First meeting in May, 1927 the Profintern’s Pan-Pacific Trade Union Secretariat announces its aims and appeals for collaboration.

‘The Pan-Pacific Trade Union Secretariat to the Trade Unions of Pacific Countries’ from The Daily Worker. September 12, 1927.

Dear Comrades:

The Pan-Pacific Trade Union Conference took place in Hankow from May 19th to May 26th. At this Conference were represented the Trade Unions of China, Japan, the U.S.S.R., Java, Great Britain, France, Korea and the U.S.A. Due to Government interference the delegates from Australia and Formosa could not attend. For similar and technical reasons the delegates from the Philippines and from the Pacific countries of Latin America did not attend the Conference.

However, notwithstanding all these difficulties and obstacles, no less than 14,500,000 organized workers were represented at the Pan-Pacific Trade Union Conference.

Our Conference held its sessions at a critical moment, when the Chinese Revolution is threatened by armed imperialist intervention. Not far from the meeting hall of the Conference were stationed dozens of foreign warships. The first word spoken by the Pan-Pacific Conference was in support of the Chinese Revolution in its struggle against imperialism. Its first appeal ends with the slogans: “Down with the imperialists,” “Down with the reactionary militarists,” “Oust the imperialist pirates from China.”

Fully conscious of the ever-growing political and economic contradictions in the East, and of the impending danger of a new imperialist war for markets and sources of raw materials and for new fields of investments, the Pan-Pacific Trade Union Conference has laid the foundation for rapprochement and militant alliance of the brave unions of the Pacific countries. The Pan-Pacific Conference has created an organ of connections, propaganda and action–The Pan-Pacific Trade Union Secretariat. The aims and objects of the Secretariat are as follows:

1. To carry on a joint struggle against the dangers of war between the Powers of the Pacific.

2. To counteract the imperialist dangers that menace the Chinese Revolution.

3. To help all the oppressed people of the Pacific to liberate themselves from the yoke of Imperialism.

4. To fight against and remove all racial and national barriers and prejudices which still divide the exploited classes and oppressed peoples to the advantage of the exploiters and oppressors.

5. To cement and to maintain a real fraternal united front of the exploited classes in the countries of the Pacific.

6. To organize and to carry out joint actions of the exploited classes and oppressed peoples against the oppressing Powers.

7. To fight for world Trade Union Unity and for the creation of a single United Trade Union International.

It will also be the task of the Secretariat to maintain permanent connections not only with the organizations of those countries which were represented at the Pan-Pacific Conference but also with all the other trade union organizations of the Pacific countries.

The Pan-Pacific Trade Union Secretariat requests all trade union organizations to respond to its call for close and permanent connections between the trade union movements of the different countries, and for the co-ordination of all actions and the exchange of experience.

We are sending you the Bulletins of Proceedings and the resolutions and decisions of the Pan-Pacific Trade Union Conference, with the request to popularize them among the trade union membership, to discuss these resolutions and decisions and then to communicate the results to the Pan Pacific Secretariat. (Address: P.O. Box 65, Hankow, China).

The Secretariat requests all trade  union organizations to send to it regularly all statistical and any other material dealing with the living and working conditions of the workers, and to inform the Secretariat of the most important facts regarding the labor struggles in the particular country.

The first issues of the official organ of the Pan-Pacific Trade Union Secretariat, The Pan-Pacific Worker, are already published. The Secretariat requests all active trade unionists to collaborate and to send in articles dealing with the life and struggles of the working class. The Pan-Pacific Worker will have a special section dealing with the labor movement in the various countries and another section for reviews of the periodical and non-periodical press and publications dealing with problems of the labor movement.

Fully conscious of the difficulties that confront it, the Secretariat hopes that all those to whom the cause of labor has some serious meaning, will do their share to help in its work.

The Pan-Pacific Trade Union Secretariat hopes to see the foundation laid by the Pan-Pacific Conference enlarged and reenforced, and that all the trade union organizations of the Pacific countries will ratify the decisions and resolutions adopted by the Conference.

With fraternal greetings, The Pan-Pacific Trade Union Secretariat. Hankow, July 1, 1927.

The Daily Worker began in 1924 and was published in New York City by the Communist Party US and its predecessor organizations. Among the most long-lasting and important left publications in US history, it had a circulation of 35,000 at its peak. The Daily Worker came from The Ohio Socialist, published by the Left Wing-dominated Socialist Party of Ohio in Cleveland from 1917 to November 1919, when it became became The Toiler, paper of the Communist Labor Party. In December 1921 the above-ground Workers Party of America merged the Toiler with the paper Workers Council to found The Worker, which became The Daily Worker beginning January 13, 1924.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1927/1927-ny/v04-n206-NY-sep-12-1927-DW-LOC.pdf