Page:Program of the Trade Union Educational League (1927).djvu/3



The trade union movement is in the deepest crisis of its history. At this time, while the Third National Conference of the Trade Union Educational League is meeting, the great attack against the labor movement is being renewed with redoubled vigor. The employers are openly battling to increase working hours, decrease wages, break down protective regulations, and smash all effective trade unionism. The railroad shop unions have been largely replaced by company "unions," while the 8-hour day on the railroads is being rapidly undermined. The trade unions have been driven out or reduced to impotence in the basic and key industries. More and more, the A. F. of L. is being narrowed to skilled and privileged workers, whose interests the bureaucratic leaders seek to protect at the expense of the basic mass of the workers. The much-heralded "prosperity" of 1925–26, which never reflected itself in prosperity for more than a very small number of workers, is now near its end; unemployment is rapidly becoming acute; the capitalist class of America sees its opportunity to complete the union-smashing campaign which was only partially carried out in 1920–23.

The union-wrecking drive reaches its apex in the present efforts of the employers to smash the Miners Union. Aided by the treacherous leadership of the Lewis regime, the coal operators, in the past few years, have destroyed district after district of the union, which has lost some 200,000 members. Now in this strike the operators are crushing the union in the three key districts of Western Pennsylvania and Ohio. Should they succeed the U. M. W. A. will be broken nationally. Such an employers' victory would stimulate the open shop movement in every industry. The attack would be intensified everywhere against the workers' standards and organizations. The employers by sweeping injunctions and drastic repression would seek to outlaw and destroy the unions generally, except perhaps a few skilled workers' unions. The situation is highly critical, The trade union movement is in the gravest danger of its existence. The great task of the workers is to rally to save and rebuild their threatened trade unions.