December 18, 1944

THE B.C.

LUMBER WORK

ER

Page Three

The ‘No Strike’ Pledge; Murray

The main considerations in respect ‘

to the CIO’s No

Strike Pledge are

ably clarified in the resolution and
President Murray's speech taken

from convention

Wee (1) The working

men and women of this na-
tion desire above anything else
to exert all their effort and en-
ergy toward achieving maximum
production of war materials. The
CIO, at the outset of this war,
gave its no-strike pledge which
it has religiously maintained;

(2) We recognize that a strike
“or stoppage of work, frequently
provoked by management or
caused by the weaknesses and de-
lay of government agencies, must
necessarily interfere with this
effort for all-out production and
to that extent actually assists
our enemies and endangers the
life of those men and women on
the battlefronts fighting the Axis
armies;

(3) Labor does not regard its
no-strike pledge as a bargaining
matter with our nation. To the
contrary, we recognize that the
enemies of our war effort would
constantly seek to provoke la-
bor into engaging in strikes and
that there are employers who,
for their own personal profit,
would endeavor to take advan-
tage of our war situation and at-
tempt to exploit labor regardless
of the impact of their polivies
upon the war effort. This has
involved sacrifices by labor to
assure continuous and maximum
production of war materials for
our armed forces; now, therefore,
be it

RESOLVED, (1) That the CIO
hereby reaffirms its solemn
pledge that until we have accom-
plished a complete and absolute
destruction of the German and
Japanese military forces there
can be no question of our basic
responsibility to the nation to
continue intact our no-strike
pledge.

Each member and leader of
organized labor must make it his
responsibility to discharge with
scrupulous care this sacred ob-
ligation.

(2) We must: recognize that
for the duration of the war all
issues in dispute between labor
and management must be adjust-
ed through the peaceful means
of collective bargaining, media-
tion, or through disposition by
the National War Labor Board.

(3) Further, we must recog-
nize that to assure the prosecu-
tion of the war program and to
prevent special groups from ex-
ploiting labor or benefiting from
the sacrifices of otners, organ-

. ized labor has the task of mo-
bilizing the people on the legis-
lative and political fronts behind
a program designed to meet the
basic -economie problems arising
out of the war and to protect the
interest of the common people.

COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN
PRESSMAN: I move adoption of
the resolution.

PRESIDENT MURRAY: With
your indulgence I should like to
talk briefly to you about this
resolution.

In the past few months there
has been some confusion in a few
other organizations concerning |
lubor’s no-strike commitment to
the President of the United

5

proceedings

States, to the people of our
country and to our armed forces.
I have had an opportunity within
recent months to attend several
of our important conventions,
that is, conventions of certain In-
ternational organizations affili-
ated with the Congress of Indus-
trial Organizations, and whilst
attending and participating in
those meetings I was privileged
to hear extended discussion upon
the floor of the convention about
CIO’s no-strike commitment. I
took advantage of the opportun-
ity whilst addressing delegates
attending those conventions to
state to the delegates that it was
the firm resolve of ail the organ-
ized workers of the United States
to maintain its no-strike commit-
ment and that it would be the
purpose of the Congress of In-
dustrial Organizations to con-
tinue the maintenance of that no-
strike pledge until our enemies
were completely whipped.

Our people cannot regard
lightly a pledge of this descrip-
tion. It is a sacred pledge made
to the people that it shall be our
purpose to help our boys in this
war.

°

You know, there rolls over my
desk in the City of Washington
hundreds, yes, thousands of let-
ters, ‘from boys in the services
overseas’ and from the fathers
and mothers of those boys living
here in the United States of Am-
erica. And each one of those let-
ters gives unstinted praise to the
spirit of self-sacrifice that per-
meates the ranks of labor here
in the United States of America.
It has been argued by some who
are opposed to the maintenance
of the no-strike commitment
that we are undermining labor
unionism in America, that we are
defeating the purposes for which
Jabor organizations were origi-
nally created. Arguments of that
description tend to create con-
fusion, misunderstanding and
that oft-times causes strife with-
in labor organizations, and in
the public mind the points of
view of certain of our members
are oft-times grossly misrepres-
ented, in the newspapers.

