The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1925-11-04
CONGRESS
URGES NEGROES
TO join union
Denounce Use of Race
as Strikebreakers
Continued from page II

Continued from page II
the organized labor movement if a
genuine and successful effort is to be
made to maintain and improve the
standards of the worker, black and
white. The world war; the migration
of the people from the farms to the
cities, the industrialization Of the
South, and the stoppage of European
immigration, have established the
Negro workers as an indispensable
and powerful labor force.
an order to improve the conditions
of the Negro workers and to insure
the standards Of the white workers
also, it is absolutely necessary that
the workers Of both races be organ
lied in the trade union movement.
Trade unions are the organizations
which are created by the workers to
prosecute their fight against the en-
ployers for higher wages, better con-
ditions and proper standard of liv-
ing.
Ouly ny Tic CncCllNC OIBduiNdIlOH
of the Negro and white workers in the
unions is it possible to avoid union
competition and recruiting between
these workers which will result in
their common degradation This was
clearly demonstrated by the great
steel strike Of 1919 which was de-
feated because the steel barons
could draw upon the vast army of I'M
organized Negro workers pitting them
against the whites to the great in
jury of both.
"This perilous situation demands
that white and black workers must be
united solidly in the union and demon
strates that trade unions which fail
to effect the unity of all workers, re-
gardless of race, sex, nationality, re-
ligion of color on the sole basis of
their common interests as workers,
fail in the most necessary task for the
protection and advancement of the
workers.
"The unions, therefore, should
neither exclude Negroes or wait UNI
til they are out on the picket line to
start the necessary work of uniting
them but should begin at once to con-
duct a thorogoing, efficient nation
wide drive to organize the colored
workers. They must forever break
with the vicious and suicidal policy
followed by many white unions in the
past and still persisted in by some
of the most highly skilled labor aris-
tocrats who bar the Negro workers
either by open clauses in their CON,
stitutions or by secret understandings
and must throw the doors of the union
wide open to the Negro workers well
coming them upon a basis of full
equality.
Remove All Bars.
THE American Negro Labor Con-
gress calls for the immediate removal
OF all bars and discrimination within
the unions and demands equality of
treatment in wages, opportunity for
employment and representation in
union administration and instructs its
members to fight theoretically to eff
feet this in all unions.
"This congress condemns all scabs,
Negroes who improperly recruit
strikebreakers, and whites who dis
ment. 1t resents the branding of Ne
groes as strikebreakers and points to
the fact that where Negroes have
been fairly treated they have made as
loyal and aggressive union men as
any other group of workers.
This congress further condemns
all efforts from whatever source to
segregate the Negro workers in sep
crate unions and demands that all
such discrimination be abolished i'm.
mediately.
Amy divisions in the trade unions
and all dual or secession movements
will be firmly opposed by this con-
gress, but it declares that the Negro
workers must organize their own
unions to protect themselves and To
hight their way into the unions as
equals.
The American Negro Labor Con- !
gress hereby instructs its officers and
members to unite with all progress
I've bodies in the American Fedora.
ton OF Labor to eradicate the yari.
Gus evils of race discrimination in the
unions and to achieve that unity of
black and white workers which alone
can insure their elevation and eman.
cipation is absolutely necessary"