The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1928-07-23
Long Live New Miners Union


hopeless wreck beyond resurrection-ths is the
history of the United Mine Workers Union
during the period in which John L. Lewis held
the reins of power.
The destruction of the union is the result
of policy so REASONABLE in character as hardly
to have been matched in the records of the
labor lieutenants of American capitalism.
The last blow of Lewis is death thrust
aimed at the whole organized section of the
American working class.
Events of the past show plainly that the de-
cision disclosed last Wednesday by the high
salaried bureaucracy to abandon the Jackson
vile scale and forever to give up all pretenses
of a national agreement was a last deliberate
act in cold-booded, reasonable conspiracy
with the union smashing operators. Even
fhese operators, in their own journal, "The Coal
Age" say So In the March issue we find the
following bold admission of that fact. Speak
ing of the views of certain of the best in
formed operators" it says:
In the event of the failure of the Sena-
toral investigation benefit the unions position
il is expected that the miners officials will permit
the next to from the rank and file of
the Illinois membership. ="
at is considered the only way out for the
union leaders. If the miners demand employment
conference of the policy committee of the Mine
Workers Union be called and informed that
the miners of Illinois wish reduction. Such
move would eliminate the stigma of the mo back
ward step of the union officials, it is declared"
While this language is sufficiently adroit to
fool the public" to make them believe that
the rank and file and not the officials want
nevertheless unnistakable.
Yet deeds speak louder than words. 1t is
not necessary to recite the whole history of the
Lewis betrayal. The prof is conclusive in his
strike-breaking during the last fifteen months.
On April /, last year, the operators follow
ing closely the policy of American capitalism,
got ready to administer the death blow to the
United Mine Workers. The strike began. The
art that their flunkeys, the Lewis machine
dad to play took form simultaneously. On the
18th of March, the eve of the strike, the policy
committee authorized the officers of the vari-
rous districts to enter into negotiations for sep
n rate district agreements. To a union func-
Wyoming in an industry of such national scope
as the coal industry the separate agreement
policy means inevitable destruction. 1t was
direct striking breaking act.
The operators had picked Pennsylvania and
Ohio as the first battling ground There they
had their coal and iron police, their grip on
the local and state governmental apparatus
was firm He'll again broke loose in Pennsyl-
vans. while Lewis performed his dastardly SELL
..aet and left the union to be crushed section by
section. But this also gave new life to the great
militant movement finally to do away with the
traitors
The abandonment of the Jacksonville scale
will not create more employment for the coal
miners, 1t holds nothing in store but con-
tlnuous reduction of wages, a slashing of
wages to the very bone, a continuous growth
ss'of misery and privation. While separate agree
9nents may be signed in the name of the now
decrepit United Mine Workers of America
they will at best be company union agreements
|including all the ugly features of the speed-up
system of exploitation and the abandonment of
4 all rights of the miners
n Yet the militant traditions of the past still
live among the coal miners. While the Lewis
bureaucracy tries to cover up it's crimes the
rank and file leadership, represented by the
n National Miners Convention Arrangements
H-ommttee makes the truth ring throughout
k1he fields. The rank and file leaders show that
Lewis and his henchmen have completed their