This is the time and this is
the convention when we should
make a very, very serious attempt
not only through the adoption of
a resolution of this kind, but as
responsible leaders of some
forty-one or forty-two interna-
tional unions affiliated with this
parent body, to see to it that each
one of our members and each
one of our labor organizations
meticulously respect the sacred
obligation which they have made
to our country and to our allies.

To those who would seek to
create in the public mind that
labor is losing ground in Ameri-
ca it is rather interesting to re-
veal that the Congress of Indus-
trial Organizations increased its
actual dues-paying membership
during the past twelve months,
|despite strike or no-strike com-
i | mitments, some 669,000.

We have negotiated several
hundred new collecttve bargain-

ing contracts and we have ma-

Sar

terially improved the conditions
of those who recently embraced
our International Union.

We administer efficiently our
collective bargaining agreements.
We require our employers to re-
spect the provisions of those con-
tracts, and where through sys-
tems of subtle maneuvering they
attempt to evade their responsi-
bilities as parties to our collec-
tive bargaining agreements, we
hail those employers before the
agencies created by the Federal
government for the purpose of
securing a correction of any dis-
crimination that might be prac-
ticed against us by those com-
panies in the course of this war.
There is too much at stake for
cur members to assume any haz-
ards in this fight. We can’t take
y chances. We must win the
war if we are going to maintain
trade unionism in America. Our
hope lies first in winning the
war.

We have come to regard this
war as a peoples’ war, a war
against Nazism and Fascism and
all that those hateful things pres-
ent.

Do you know why labor in the
United States is giving its all-

the war? Look back over the
dark pages of Nazi history and
the history of Fascism. Who were

PHILLIP MURRAY

Bot Mleenermear iret Ss
the first groups to be extermin-
ated? Whose destruction did they
first seek? The history of the
occupied countries in Europe is
replete with the destruction of
free trade unionists, All over
Europe Hitler and Mussolini and
their cohorts determined that if
| dictators were going to prevail
they must first seek the destruc-
tion of the trade union movement.
So they set out to destroy the
trade unions of Europe and with-
in a, comparatively short time
the strong, powerful labor move-
ments of Hurope were rendered
extinct. They were destroyed,
and their leaders were either put
in concentration camps or bru-
tally murdered. It was the high
purpose of the Hitlerites of Eu-
rope to first bring about the
destruction of trade unionism m
order that their particular brand
of philosophy may prevail
throughout the world,

This resolution will of course
be one of the more important re-
solutions to come before the con-
vention. I hope that when you
adopt this resolution, as I am
quite sure you will, that you will

accept it not as a mere expres-
‘sion of goodwill, but that you will

out support to the winning of |

make the resolution work when
you get back home to your res-
pective territories, that you will
talk to your membership about it,
again, and that you will advise
your membership to continue the
maintenance of its no-strike com-
mitment to the people of the
United States and to our allies.

The country needs your no-
strike commitment. Every single,
solitary one of the young men
and women in the armed services
need your no-strike commitment,
and the fathers and, mothers of
those young men who are now
serving you overseas are pray-
ing for the maintenance of your
no-strike commitment to protect
the lives of the children that God
gave to them.

