Page:William Z. Foster -Organize the Unorganized.djvu/22



The shop nuclei of the Workers (Communist) Party are an organizational form of great importance in the organization of the unorganized workers. These nuclei, distributed widely through the industries and built upon the basis of the respective factories, will prove invaluable contact points for the starting of broad movements for the launching of strikes and the establishment of trade unions. Their factory papers will arouse and educate the workers, giving voice to their demands, organizing the resistance to the company unions, and generally preparing the ground for trade unionism.

The shop committee movement will also be used very profitably in the organization of the workers in the "closed" industries. Among the unorganized workers this movement consists in the formation of committees, more or less informal, representing the workers, department department and factory by factory. It carries on a struggle for the demands of the workers and for their recruitment into trade unions. In France the shop committee movement among the unorganized workers manifests itself pretty much as an "open" movement. In the United States, however, it will be very largely a semi-"secret" movement in its earlier stages. The-value of the shop committee movement among the unorganized has been demonstrated in the textile industry. In the struggle to organize the unorganized it will play an increasingly important part.

Under certain circumstances, all these various forms of proletarian organization, such as workers' clubs, fraternal organizations, shop nuclei, shop committees, etc., can be joined together in united front movements, thus uniting all the threads of "underground" organization and facilitating the creation of open trade unions. Even the representatives of company unions should be admitted to such united front committees unless there are special reasons for excluding them.

All these proletarian organizations will play a big part in the organization of the workers in the "closed" industries. They will also. serve to a certain extent in other indutriesindustries [sic] where the em-