The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1928-11-15
Misleaders in
the American
Labor Unions
By WILLIAM z. FOSTER
(Contin1ted)

IN especially disastrous form Oh
Al working class betrayal is union
scabbery: that is, where the leaders
keep one or more unions in an in
dustry at work while others strike.
This degrading practice of union
scabbery, which is more prevalent in
the United States than in any other
country, has lost the workers hun
dreds of strikes and has spread in
calculable Decentralization in their
ranks. In numberless cases where,
for example, the machinists struck,
the union boilermakers stayed at
work, where the carpenters went out
the organized bricklayers remained
at the JOB, where the longshoremen
tried to tie up the docks the union
sailors manned the ships loaded by
scabs, where the printers struck the
pressmen stayed at work, and where
the railroad firemen declared
strike the engineers stuck at work
and helped the employers break it,
and vice versa, in practically all the
industries. And, of course, there is
also endless scabbing between the
industries, the railroad workers haul
coal produced by scab miners, the
miners produce coal for scab rail-
roads, scab steel mills, etc, The
trade union leaders have done moth
ing to check this shameful system
of mutual betrayal by the unions.
On the contrary, their system of
leadership being based upon it, they
have chung to it and bitterly resisted
every effort of the rank and file to
force consolidation of the labor
organizations and to develop real
solidarity of labor.
Labor Spies.
And finally, to specify no more
forms, there is the utter and shame
full betrayal exemplified by the labor
detective, the under-cover man of
the employers. Mulhall exposed
many of these degraded creatures
who are often degenerate tradel'I
union officials. Sydney Howard and
Robert w. Dunn, in their book, "ThelI
Labor Spy" show how the whole
contemplate system works and paint
graphic pictures of many of these
sorry heroes. The corrupt practices
which flourish unchecked in the
unions contribute largely to produc-
ing these labor spies, who, well
placed and influential, infest the
trade unions in astonishing numbers.
When a trade union official takes
money from capitalist politician for
misleading the workers in election
times, or when he accepts bride !
from an employer for calling off a
strike, and great numbers have
done and are doing both, he is on a
toboggan of corruption which may
easily carry him to the very lowest
depths of treachery to the working
elias, even to actually spying.
In the ensuing pages we shall meet
with every sort of bribery and work
ing class betrayal. We shall see thel
innumerable ways in which the re-
dictionary leaders demoralize the
workers and the devious ways they
are recompensed therefore by the
employers. 1t is sad picture, and
one which will shock the honest and
devoted elements who make up the
overwhelming mass of the rank and
file and the lower officialdom of the
unions, but it must nevertheless be
painted. To know how corrupted the
upper trade union leaders are, is the
first requisite for the launching of
movement to cleanse our organiza-
tions.
In the Coal Mining Industry.
No body of workers have made a
more determined and loyal fight to
establish a real union than have the
coal miners. For decades they have
fought, and worked, and sacrificed.
And no body of workers have had to
contend with a more venal and
treacherous upper leadership. The
history of the Miners Union for the
past 80 years has been marked by
the most heroic struggles of the
rank and file and lower officialdom
and by blacklist treason on the part
of the general leadership. h
John Mitchell was perhaps the
most brilliant leader ever produced
by the miners. Energetic, resource
full, capable organizer, he came
forward like flash in the struggles
of the anthracite miners in the late
nineties. He quickly became presi-
dent of the U. M. w. A. But just
as quickly he degenerated into
tool of the employers. Debs says of
him: (Debs, His Life, Writings and
Sreeches.)
"There was a time when I adj
mired and applauded MitchelPs
leadership. 1 thought I saw the
coming of man. But alas! Little
by little, / have seen him sue
cumb to the Establishments Of the
pfhtocrats. He is today their beau
ideal of labor leader"
/To Re Ton, }s.,aoJ