The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1927-09-24
The Trained Rams of Betrayed Unionism

he was more adept in the art of carrying water on
both shoulders Of course the miners handicap
ped in the struggle against the operators Their
trained rams had only object to get them back
to the mines quickly possible. Whatever
gains the miners made were in spite of their leaders.
The story of the Passaic strike is fresh in the
memory of every reader Of The DAILY WORKER
1t organized by Communists and in face of a
vicious campaign by the employers and the NUM-
cipal government reinforced by blasts from the pro-
paganda mills of the executive council of the A. F.
of L. and CHIEFLY by Matthew VOL, the political
poodle of the Civic Federation from his watch tower
in the Metropolitan Insurance Company's building
il Madison Square, the mill workers held out for
almost year and forced the bosses to make CON
cessions. When Thomas MaeMahon president of
the United Textile Workers stepped into the stua-
ton it was for the purpose of sending the textile
slaves back to the mills
Recently officials of the Amalgamated Associa-
ton of Street and Electric Employees made big
bluff about organizing the New York rapid transit
employees. After waging battle in the newspapers
for several weeks they quit cold when the workers
expecting strike action. The result of this
policy is to discourage the workers, to make them
lose faith In trades unionisn and to make it more
difficult for progressive and radical leaders who
mean business to induce them to organize for real
struggle for hetterment Of their conditions This
is just what the bosses and the takers want.
When, during the last election campaign there
widespread sentiment for third party around
the personality of Robert Mr. LaFollette the exc
cutive council of the A. F. of L. was forced to bow
to the wishes of the masses in the trade unions who
wanted to break away from the old capitalist par
ties. The trained followed the flock for awhile
but when the course of public sentiment changed
by clever Wall Street propaganda the rams trotted
to the head of the procession land helped to lead
the sheep back again to the republican and demo-
cratic political slaughter houses. Not that LaFoI-
letteism offered the workers and poor farmers
solution for their economic ills. Nevertheless third
party would embaTass big business. It is much
easier and less expensive to manage two parties than
three and they feared that out of third petty
bourgeois party would spring Labor Party.
The trained rams of trade unionism are always
on the job But for them the capitalists would not
sleep so peacefully Without them the exploited
workers would be in a better position to organize
the unorganized and extract Of the product of
their toll from the employers They would not be
so hampered in the effort to organize Labor Party
The workers of this country, and indeed of all
capitalist countries must fight the capitalists for
every concession granted them This is to be ex-
pected But they also have to fight the reactionary
leaders who are paid by them to represent them
The progressives in the American trade union move
ment must understand that the Greens, Wolls and
Lewises have nothing in common with the exploited,
poorly paid workers who pay them their salaries.
They have everything in common with the system
they pledged to defend; the system that enables
them to live in luxury on large salaries extracted
from the members of the trade unions and the
unknown emoluments they derive thru other and
more mysterious sources.
The trained rams of betrayed trade unionsm
must go down before left wing movement that
win clear the unions of betrayers and bring under
the banner of militant trade unionism the millions
Of unorganized workers in this country