Page:Resolutions and Decisions of the Third Congress of the Red International of Labor Unions (1924).pdf/56

 of the party into the unions and into the league, to make them subscribers to the Class Struggle Propaganda Fund, and to have each branch and official of the Workers Party held responsible by the Workers Party for the establishment, maintenance and functioning of the league in their respective localities.

HILE the general program adopted for the Trade Union Educational League applies throughout North America, the economic and organizational conditions existing in Canada render an additional and particularly Canadian program necessary. To meet this need, the following concrete tasks are laid down as a basis for the activities of the Canadian membership in their immediate work.

The inevitable sharpening of the struggle in the near future renders a great degree of autonomy for the trade union movement of Canada essential. Autonomy does not mean a cleavage between the movement of Canada and that of the United States. Neither is the autonomy movement inspired by chauvinistic ideas regarding our ability to emancipate the workers by ourselves. It is inspired by their realization that the Canadian movement must be free to function as a unit; and the Trades Congress of Canada, which at present embraces less than half of the organized workers, must unite them all and be able to co-ordinate their struggle.

Power to initiate action and to extend and lead the class struggle within the confines of Canada, as well as to levy assessments for the assistance of affiliated organizations on strike, would make the Trades Congress a real centre of Canadian unionism and by rallying our small locals for united struggles, would completely change the face of the Canadian trade union movement.

To this end therefore, we must fight for autonomy. Through a systematic campaign among the rank and file we must strive to bring about the organization of all Canadian locals of each international into Canadian departments, each of which must have full freedom of action en both economic and political issues.

The 59 trades and labor councils through the Dominion, uniting and influencing as they do hundreds of thousands of workers, constitute a body of opinion of tremendous influence and potential power. Their strength and value is greatly diminished, however, by the narrow restrictions of the American Federation of Labor which forbid them to accept any but A. F. of L. organizations into affiliation. All trades and labor councils must have the right, as should also the Trades Congress of Canada, to accept into affiliation any bona fide trade union organizations. Further, through the organization of shop committees and the