The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1924-08-22

nOLn1nB from the state insurance Tor
a period Of three weeks.
/ The Idea behind this was to drive
the workers to really look for work"
The effect was to drive to the boards
Of guardians for Poor Law relief. The
unemployed seized hold of this griev-
ance to make great demonstrations
to the guardians. Now that the gap"
is abolished the unemployed receive
unemployed insurance pay all the
year round and the agitations at the
Boards Guardians are accordingly d.
minishing. SO between the action Of
the Labor Government and the policy
of the General Council the sting has
been taken out Of the unemployed agi-
tation and 1t has become quite consti-
tutional and peaceful.
The Trades Councils Movement.
A similar maneuver has been con-
Quoted in relation to the agitation for
the refrigeration of the Trade Coun-
ellis. Again on the initiative of the
Communist Party a movement was
set going to make of these local or
ganizations of the trades unions a
rallying center for activity and strug-
lyle. Trades Councils arose early in
the nineteenth century as local COM
: binations of unions in strikes and
lock outs. They unite the unions Of
all industries in the council. They
, paved the way to the Trades Union
Congress and at first were constitu-
, emit parts Of the Congress, but when
the national trades unions became a
force, they feared that these local
combinations operating in the Nation
al Congress might be instrumental in
? checking the power of the growing
bureaucracy in the unions and on the
motion Of John Burns, who pleaded
that many unions were being repre-
scented twice over in the Congress
thru the Trades Council, they were
disaffiliated.
The national unions thus scored a
,, big victory and for many years the
Trades Councils were either isolated
or turned into electoral machinery for
parliamentary aspirants. Two factors
helped to revive interest in them
again after the war. The growth of
: the Labor Party and the sectional de-
feats of the unions. The Labor Par.
ty is based on the unions and as it
l grew in power the leaders became ex
: ceedingly conscious of the fact that
: without a strong Individual member
5 ship subscribing to their program
1noAnrc IN vaaIfffcc
! was becoming precarious. The mum
4 Der of middle class people anxious tc
e join the Labor Party encouraged them
to launch the campaign for individual
| members as distinct from mass aft
( liation of the unions.
: This led to the neglect Of indus.
3 trial matters by the Trades Councils
/. during a period when the unions were
. suffering heavy defeats thru section
b. al action. The Communist Party
pointed at once to the fact that they
! had machinery to hand in the Trades
Councils for uniting the workers in
common struggle and made capital
. out of the fact that the Labor Party
had contributed to the weakening of
: the situation by concentrating the
Trades Councils on electioneering at
the expense of the industrial strug-
giles. The agitation spread until few
months ago a national conference of
Trades Councils was held in Birming-
ham led by Comrade Pollitt, an ex
ecutive member of the Communist
Party. This conference demanded re
aniliation to the Trades Union Con-
gress amongst a number of other de-
mands, both political and industrial.
Again Bramley on behalf of the Gen.
5 eral Council, countered the proposal
: by calling a conference Of the Trades
: Councils with a view to the better
t coordination of the work of the
!. Trades Union Congress and the
Trades Councils" This was much
cleverer move than that adopted by
3 his predecessors who had wanted to
stamp out any such activity from the
/ beginning.
The conference met and Bramley
3 presented them with a series of pro
! posals which ignored the principal de-
e mand of the Trades Councils and yet
: made a very plausible alternative. In
stead of direct affiliation to the con
gress, he argued that it would make
J the congress too cumbersome and II
would be better IL the National Com
! mittee of the Trades Councils set up
! at the conference were represented
on the General Council. In addition,
in order to destroy the impression
that the councils were Of no value to
the Trades Union Congress, they
should become the means of distribut-
ing the literature OF the congress, and
joining with the General Council in
trades union recruiting campaigns in
, the various localities. The Trades
Councils are discussing these propos-
ais at the present time and no doubt
will have made a decision by the
time OF the Trades Union Congress in
September Their weakness lies in
the fact that the trades unions con