Labor unity.mo

_ By GEORGE MORRIS
The executive board of the United Automobile Work-
ers (UAW in the USA) recently voted unanimously to

| return to the AFL-CIO. Regional conventions of the

Union are scheduled to act on the board’s recommenda-
tion, and UAW president Douglas Fraser anticipates an
authorization vote for reaffiliation by May 1. He com-
mented, *‘the whole labor movement is in difficulty and I
think it is time to unify.”’

To say that labor ‘‘is in difficulty’’ is the understate-
Ment of the year. The urgency of unity can hardly be
underestimated — especially now. But unfortunately,
even with the UAW’s retum to the AFL-CIO, the U.S.
Unions will still be a long way from unity. :

Affiliation of two other of the three largest unions —
the Teamsters and National Education Association —
With almost four million members, or the basic United
Mine Workers and other unions with about a half million
Members, is not likely in the foreseeable future. Also,
with the AFL-CIO there are considerable differences
among some leaders of affiliates.

Everybody in labor says we need unity. The key
question is, unity for what? It is not for the pleasure of
just paying AFL-CIO per capita, now 19 cents monthly.
For the UAW this will amount to almost $3-million a
year. — ;

What has changed since 1968 when the UAW left the
AFL-CiO? Has the AFL-CIO changed? Has the UAW

_changed?-Some months before the UAW stopped due

payments, when all its members resigned from respon-
sibilities in AFL-CIO bodies, the union held a special
convention in April, 1967 in Detroit on its relations with

the AFL-CIO. The convention approved the executive

board’s characterization of the AFL-CIO:

“‘It suffers from a complacency and adherence to the
status quo and is not fulfilling the basic aims and pur-
poses which prompted the merger of the AFL and CIO.
The AFL-CIO lacks the social vision, the dynamic

thrust, the crusading spirit that should characterize the

progressive, modern labor movement which it can and
must be if it is to be equal to the new challenges and new
opportunities of our twentieth century technological
SOCIOL oo cee eee

The UAW’s board told the convention that the union
‘is obliged to speak out on fundamental issues and to

UAW to rejoin AFL-CIO —

UAW head Douglas Fraser... what's changed since 1968,
the UAW or the AFL-CIO?

express openly our union’s disagreements with the
AFL-CIO whenever, in our judgment, the failures or
inaction of the AFL-CIO require it.’ The UAW board
statement, given unanimous approval, quoted the
leadership’s letter to the membership in Feb., 1967:
“The UAW’s disagreements with the AFL-CIO are
basic and fundamental. They relate directly to demo-
cratic trade union principles and policies and the
development and implementation of sound union

9

programs.

The statement included a ten-point program for or-
ganizing the unorganized, to be financed with a fourth of
the federation’s budget plus a special per capita of seven
cents from the affiliates, to create an annual organizing
fund of almost $15-million. The ‘‘massive organizing
crusade” was to go on for six years with periodic check-
ups on its progress. A third of the fund was to go for
organizing agricultural workers.

~The UAW special convention authorized the leader-
ship to take ‘‘whatever further action it deems neces-

re than a nice slogan

sary’’ if the AFL-CIO showed no positive response to
the organizing plan. The program got only a cynical and
abusive reply-from the AFL-CIO. Some months later the
UAW left the federation.

What has been the record since 1968? The Depart-
ment of Labor’s biennial statistics showed in that year
22.9% of the total workforce in the U.S. was in unions
and 27.8% of the non-agricultural force was unionized.
The department’s latest figures (1978) showed a heavy
decline — 19.7% of the entire labor force, and 23.6% of
the non-agricultural labor force in unions.

As for the AFL-CIO itself, the federation’s own bien-
nial reports since then have shown practically no gain in
affiliated membership. No less serious is that the
stronger AFL-CIO affiliates in blue collar fields lost
heavily, with most gains occurring in government and
service employment.

The UAW’s 1967 convention statement on the AFL-
CIO could, without change, apply today, and with even
greater significance. What Fraser calls the *“difficulty”’
for labor is far more serious than it was in 1968. Is the
UAW leadership going into the AFL-CIO to simply bols-
ter the ‘guardians of the status quo,’ as the late Walter
Reuther described the federation leadership? Or is it
going in to fight for implementation of a program such as
the one submitted 14 years ago and ignored by Meany’s
group?

Labor unity is not an abstract, nice-sounding slogan.
Historically it has meant solidarity in struggle against the
exploiters of labor, racism and all forms of reaction. It
does not mean, as AFL-CIO president Lane Kirkland
and Exxon’s chairman formed recently, a body of top
labor and topmost corporation executives to solve the
‘‘difficulties.””

