The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1930-06-06
PRE-CONVENTION DISCUSSION
Convention Problems of the Needle
Trades Workers Industrial Union

ticularly during the cloakmakers strike in
1926; namely, that we cannot fight the reac-
tionary machine and the bosses at the same
time; that first we must defeat the bosses
and then take up the struggle against the
Sgman-Ninfo machine. 1t was this incor-
rect understanding these wrong policies that
led us to permit Ninfo, who had openly be-
trayed the strike, to remain on the strike COM
mittee. This wrong policy was responsible
for the fact that, while seeing clearly the
treacherous activities of Halpern-that he
was drawing hundreds of thousands of dol
lars from the strike treasury to organize his
machine to fight against the union and to
sell out the strikers-we still permitted him
to remain on the out-of-town committee and
voted the appropriation for his traitorous
work.
As q militant trade union based on the
class struggle, our union should have been the
first 70 follow up the developments of the
industry, the relation of forces, and work out
policies accordingly. Instead of doing this
we merely drifted. In many instances we did
not even see the Developments in the indus
try; the fact that the needle industry, just
as the other industries, was becoming cen
tralized and controlled by finance capital, de-
spite the superficial appearance of decentral-
ization. We did not take note of the big
mergers that were being made in the indus
try, and even in instances where we did take
note of these developments we failed to adopt
any measures to explain the significance of
these Developments to the workers or to
adopt policies to meet the new situation;
hence we also failed to appreciate fully the
role played by the state in our struggles, and
were not fully prepared to combat the COM
bined attacks of the powerful enemies.
n7,,, fail ~, nOo+ IoI into
policy of helping to organize employers as
sociations and maneuvering with these asso-
Citations in the hope of getting them to split
with the company union and to recognize our
union.
Subsequent events proved the incorrectness
Of our policy aud demonstrated very clearly
that had we devoted ourselves to modelling
the mass of the workers for struggle and
laid less hope on maneuvers, our union would
have been in a much stronger position than it
is today.
Along with this policy came also the policy
Of compromise with the police, which brought
untold injury to our struggle. The carrying
over of these wrong practices from the old
corrupt unions has created illusions amongst
tie workers tina THE police can be utilized
in their struggles against the BOSSES 1t has
paralyzed the fighting energy of the workers
and has led them to rely on forces outside
Of themselves for winning their struggle
against the bosses.
The same was also true in our methods of
carrying on organization work. While theor-
ttically we recognized that the old methods
Of doing organization work through small
committees were wrong, and in some in
stances we made real effort to conduct our
organization work on mass scale, neverthe-
less ppreicfnpf in doyya1opipcr
these proper instruments of struggle. While
advocating the urgent necessity of mass or
ganization work. we continued to rely on the
small committees.
This resulted in developing amongst the
workers the psychology that the organization
of their shops not their task; that they
were merely to sit in the shop and wait for
some outside union committee to come and
bring them down to the office of the union
How often did we meet with a situation
where a large group of left wingers were
working in an open shop and when asked
why they did not organize their shop they
would answer that the union did not send
committee.
The present pre-convention discussion has
Id many a worker to recognize the truth of
this criticism leveed against us by the Trade
Inion Unity League, and as result of this
discussion the workers are gradually begin
mig to recognize that the union will never
be built by small group of workers, but
only through the active participation of the
mass of the workers in the organization
work. as well as the other activities of the
union.
Now as to the structure of our organization.
From its very inception, the left wing in
the needle trades recognized that the local.
craft form of organization has outliyed its
usefulness. Some of the earliest struggles of
the left wing were fought on the issue of re-
organizing the union on a shop delegate basis.
This issue was the cause of many expulsions.
Yet, when the left wing gained control, and
even after the organization of the Industrial
Union, the recognizing the necessity for the
shop delegate system, we hesitated to put it
into effect In 1925 our failure to establish
the shop delegate system and carry through
amalgamation was due to our wrong estima-
ton of the role of the Sigman machine and
our desire to maintain peace at any price,
even though it meant the sacrifice of one of
the basic points of the left wing program.
Our failure to properly analyze and cor
rect this grave error of 1926 led us to repeat
the same mistake during the organization OF
the Needle Trades Workers Industrial Union,
when we yielded to the pressure of the So
called middle group (Shelly, Horowitz, ETC.,
who in reality had already directly aligned
themselves with the Sigman machine), AMI
instead Of launching union from its very
inception on the shop delegate system, we de-
cided on transition period, which weakened
the strength of our organization and greatly
hampered the successful development of the
strikes, which came Immediately after the Or
ganization of the Industrial Union.
cts 4aI J,,l, II yT...1 Al.