Page:Resolutions and Decisions of the Third Congress of the Red International of Labor Unions (1924).pdf/57

 coordination of their work, central councils must be developed and be made the local centers of the struggle against the capitalist class.

More than ever the league must emphasize the immediate struggle for wages and conditions. By propaganda and publicity regarding the gradual depression of the living standards of Canadian workers, by developing organizational machinery for unified efforts and arousing the rank and file, the Canadian section of the league must work for the development of Dominion-wide struggles for immediate gains; while through their local and district federated bodies, league members shall initiate strikes for wages, shorter hours, union recognition, etc.

To prevent terrorism and master class oppression of the strikers, all responsibility for the maintenance of order, should be undertaken by special guards appointed by the strike committees. Such special guards to take the place of the private company, and class state armed forces. For the realization of the above a Dominion-wide campaign must be undertaken.

The organization of the unorganized workers is one of the urgent needs of the Canadian movement. League members shall organize concerted drives to sweep masses of workers into the trade unions, Working wherever possible through the trade union machinery, they must at the same time initiate active campaigns on their own behalf among the metal miners, lumber workers, agricultural workers, etc.

The railways constitute the arterial system of Canada and 79,000 organized railway workers are potentially the most powerful single body of organized workers in the Dominion. Held apart by artificial division, most of the railway workers are still strongly desirous of unity, recognizing that this would render possible tremendous improvements in wages, conditions, and the proportion in which the workers participate in the running of the industry. As it is, the Canadian Brotherhood of Railway employees is completely isolated from the rest of the railway workers, while the maintenance of way and shop laborers are outside of Division No. 4., thereby weakening it greatly.

In this industry the propaganda and educational work in favor of amalgamation must be intensified and extended to every local body and ideological influence already exerted by the amalgamation movement must be crystallized into organizational form.

Against the slogan of unity and struggle, the officialdom is raising the slogan of class collaboration through compulsory arbitration, standards of production, and the so-called Baltimore and Ohio plan. Against this iniquitous selling out of the workers' organizations the league must wage relentless warfare. This plan must be exposed to the rank and file as a means of subordinating their organizations to the desires of the railroad corporations.

One of the principal weaknesses of the Canadian left wing at the present time is the impatience of the rebels, who, in their eagerness to overthrow reaction, fail to grasp the full importance of the task facing