Page:William Zebulon Foster - Strike Strategy (1926).pdf/82

 and militantly led. These are the workers' only guarantee for the fulfillment of the employers' contracts.

Strike strategy must deal with the question of arbitration. Arbitration in strikes is almost always a weapon of the employers against the workers. Only in rare cases can the workers make effective use of it. Arbitration is a cornerstone in the general structure of class collaboration. It is based upon the anti-working class principles of class peace and a harmony of interest between exploited and exploiters. It kills the spirit of struggle among the workers. This is to the employers' advantage. It also saves the employers from making concessions which they would otherwise have to give up in open strike struggle.

Employers capture the "odd" or decisive man on arbitration boards with almost uncanny regularity. Conservative labor leaders are nonplussed by this, to them an inexplicable phenomenon. Time after time they place "friends" of labor on arbitration boards, only to have them turn tail and support the employers. The reason for this is simple. These “friends” are always members of either the middle or capitalist classes (for the employers will not accept workers) and they have class and personal interests more closely allied to those of the capitalists than to those of the workers. Hence, when the test comes they simply support the interests of their closest class affiliates, the employers.

This process goes on continuously, with the reactionary trade union leaders being constantly disillusioned by their "friends" on arbitration boards. Yet their hope springs eternal. A typical situation exists on the railroads, where the workers' leaders have accepted Edgar C. Clark as one of the two "odd" men (the other "odd" man is a capitalist)