The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1925-08-05
The Negro Industrial
Worker.

1THE tremendous transformation
4 among the Negro masses resulting
from the world war and after war CON
ditions, with the heavy migration of
Negro agricultural laborers and ten
ant farmers into the cities and indus
trial districts, has placed the Negro
definitely in new position in rela-
ton to the American labor movement.
From being a sectional question, the
Negro problem became a national
question. From being a secondary
factor in industrial labor, the Negro
moves into the position Of a great
mass employed in basic industries,
and already in notable strikes in the
coal fields, etc, he has shown him
self eminently fitted for the front
ranks of militant organized labor. The
question of the full and unstinting adj
mission of the Negro to the trade
unions is placed more sharply than
ever before at the door of the trade
unions.
The constitutions of many of the
J trade unions exclude the Negro from
the unions. In the case of those unions
which have no such provision in their
constitution the Negro is nevertheless
Disseminated against.
The increasing pressure of the Ne
gro worker for admittance into the
trade unions is an instrument for
! nr0fOuOd ravoIutf0nar,v oLon. - -
labor movement. 1t is no accident
that the "Gompers" bureaucracy OBJ
poses the entry of the newly indus
trialized Negro proletarians into the
trade unions. AS an important and
growing part of the most exploited
section of the proletariat which does
not share in the miserable brides with
which imperialism poisons the upper
section of the working class. the
mass of the Negro industrial work
ers is effectively and potentioaIly a
part of the left wing of the labor
movement. In those unions into which
the Negroes are being admitted, for
instance the coal mining unions. the
teamsters, longshormeen, building la
Dorers, Janitors, ETC., the Negro plays
an important part in strengthening
the militant section of the working
class. The obstinate failure to organ
lie the general mass of unskilled mo
letarians, whose entry into the labor
movement would serve as a further
basis for proletarianizing the theology
OF the trade unions and revitalizing
the class struggle, is a part of the
general service which the trade union
bureaucracy contributes to its cap
ltalist masters. And the failure to
make a clean sweep of all obstacles
TO the Negroes entry into the unions
is an especially significant part of this
service to capitalist reaction. for race
prejudice of the white worker against
the black worker is today more than
ever a powerful weapon against the
solidarity of the working class.
1.-THE cause of the Negro in the labor
movement is essentially a left wing
hight, and one which must energetic
ally be championed by the Workers
tCommunist) Party. Our party must
make itself the foremost spokesman
for the real abolition of all discrimi.
nations against Negroes in trade
unions and for the organizations of
the as yet largely unorganized Negro
workers in the same unions with the
white workers on the basis of equality
OF membership, equality of right t.
employment in all branches of work
and equality in pay. Our party shall
lbring pressure on the unions thru
the activity of our Communist frac.
tons among the Negroes already in
the unions, getting them to fight mill.
family for the abolition of the color
line, and by the activity OF the whole
left wing forcing the abolition OF all
racial discrimination Our party must
work among the unorganized Negro
workers destroying whatever preju-
dice may exist against the trade
unions which is being cultivated by
the white capitalists, the Negro petty.
bourgeoisie and the opposition of the
reactionary bureaucracy as such. and
must arouse them to demand and
night for admission. Our aim must
be to show to the white workers that
only by complete solidarity of the
races can any progress be made by
either and to show to the Negro work.
ers that In spite of the anti-Negro
character of some unions that in those
unions where Negroes are admitted
the racial question has been liquidated
to the largest degree Our demand
is for the inclusion OF the Negro
workers in the existing unions, as
against racial separation, as against
dual unionism. Where Negroes are
not permitted to Join the existing
white" trade unions, Il is the duty Of