Toledo union journal. [volume] (Toledo, Ohio) 1942-current, 1948-03-05

We of the CIO, and organized labor in gen.
eral, have important two-point program to
carry out during 1948. This program consists
of:
(D Economic demands for higher wages
and a security program to include medical,
surgical and hospital care and retirement
funds.
(2) A political program to elect liberal
and progressive people to public office who
are pledged to broadening and liberalizng
social legislation for the benefit of all the peo-
pie of this nation.
In the development of our union, we have
concentrated upon the economic side of the
picture at the expense of the political. We
have been very successful in organizing the
workers and securing higher wages, better
working conditions and other benefits for
them, but ineffective in recent years in getting
the right people elected to public office.
If we were only half as effective in the
voting booths of America as we are across the
bargaining table we would not have the
problems with which we are faced today We
would not have Taft or Hartley and their
kind in Congress, not Taft-Hartley Act II
we were as well organized politically as we
are economically
It has taken some hard bumps to make us
aware of the fact that our economic security
is tied in with our political welfare. The two
are inSeparable. We can gain on the economic
front, then lose overnight every gain we have
made if we do not concern ourselves with the
type of people whom we send to Washington
and our state legislature.
RESULTS
Lack of housing, knocking out of price
control, planned scarcity engineered by
monopoly controD, high prices inadequate
wages to meet the present day cost of living
are but few of the results which have grown
out of the indifference of the workers to theirV
political interests; interests which cannot pos
IL. into ncfc
The question which remains to be an
swered and we will answer it this fall one
way or the other, is this, "have the workers at
last learned the connection between what they
have in their pockets and what will be the
results depending on who they have represent
ing them in Congress?"
Your union can go out and get you wage
increases and improved working conditions
only because you are the union and can throw
your weight around when all the chips are
down. But politically, your union can't save
you or help you unless and until you elect the
people to office who are sympathetic to the
needs and requirements of the workers OF
Americal
1 haven't the slightest doubt about the
union being able to secure improved wages
for the workers, but say that your union 50
job is only half done until the rank and file
workers recognize the nter-relationship be-
tween wages, prices and repressve laws which
are effected by politics and go to the polls
each election day and vote with the same con-
victions they have when they negotiate with
corporate interest for their economic security
at contract time
There is one we'll known statement that
rings" in my ears and would like to be able
to shout to out so every worker can hear it and
remember it, and l hope all who read this
will imprint this on their minds-"YOUR
GREATEST GIFT IN A DEMOCRACY is
YOUR RIGHT TO VOTE-USE 1T! Use it
carefully and you have everything to gain.
Fight for your rights" in the voting booth as
you would protect them on the battlefield!