Oh, how far we have come. In this fine report from the 1927 A.F.L. Convention issues raised included the need to keep pace with technology, organizing the unorganized, immigration, the condition of Black workers, imperialism in the labor movement, and the fight for independent class politics.

‘Surrender Raised to a System: The Work of the Last A. F. of L. Convention’ by William F. Dunne from The Communist. Vol. 6 No. 7. November, 1927.

“We love American institutions, and whenever they are assailed the millions of working men of America will rise in defense of these institutions and these principles.”

President William Green in his opening speech to the Forty-Seventh Annual convention of the A. F. of L.

“I have often been startled by the identity of the statements of President Green and those of the captains of industry.”

Major-General Summerall, speaking to the A. F. of L. convention after Green had introduced him as a “Friend of Labor.”

FOUR days after the adjournment of the forty-seventh annual convention of the American Federation of Labor, during whose sessions the ambient atmosphere of Los Angeles was charged with the high-pressure patriotic sentiments quoted above, and others too numerous to list here, the United States Supreme Court, American institution par excellence, decreed that the United Mine Workers of America was an outlaw organization and prohibited it from organizing in the state of West Virginia.

The same decision outlaws all strikes which affect enterprises producing articles of interstate commerce and puts the “yellow dog” contract high on the list of American institutions.

The rewards of virtue in the form of complete subservience to the institutions of American capitalist government, are quick and decisive. It is clear that no action or utterance of the A. F. of L. convention added to the fear or respect of the American capitalists and their government for the labor movement.

The report of the executive council to the convention contains the general line and the specific recommendations which the Los Angeles gathering followed. It is in this document that is found, in all its miserable truckling to American imperialism, the “Monroe Doctrine of American Labor” and the “higher strategy of the American labor movement.”

The executive council’s report sets a new mark for reaction in the labor movement. Its tone is studied and deliberate. It is written in the style affected by factory experts and there is little doubt that some of them now on the research staff of the executive council, had a hand in its composition.

Virility is totally absent from this document. There seems to have been a successful attempt to eliminate anything that smacks of struggle. In fact, the executive council admits that this is the case. On page 16 of the report is to be found the following statement:

“Formerly Labor has allowed spectacular incidents of strife to overshadow the more important events of constructive development and service. The Federation has taken the initiative in reversing this attitude…by shifting attention from problems of defense or aggression…the relative importance of sustained work of the union becomes more obvious.”

It is this denial of the necessity for and emphasis upon struggle which undoubtedly prompted the executive council to omit in its report all reference to the fact that its most important union—the United Mine Workers–had been on strike since April 1. In view of the concentrated attack upon the miners’ union, of so fierce and sustained a character that it threatens the union with destruction, this omission is not only one of the most extraordinary instances in labor history, but startling evidence of the determination of American labor officialdom to disregard and discourage even strikes forced upon thousands of organized workers in basic industry.

PRESENT PROBLEMS OF AMERICAN LABOR

A number of major problems confronted the labor movement at the time the executive council compiled its report. These problems were unsolved as the convention went into session. They can be listed as:

1. Combatting the injunction menace in an effective manner.

2. Mobilization of the labor forces for the national elections in opposition to the capitalist class and their political parties.

3. Organization of the unorganized—resistance to the capitalist offensive.

4. Struggle against the militarization of the American working class and the danger of imperialist war.

To not a single of these questions did the executive council give an effective answer in its report, nor did the convention even attempt a reply.

Confronted by such facts as the attack on the U.M.W.A., the increasing number and scope of injunctions, evidences of a slowing down of industry and increasing difficulties of even the privileged building trades unions, the executive council instead of drawing the inescapable conclusion that a new attack on the unions is under way, dodges all such unpleasant realities and actually reports “a more friendly attitude on the part of employers” toward the labor movement.

This “friendliness,” the executive council neglects to state, manifests itself only where the unions have become efficiency organs, as on the Baltimore and Ohio railroad and elsewhere. The executive council makes a bid for a continuation of the terms of surrender by saying on page 25 that “there is nothing that the company union can do within the single company that the trade union can not develop the machinery for doing and accomplish more effectively. Union management cooperation…is much more fundamental and effective than employee representation plans for cooperating with management.”

NO STRUGGLE, SAY BUREAUCRATS

Then, to make assurance for the bosses doubly sure, to prove that official labor leadership has no intention even of beginning an open struggle against company unions, the report goes on to state that “the question at issue here is not one that should be decided by conflict—unless employers force that course.”

