The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1927-10-07
By WILLIAM F. DUNE.

By WILLIAM F. dunno.
THE section on organization in the
report of the A. f. of L. executive
council to the Los Angeles conven-
ton is featured by a guarded but
nevertheless obvious admission that
the craft and specialized occupational
structure of the American labor
movement is an insurmountable
handicap to the unionization of I'M
organized basic industries.
THE executive council avoids such
words as "basic" or decisive" in
referring to the great exploiting en-
terprises of American capitalism. 1t
prefers the terms "highly machin-
lied" or mass production" indus
tries. Here is slight flavor of the
Technology of the social worker and
smart young men from the colleges,
"the prawblem solvers," as Ralph
Chaplin calls them-who are begin
ming to find their way into the
sanctums of the reformed labor lead
ers and who substitute lacquered Gig
arette-trays for the old brown Gus
pidors. Even the virility of phrase
which was characteristic of Gompers,
has vanished.
AFTER citing the tremendous adj
"A vances in specialization and ma
chine processes, the executive council
says:
This production technique in
quantity and mass production indus
tries requires new kinds of skill AND
NEW GROUP BASES FOR OR
GANIZATION OF THE WORKERS
INTO UNIONS"
New group bases" smacks again
of the welfare worker phraseology
and is patent attempt to avoid
drawing the obvious conclusion from
the facts as outlined-THAT ANAL
GAMATION OF THE EXISTING
UNIONS INTO INDUSTRIAL
UNIONS IS ABSOLUTELY NE
CESSARY.
Industrial Unionism" is a slogan
that workers in these industries can
understand and will respond to Zone
union for each industry is the
slogan which the executive council
would raise if it was really concerned
about the millions of workers out
side the unions and not trying to
justify its failure to organise them.
PUT at last we have the official
- leadership of the A. F. of L. on
record, in carefully prepared docu-
ment of its own composition, that
faced with the centralized and spe-
cialised machine industry of America,
the structural form of the American
Federation of Labor unions-with
the exception of the United Mine
Workers and a few other less inn
portant unions-is bar to further
progress.
Upon what grounds now will labor
officialdom justify its war on the left
wing and its program for amalgama-
ton?
THE work of organization in mass
production industries is such that
there must be new basis of appeal,
says the executive council. "The in
dustry or the plant must be studied
in order to find basis which would
introduce ELEMENTS OF UNITY,
AND JOINT INTEREST"
Here again the executive council
makes the admission that the present
policy and form of the American
labor movement is practically use !
less in coping with the concrete task
of organization of the millions Of I'M
workers.
QUT the way in which the report
- treats the whole issue of the
of the unorganised puts
it on false basis. Reading the re-
port one receives the impression that
mass production" is a recent phe-
and that with the exception
Of automobiles, it applies only to sec
ondary industries such as radio
vacuum cleaners,
refrigeration cleo
5rical appliances" etc.
The whole emphasis of this sec
ton of the report is placed upon
these lighter industries, while steel,
food packing, oil production and re-
filming, etc, Of far greater import
ance, are not even mentioned.
AS if with the deliberate intention
Of diverting the attention of the
union membership from the fact that
these are old established industries