struggle by abolishing mention of it in the preamble, nor can he avoid organizational expression of that struggle by the formation of a left wing. A few militants have been expelled, but two will appear where one appeared before. The left wing is the modern Hydra!…

The left wing has been through the battle and reaction is still in the saddle. But one battle is not the whole war-and the war is not over. The left wing is not dismayed by difficulty. History, running swiftly, is on its side. Sigman’s tactics of attempting to provoke ill-judged actions will not succeed, neither will the left wing submit to force. For the left wing is not an artificial, arbitrary creation, but the crystallized needs of the industrial workers. When, as is sure to happen, the socialist monarchy succeeds in defeating every effort of the workers against the bosses, the disillusioned membership, however bound under the constitution, will find a way to choose new and left wing leaders to direct their struggle.

The left wing is patient, but not silent. It will continue to point out the responsibility for failure to lead the struggle, and will fight for the demands of the workers in the trade, for amalgamation, a real labor party, unconditional recognition of Soviet Russia, and for a Communist society.

The Labor Herald was the monthly publication of the Trade Union Educational League (TUEL), in immensely important link between the IWW of the 1910s and the CIO of the 1930s. It was begun by veteran labor organizer and Communist leader William Z. Foster in 1920 as an attempt to unite militants within various unions while continuing the industrial unionism tradition of the IWW, though it was opposed to “dual unionism” and favored the formation of a Labor Party. Although it would become financially supported by the Communist International and Communist Party of America, it remained autonomous, was a network and not a membership organization, and included many radicals outside the Communist Party. In 1924 Labor Herald was folded into Workers Monthly, an explicitly Party organ and in 1927 ‘Labor Unity’ became the organ of a now CP dominated TUEL. In 1929 and the turn towards Red Unions in the Third Period, TUEL was wound up and replaced by the Trade Union Unity League, a section of the Red International of Labor Unions (Profitern) and continued to publish Labor Unity until 1935. Labor Herald remains an important labor-orientated journal by revolutionaries in US left history and would be referenced by activists, along with TUEL, along after it’s heyday.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/laborherald/v3n05-jul-1924.pdf