“Let us get together—even on the question of company unions,” this is the tenor of the plea. Even the tottering old Sam Gompers would have been ashamed to sign his name to such a statement.

The only spark of militancy displayed at the convention on this question flared up in the breast of another ancient—Andy Furuseth. Bitter foe of the Communists, baiter of I.W.W.’s, Furuseth still hates the soft voice of surrender and the poses of silk-hat unionism. He protested the statement that the bosses were growing more friendly and warned the convention of the danger facing the labor movement. Furuseth said:

“The executive council talks of the growing friendliness between employers and labor. This is not the case, at least in my experience. The disposition to use fair words in places where employers and labor come together has indeed increased, but they remind me of the soothing phrases of the surgeon before he wields the knife. The entire tendency of the times is against putting any reliance in the fair intentions of the employers and their instruments. Big business has absolute control of the United States today.

“I have seen labor drifting from bad to worse for many years, because you have not had the courage to act. I am not a Communist, and if you want to call me one I don’t give a damn, but I am here to warn you of the coming slavery. The stonecutters’ decision by the federal supreme court was a most emphatic warning. It said that men may not quit work because materials coming in from another state are non-union. Carried to its logical outcome, this decision would prevent such gatherings as the A. F. of L. convention and you may have to meet in future underground, as in the early days of trade union history.”

THE INJUNCTION MENACE

The injunction menace has a direct connection with the whole question of the legal status of the trade unions. It may surprise many persons to know that in the United States the labor movement has no legal right to exist. The capitalists have never admitted that unions come under the head of “American institutions.”

In spite of its pretensions, the executive council was forced to admit the inferior status of the trade union movement. “Among the outstanding problems which confront the labor movement,” said the executive council, “we would place first the securing of an equitable legal status for the union.” Since this statement was made the supreme court has still further outlawed the labor movement by its decision in the West Virginia case, which was in the courts when the executive council made its report.

Not only have the strikes which affect interstate commerce been prohibited, but the “yellow dog” contract has been legalized. In this field also the executive council and the convention were unable to report any progress. On the contrary the council has to state:

“Use of yellow dog contracts has not decreased. Employers in many states have been compelling their employees to sign contracts not to belong to unions as a condition of employment.”

In this field of activity—fight against injunctions, “yellow dog” contracts and company unionism—thus barren of achievement, the council confines itself to recommendations, hoary with age, for amendments to anti-trust and anti-combination legislation.

For progress in the sphere of social legislation, the executive council was able to report two world-shaking achievements—the inclusion of longshoremen in workmen’s compensation laws, and “liberalization of the rates in federal workmen’s compensation.”

Only one state legislature (Montana) out of 44 meeting in 1927, has approved the child labor amendment to the constitution.

In 1924, says the executive council, “both parties ignored the pleas of labor.”

Yet this same body, casting all rules of evidence to the winds, declared to the Los Angeles convention that:

“The successes of the non-partisan political campaign of the American Federation of Labor have been gradually becoming greater. A larger number of wage earners every year sees the benefit of nonpartisan action.”

One delegate, Max Hayes of the Typographical Union, raised his voice against this brazen display of loyalty to the parties of American capitalism. Hayes was rebuked promptly by John Walker, president of the Illinois State Federation of Labor, who stated that he, too, was once blind like Hayes but “that his eyes had been opened.” Illinois workers will be inclined to think that the return of his eyesight to normal coincided with the greasing of the palms of Illinois labor leaders which accompanied the expenditure of the $300,000 slush fund of Frank L. Smith, the traction trust candidate for United States Senator in the last election.

A. F. OF L. HAS NOT ORGANIZED THE UNORGANIZED

No achievements could be reported in organization of the unorganized. Even Detroit, where a year ago the executive council, under the lash of the hardboiled open shoppers, hurled a challenge to the automobile capitalists, cannot furnish any tale of results beyond two conferences of union officials.

But the executive council delivered a highly interesting dissertation under the head of “How to Organize Highly Mechanized Industries.” The section under this heading carefully evades any mention of such old-established and unorganized basic industries as steel, meat packing, oil refining, etc. It speaks only of relatively new light industries. With the exception of automobiles, it deals specifically only with secondary industries, like radio manufacture, vacuum cleaners, mechanical refrigeration, etc. The inference is that these industries have developed so rapidly that the labor movement has not yet got around to the job of organizing them.

Carrying this inference to the ridiculous extreme, the executive council recommends that each central labor union set up a special committee “to be on the watch for new industries.”