The question is very timely because it appears that the
UAW leaders have changed some since 1968. Fraser
now sits on Chrysler’s board. On the recommendation of
the leadership, Chrysler workers gave up about a billion
dollars from their three-year contract to ‘‘bail out’’ the
company.

So the question before the rank and file in seeking
unity with the AFL-CIO is unity for what?

George Morris is Labor and Agricultural Secretary of ©
the Communist Party of the USA.

CS

Following upon the attempted assas-
sination of President Reagan, the U.S.
and Canadian media, clutching for every ‘
Minute detail, built up a drama of sus-
pense calculated to bend the minds of
those old enough to comprehend what
had happened. Now that the initial as-
sault on the mind has run its course, the
Media has turned to think-pieces on why

The class roots of violence

es

Alfred Dewhurst

aL Marxism-Leninism Today

_ political violence in the United States is
rooted in the American revolution are
wrong. They fail to take into account the
basic cause of that revolution, which was
the absence of political freedom and
economic independence, imposed upon
those one-time British colonies by Brit-
ish troops.

In turn, the civil war in the United
States was not caused by the American

2. SS, SS

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so many assassinations-have taken place
in the United States.
* * *

Invariably, the think-pieces we have
read, or heard, come to the conclusion
that the cause of presidential or other
assassinations in the U.S. is to be found
in that country’s history of violence.
Such is not the case with some Canadian

thinkers. They probe a little deeper and -

come to the conclusion that violence is
rooted in revolution. This being the case,
the reason why there are so many assas-
sinations in the U.S. is because of the
American revolution.

A feature writer for The Globe and

~ Mail, David Lancashire, authored an ar-
- ticle ‘Why Canada is less: violent than

the U.S.’’. The article, published in the
April 1 issue, is based on interviews with
York political scientist David J. Bell and
historian Kenneth McNaught of the
University of Toronto. The author states
at the outset that these two prominent -
academics say that the reasons Canada is
less violent than the U.S. “‘are to be
found in the differing traditions, cultures
and constitutional systems’’ of the two

countries.
* *

Lancaster quotes historian McNaught
as saying: ‘‘Canada has never had a rev-
olution and we have always reacted very
sharply and immediately against any at-
tempts to use collective violence. We
have always put order ahead of licence
and liberty.” :

The author then quotes political sci-
entist Bell as saying: “‘ American society
was born in political violence with the
American Revolution ... they had the
assassination of Lincoln and the Civil
War. We have had none of these
things. ... Law and order is fundamental
to Canada.”’ Bell is quoted also as saying
‘‘ American cultural values are such that
people respect violence and expect it to
be used.””

In his opening lines, the author writes:
“Except for the violence of the 1970
Quebec crisis, political bloodshed has

been rare’’. Such a statement makes one-

wonder where author Lancashire
studied Canadian history, particularly its
labor history.

* *
What needs to be underlined is that the

violence being discussed is political vio-
lence, not violence associated with

crime. Violence on the part of employers
and police to smash picket lines is politi-
cal in character, as is the gunning down of
strikers, union organizers, working-class
political leaders, racist killings by the
forces of law and order, court injunc-
tions, prison sentences, firings for strike
activities, and so on, and so on. The list
of such acts of violence on the part of the
state and employers is almost endless.
At the top of sucha list is war waged by
an aggressor state against other nations
and peoples for territory, spheres of in-
fluence, markets and-natural resources.

’ Canada has taken part in three such

wars, beginning with the Boer War in
South Africa. It participated indirectly in
the Vietnam War, when at that time it did

a land office business selling arms to the"
“United States. No, Canada is not so

“pure” :
* * *

Violence begets violence. This is a

trite saying but absolutely true. But this _

does not mean such begetting goes on
forever. Because once the cause for re-
taliatory violence has been removed,

-such violence will Come to an end. That
is why those who say that the history of

revolution. The source of the civil war
was the drive of burgeoning American
capitalism to meet the needs (particularly
the urgent necessity of free laborers) and
expansionist aims of the industrial rev-
olution in that country, which was im-
peded by the reactionary slave-holding
landowners of the South.
a ok *

No. One cannot blame the American .
revolution nor the civil war for the polit-
ical violence in present-day America. All
the various periods of political violence
correspond with the formation of Ameri-
can capitalism and its expansionist aims,
from the time of simple capitalist produc-
tion to the present period of state-mono-
poly capitalism.

The roots of political violence are to be
found in the exploitive nature of
capitalism which rests on the exploita-
tion of the laborer by the capitalist, and
of man by man and nation by nation.
Capitalism is a system of political vio-
lence all down the line.

* * *

This is true of capitalism in Canada,
and wherever it continues to exist. :

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—APRIL 17, 1981—Page 5