The CIO news. (Cumberland, Md.) 1942-????, 1943-09-06
Looking Ahead
By Len De Caux

by Len lie Oaux
TRADE UNIoNISM has suddenly found some
] unwonted champions provided it is pure and
simple"
Mighty daily papers are digging into their
morgues for tintypes of pure and simple"
unionists.
Forgetting they once lambasted such unonists
for allegedy pure and simple wage and hour de-
mands they now dwell with nostalgia JUNCTION on
the merits of unions that eschew all political action.
The august New York Times editorially
imagines that unions are economic not pOiti-
cal institutions" which must deal with pure
and simple economic issues in nOn-pOlitcal
vacuum.
Even Pegler may cease for moment to seethe
In his own bile and blossom out with essay Of
sweetness and light, if he chances to discover this
kind of unionism that even he prase-a kind
that never existed, does not exist today and could
not exist in the future.
X X
The myth OF "pure and simple" unionism has
been revived, of course, to make propaganda against
the political action campaign of the CLIO.
Actually there has never been union SO pure
OF all earthly faint that it hasn't felt the wallopng
of quite political anti-labor sheriffs and mayors
suffered the political impact of anti-labor injunc-
lions and laws that treated unionism criminal
conspiracy"
And what labor leader could be so simple as
to imagine his union could make progress, or even
exist without kind of political action to esab-
lish labors rights and to bolster its economic
demands?
4 X X
Sidney Hillman chairman of CLOS political ac-
ton committee recently undertook the monumental
task of educating the editorial writer's Of the New
York Times on labor history
He pointed out, in letter to that paper, that
workmen's compensation, abolition Of child labor.
sanitation and safety measures, social security,
recognition of collective bargaining rights and
minimum wage and maximum hour standards, are
all economic measures that only obtained
through labor political activity.
Particularly today, he noted wages and
hours Of work, the prices worker must pay
for food, clothing and housing, and the amount
of money he has left after taxes are all largely
determined by legislative and executive agen-
cies of government.
By failing to take political action therefore,
union fails to carry out its basic task of protecting
the economic interests of its members.
X X X
But those who view with alarm labors increas-
ing political activities, also fortifying second
line of defense.
If compelled to admit unonists have the
right to vote and can it to advantage they
retreat to the position that such labor political
activity may be all right II 1t is unorganized,
unfinanced and ineffective.
After all, Pegler would approve Of
union that had dues and members and
engaged in activity
That is why there is so much press disappoint-
ment that the Smth-Connsly Act has failed to
destroy all of labors rights to engage in political
activity.
And that Is why there is such lively interest in
the anti-labor press to how unions propose to
finance their political activities.
Labors enemies seeking desperately for some
device to bypass the Constitution of the United
States and to deprive American working people Of