But some important admissions are made in this section.

One of these admissions is that organization in “highly mechanized industries” requires “new kinds of skill and new group bases” and that there “must be a new basis of appeal.” The only answer to these facts, admitted by all honest trade unionists, is the program for amalgamation and industrial unionism put forward by the Communist and left wing workers. The executive council and the convention which endorsed its recommendations see only the “need for study of the mass production industries.”

MEMBERSHIP OF A. F. OF L. DECREASES

Including loss of members suffered by the United Mine Workers, which does not show in the official per capita tax membership report to the convention, the A. F. of L. has decreased in strength by at least 100,000 since the last convention.

This is its “achievement” in the organization of the unorganized.

The convention refused to pass a resolution demanding the withdrawal of troops and gunboats from Nicaragua and China. No delegate supported this resolution, which had been referred to the Los Angeles convention by the New York State Federation of Labor convention, but the executive council made its introduction an excuse to make clear its support of American policy in China and, by having the convention turn down the resolution, reverse the action of the American delegates to the Pan-American Federation of Labor who voted for a resolution asking the withdrawal of troops from Nicaragua.

More than that, the resolutions committee took the opportunity in its report to rebuke persons who introduce anti-imperialist resolutions. The committee accused such persons of being desirous simply of criticizing the government.

The united front with the American legion was reaffirmed and the delegates were informed by President Green that army airplanes were at their disposal if they wanted a ride.

THE A. F. OF L. AND THE SOVIET UNION

The Soviet Union did not become the target of the customary planned attack for the simple reason that no resolution calling for recognition found its way to the convention floor. The attack this year was incidental and the general policy of the bureaucracy clearly designed to attempt to create the impression that recognition of the Soviet Union is no longer an issue in the American Labor movement.

But the return of the first American Trade Union Delegation a few days before the opening of the convention, and the publication of its report following the convention, is an assurance that New Orleans, the scene of the next convention, will witness a struggle for recognition of the Soviet Union on much more concrete and effective lines than ever before.

In addition to the new information at hand in the Trade Union Delegation report, there is the announcement of the 7-hour day for Soviet Union workers which will give American trade Unionists a chance to make some comparisons between this achievement and the attack of the government and the bosses upon the United Mine Workers and other unions.

None of these things is calculated to add to the peace of mind of the official advocates of efficiency unionism and unqualified support of American institutions.

POLICY ON IMMIGRATION FROM MEXICO

It developed at the convention that the executive council has succeeded in forcing upon the Mexican Federation of Labor an immigration policy similar in all essential aspects to that of the A. F. of L.

Its chief points are as follows:

1. That the Mexican government is to be petitioned to adopt a restrictive policy and if necessary, to enact legislation to that end, excluding all peoples of oriental birth or extraction.

2. That consideration be given to the exclusion of all immigrants deemed unsuitable to the moral, physical, political and economic integrity.

3. That the Mexican government be petitioned to consider and to enact a restrictive immigration policy, which, in substance, shall conform to the Immigration Law requirements of the United States.

4. That the Mexican government be petitioned to adopt a method of regulating emigration so as to give full and complete enforcement to the immigration policy herein recommended.

In return for agreement to these provisions by the Mexican Federation of Labor, the executive council of the A. F. of L. agrees not to agitate for the establishment of a “quota” against Mexican workers.

It is doubtful if in labor history there is a more outstanding and flagrant exercise of power by an imperialist labor leadership over the labor movement of a semi-colonial country menaced by a powerful imperialist government.

It is also of great importance to note that in the struggle which took place in the convention over the question of Mexican immigration, the Mexican labor leadership was lauded for the reason that it had ABANDONED THE IDEA OF ORGANIZING AND ARMING THE TRADE UNIONISTS FOR THE DEFENSE OF THE REVOLUTION.

A. F. OF L. AND THE NEGRO WORKERS

Continuing its aping of the policy of American imperialism toward oppressed races the convention refused to pass resolutions calling for the abolition of discrimination against Negro workers and for their organization on a basis of equality with white workers.

The convention was held in an atmosphere of “red-baiting” and the usual trappings of police and detectives which have become an inseparable part of all A. F. of L. gatherings.

The chief of the secret service of the Los Angeles police department was made an active member of the credentials committee and aided Vice President Woll and Secretary Morrison to exclude William Schneiderman, a delegate from the Office Workers Union, who is a Communist. Sidney Bush, a food worker who is also a Communist, was arrested in the convention hall and Trade Union Educational League resolutions for which he was trying to get support promptly became a Communist “Plot.”

