The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1928-11-28
Misleaders in
the American
Labor Unions
By WILLIAM z. FOSTER

| was crowded into the general metal
trades federation which carried on
the big steel organization campaign.
But its leaders joined reluctantly.
Tighe and Davis voted against every
forward move in the entire move
ment. The other unions affiliated
together in the campaign were the
driving force. The A. A. leaders be-
trayed the movement at every step.
At least one-third of the organizing
committees time was devoted to
blocking their disruptive activities.
They wanted to get out of the fight,
to retreat from the great Steel Trust,
and to go back to their parasitic ex-
istence on the outer edges of the in
dustry in the small, weak mills.
When the big 1920 strike was
over, they split from the other
unions, thus breaking up the COM
mittee that was to carry on the re-
organization of the workers. These
leaders rest today with a moribund
organization of less than 10000 in
great industry of 100000 workers.
They make no efforts to organize the
masses of steel workers. More, they
have no desire to do so. For general
incompetence to face and lead the
great struggles necessary in their
industry, Tighe and his confreres ares
hardly to be equalled in the entire
labor movement. For the Steel Trust
they are invaluable aids. They are
strangling the steel workers union.
Well-Paid Jobs.
The A. A., occupying highly
strategic position in the labor move
ment, and one where good leader
ship is vitality necessary, has been
afflicted with an especially venal
set of leaders. With but few excep-
tions, the higher officials have used
their positions to pave the way for
their advance into well-paid beGt,ls
in the industrial or political service
of the enemy. In an article entitle.;
"Steels Lost Labor Leaders" John
Fitch says:
Zone significant thing about
the history of the Amalgamated
Association is that all of its presi-
dents have retired while still in
full possession of bodily and men
tai vigor. All but one retired vol
unfairly for the purpose of en-
gaging in some sort of work out
side of the labor movement"
All the presidents since 1879, save
one, Schaffer, have stepped from
their official positions to high-paid
outside jobs of one kind or another.
Among these were Miles Hum
phreys, John Jarrett, William
Weihe, M. M. Garland, P. J. Nc
Ardle and John Williams. Count
less smaller officials also went the
same route. These leaders advoca-
ted the high tariff, like the steel
magnates and republican politicians.
Most of their promotions were to
big political jobs under republican
administrations. Jarrett, before
becoming U. S. consul in Birming-
ham, England, under President Har-
rison, served as secretary for the
American Tin Plate Co. He died a
rich man. Williams, who quit the
presidency of the A. A. in 1918, be-
came secretary of steel manufac-
turers' association on the Pacific
coast. The present officialdom of
the A. A. is living up to the tradi-
ton of the organization and is quite
prepared for such favors as the
powers-that-be in Pennsylvania may
bestow upon it in return for SER
vices performed in preventing the
organization of the steel workers.
Such leaders as those of the A.
A., with their eyes on future rich
plums from the class enemies of the
workers, are not going to liquidate
their own hopes by mobilizing the
masses and leading them in militant
struggle against the employers. His
torically, the A. A. officialdom is
a bribed leadership, and today TIE
masses of disorganized and exploit
ed steel workers are harvesting the
dead sea fruit of it's poisonous re-
gime.
The other fragmentary metal
trades unions, the machinists, black
smiths, ETC., are unable, under pres
ent conditions, to defend the inter-
ests of the masses of workers in the
metal industries over which they
claim jurisdiction. Except for some
hold in the railroad shops, they
have been long since driven out of
the great trustified industries, such
as automobiles, agricultural imple-
ments, general machinery building,
etc. Of at least 100000 metal
workers, less than 100000 are or
gained. The unions vegetate
among the weak, competitive sec
tions of the metal industry. This
unfitness to cope with modern in
dustry is due to the failure to de-
velop a leadership and policies ad-
justed to present-day conditions.
The metal trades leadership is of
the same colorless, venal, unimag-
NATIVE type characteristic of the
trade unions generally. The officials
have their minds set, not upon build.
ing a great union in the teeth Of
the opposition, but primarily upon 1.
their own advancement. This they
refuse to jeopardize by unseen,N