And then the future. Posterity
needs your no-strike commit-
ment. The future generations
need the maintenance of that no-
strike commitment because the
maintenance of that no-strike
commitment means absolute sure
and inevitable victory, and vic-
tory means the democratic way
of life throughout the world.
We cannot simply gloss over
ituations of this kind, read a
| resolution and vote for it, and
then have someone violate it.
Might I before closing pay my
true respects to all of our or.
ganizations and to the over-
whelming majority of the mem-
bers of our organizations for

-|the splendid spirit of co-opera-

tion they have so loyally mani-

_|fested in the maintenance of this
: | no-strike

commitment. The re-
cord of American labor in the
United States in the course of
this war has been an almost mir-
aculous one. To maintain that
kind of a record, and, yes, to
improve upon it, if need be, is
what we all look forward to. The
miracles of production referred
to by General Sommervell in the
course of his talk to the con-
vention here today attests more
loyally than any works I might
give to you the remarkable
achievement of American labor
in the field of war production
since the beginning of the pres-
ent war.

I am looking forward to the
growth of this movement. There
are some pessimists in the ranks
of labor who might say, “Well,
when the war is over, and you
are going through your period
of trial and tribulation, and un-
employment . might visit you,
that these giant organizations
associated with the Congress of
Industrial Organizations will go
down,” I wish those pessimists
would have an opportunity to
look in upon this convention and
find out what the delegates at-
tending this convention think
about that. There isn’t any force
big enough anywhere in the Uni-
ted States of America to des-
troy—yes, to even weaken—the
influence or the power of the
Congress of Industrial Organiza-
tions.

@

We are going to grow. The
workers of the nation want this
union, and we are going td pro-
vide them the opportunity to
embrace this union, and before
this convention ends its sessions,
declarations for the conduct of
giant organizational campaigns
will again be made.

That is why we are here, and
that is why we are going to live.
We live because we provide
workers a good example; we are
not irresponsible, we maintain

our collective bargaining com-
mitments with our employers,
and we maintain our no-strike
commitments to the American
people in the course of the war.
We don’t make pledges today and
break them tomorrow.

Our organization was builded
upon a rock. That rock is a rock
of truth, a rock of honesty, a rock
of integrity. That rock upon which
this organization is being builded
has won for itself the respect and
admiration of all workers
throughout the United States of
America, and the right-thinking
citizens of our country as well.

Don’t be afraid to maintain a
commitment. When a pledge is
made, whether. you like it or dis
like it, maintain your pledge
and go through with it,

After all, the greatest gift
that man possesses is sincerity,
honesty and integrity. The man
who possesses those requisites
gets along in life. He may suf-
fer his days of adversity, but
by and large he gets along in
life, and what is true of a man
is true of a union just the same
— just the same, exactly the
same, there is absolutely no dif-
ference.

A union can no more disre-
gard its pledges than a man can
and maintain its own self respect,
and the respect of the community
and the nation; whilst violating
its pledge.

I speak to you candidly about
those things; I want the country
to know about those things.
Many people throughout the
United States have misrepre-
sented you, and they have told
lies about you whilst this war
has been on, but the reason you
have grown stronger despite the
spreading of this scandal is be-
cause you have been true to your
country and true to your union,
you have maintained your com-
mitments, you have respected your
obligations. And that kind of
integrity pushes liars back on
their heels and, as I said the
other day, right down on the
seat of their trousers. You can-
not beat that. I don’t give a
tinkers’ hoop who they are, if
they indulge themselves in ma-
licious representations about an
organizatiori or a group of lead-
ers within an organization who
are loyally and devotedly per
forming their duties and rend-
ering human service to their
country, these scandal mongers
will be pushed back, pushed back
and eventually pushed complete-
ly out of the picture.

My good friends, maintain
your no-strike commitment made
to the members of your own
crganization, made to your boys,
brothers and sisters, made to
your country, and made to all
of the peoples throughout the
world who are fighting and
struggling for a better life.

I thank you.

(The delegates arose and ap-
plauded,)

President Murray:
ready to vote?

(The question was called for.)

President Murray: Those fav-
oring the adoption of the report
of the Committee will arise to
their feet; those opposed to the
adoption of the report will rise
to their feet.

And the report of the Commit-
tee has been adopted by the
unanimous rising vote of the
delegates attending this Seventh
Constitutional Convention.

Are you