Carl Haessler, managing editor of the Federated Press was also arrested in the general drive upon all left wing and progressive forces which might introduce a discordant note into this assemblage of Wall Street’s labor agents.

So assiduous were the detectives of the Los Angeles police force, notoriously the instruments of the open shop chamber of commerce, in “protecting” these labor leaders from Communist and left wing workers armed with resolutions for a labor party, amalgamation, withdrawal of troops from China and Nicaragua, recognition of the Soviet Union, etc., that the Los Angeles Examiner was moved to mild protest. Not on the grounds that the police were going too far, but that labor officialdom was itself the best bulwark against radicalism. The Examiner said:

“One need only recall the recent history of the A. F. of L. to judge how utterly absurd it would be for anyone to try to put over on its national assemblage an attack on the American government. During the war period no more effective work was done to make that venture a success than by this same organization. And if any group is to be given special credit for keeping Bolshevism out of this country as well as it has been kept out, the A. F. of L. should be nominated for the honor.”

“If it really was the intention of the so-called ‘Red’ under arrest to start some anti-American agitation, he certainly picked the wrong time and place.

“If he knew the character and temper of the men whose principles he was seeking to undermine—assuming that he was—he would thank his stars he never got as far as the convention floor.”

We can think of no better quotation with which to close an article on the forty-seventh annual convention of the A. F. of L. than the above.

A CONVENTION OF CONSCIOUS REACTION

It remains only to say that the convention was dominated, not by blind, but by conscious reaction.

It moved deliberately and rapidly closer to the policy of the state department in Latin America and China. It gave less consideration than ever before to fundamental labor issues—a labor party, amalgamation, organization of the unorganized—and in the face of federal injunctions which have outlawed the most important union in decisive coal fields and which will make illegal all important strikes, it confined itself to empty denunciation.

The convention made itself one with the militarists. The A. F. of L. leaders fraternized with the chief-of-staff of Wall Street’s army.

It praised the leadership which has smashed the furriers and cloakmakers unions by a united front with bosses, courts, police and gangsters. It would not even demand militantly a pardon for Tom Mooney and Warren Billings, but referred the matter to the executive council. Not by so much as a word did it recognize that the rank and file of American labor had shown in the fight for Sacco and Vanzetti an understanding, determination and militancy which proves that the masses are ready and willing to struggle against oppression.

The convention gave to the American labor movement no program except that of surrender. This policy of surrendering the rank and file of the labor movement to American capitalism by the official leadership is what “the higher strategy of American labor” really means.

NO RANK AND FILE EXPRESSION

The extraordinary measures taken by officialdom to prevent any rank and file expression in the convention enables it to say that no opposition to its policies appeared. But at the same time it has removed itself farther from the rank and file than ever before, and thus will be less able than in the past to check effectively the gathering force of the left wing which now can point to the disastrous consequences of the “constructive” policy of the official leadership. This policy has as its two outstanding achievements the disruption of the United Mine Workers and absolute helplessness in the face of a combined attack on the part of the bosses and their government which is destroying the labor movement.

Even the policy of trade union capitalism, that pet project of the A. F. of L. leadership, has been discredited by the collapse of the Locomotive Engineers adventure. It has but one method left, and that is to take up still more energetically the roles of police informer and persecutor of Communist and left wing workers in behalf of an imperialist government that is preparing for war.

In this role the Greens, Wolls and Lewises will break their necks.

There are a number of journals with this name in the history of the movement. This Communist was the main theoretical journal of the Communist Party from 1927 until 1944. Its origins lie with the folding of The Liberator, Soviet Russia Pictorial, and Labor Herald together into Workers Monthly as the new unified Communist Party’s official cultural and discussion magazine in November, 1924. Workers Monthly became The Communist in March ,1927 and was also published monthly. The Communist contains the most thorough archive of the Communist Party’s positions and thinking during its run. The New Masses became the main cultural vehicle for the CP and the Communist, though it began with with more vibrancy and discussion, became increasingly an organ of Comintern and CP program. Over its run the tagline went from “A Theoretical Magazine for the Discussion of Revolutionary Problems” to “A Magazine of the Theory and Practice of Marxism-Leninism” to “A Marxist Magazine Devoted to Advancement of Democratic Thought and Action.” The aesthetic of the journal also changed dramatically over its years. Editors included Earl Browder, Alex Bittelman, Max Bedacht, and Bertram D. Wolfe.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/communist/v06n07-nov-1927-communist.pdf