The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1930-06-19
Building of Food Workers Union

Only in the small units in the food industry,
such as restaurants, cafeterias, and small bake
shops is there any organization. These organ
lied workers are under the control, largely, of
the fascist A. F. of L., and comprise mainly
bartenders, cooks, walters, etc. All in ALL with
The four thousand in the Amalgamated Food
Workers, an independent organization, con-
trolled by the social-fascists Lore and Burk-
hard, and the approximately three thousand
in the Food Workers Industrial Union, about
five per cent or less of the workers in the
Industry are organized. If our Party is to
organize powerful union in the food industry,
we face a tremendous task. Our orientation
must be towards the building Of national
Food and Packing House Workers Industrial
Union, ard it must be stressed that all pre-
parations icr the organization of the workers
il the BIZ ding of national union in the food
Industry t,at start Immediately.
At the rresart time we must realize and
Init IT, orientation has been wrong.
e IL e o--y based our struggles among those
2i,,tia . ;irg in the small units (cafete-
IS, res, T2nts, Eaheriesl involving usually
tnly fcS workers. At the present time the
st,tgge of tie revolutionary workers in the
food in u-,ly IS aciuply only taking place in
toe cry OF New York, on small scale even
Lee ii New York there are over a half
,i!i,.ii ICod wol nerS, and although there are
e i'..o;.H employing thousands of work.
we hara corrletey disregarded them and
.e conct niratc on the workers in the small
ed le.a.iyely irG..,niticant shops. 1t. is be-
G. We haze ~ cen. able to understand the
i, lHee 70; the OF yanization of an indus
t..dl uninn, a revolutionary industrial union
vhioh is t. oJilize the tens of thousands of
vo.:eis in the irdu ", around the revolu-
tonary plo"ram OF the Trade Union Unity
League
low ri culous to conceive that with the
Il tremendous task Of modifying and building
our revolutionary union in the present period
when the capitalist class is preparing more
than before for an attack upon the Soviet
Union and for between the capitalist
countries themselves; at time when hundreds
of thousands of workers in the food industry
have been thrown out of employment and are
starving; at time when the contradictions of
capitalism develop ever sharper and sharper
and the colonial peoples are in revolt against
Imperialism of all countries (China, India,
Haiti, etc.; when we must build revolu-
tionary union which will be able to mobilize
the workers in the food industry in support of
the struggling colonial masses against i'm
peralism. That at such a period have
failed to orientate up till the present time
towards the large factories of the unskilled
and semi-sllilled workers where the explota-
ton of these workers is most severe; that we
have failed up till the present time to create
national movement for the building of
national union, when the millions of workers
in the industry totally at the mercy of the
capitalist class; when in the packing houses
the workers, who have had good traditions of
the struggle have been totally neglected, at
time when they are under the most severe
attack of the capitalist class, we have been
spending lot of valuable energy in tinkering
around with small individual strikes in many
cases not even having the workers in these
shops ascent to these strikes.
What kind of revolutionary union can we
build in such a period when we totally neglect
to see the hundreds of thousands of workers
struggling under the oppression of the capital
list class, when we base our struggles on those
workers in the small bakeries, restaurants and
cafeterias? While these workers must not be
neglected and while most of these workers
have good traditions Of organization, and will