The Daily Worker Newspaper, April 3, 1926, Page 14

By Alex Reid. HE “Federated Mimers’ Union” of district five, has passed into the beyond, unwept, unsung. This so- called union like many dual unions in the past, that was organized to usher in a new wave of prosperity for the workers, and to displace the United Mine - Workers of America, which, according to its officers had outlived its usefulness, so the press reports, has now been totally liquidat- ed and its few members have return- ed to the United Mine Workers of America. Peace to its rotten ashes. Faker Elected President. HIS dual union was organized last December in the Fort Pitt Hotel, Pittsburgh, Pa. W. T. Harris, ex- president of the West Virginia State Federation of Labor ’was elected presi- dent, and J. L. Hoffman was elected secretary. The dual union was in Teality a company union, instigated and aided by the large coal companies around Pittsburgh, Pa., with a pro- gram of “back to the 1917 wage scale” to enable the coal owners to com- pete with the non-union coal, and to give the miners in the Pittsburg dis- trict more work, ~ Backward Program. fg is usual in like cases, the spon- sors of the dual movement had an elaborate set of principles, but in this instance many of them, to’say the ieast, Were very unprincipled, and only men who were the willing tools of the coal owners, and acting direct- ly for them, and who were the avowed enemies of the rank and file, at a time when the miners were unem- ployed and starving, could have brot forth such an outrageous program to be foistened onto the shoulders of the suffering coal diggers. The declaration of principles set forth by the sponsers of this dual movement were many. Unfortunately, and sad to relate many of the charges against Lewis and the burocracy were true. It is not exaggerating any to say that Lewis and district five offi- cialg were largely responsible for the birth of thus dual union, thru the total neglect of the miners’ “ affairs, and their bankrupt policies. Lewis, Fagan Treachery. IP\HE sponsors of this now dead dual union, played well on the emotions of the starving miners, taking advan- tage of their long unemployment, dis- gust with the Lewis and Fagan treachery, to fasten the company un- ion on their necks, but thanks to the progressive miners in District Five, it was a total failure. As usual the U. M. W. of A. officials did little to destroy the dual senti- ment in the district, but the progres- sive miners at every opportunity wrote and spoke against it, and to them, and them alone belongs the credit of holding the U. M. W. of A. intact. At the very inception of the dual union sentiment in the district, the progressive miners bitterly fought against it, in all their local unions and everywhere appropriate to the oc- casion with crowning victory—not to the officials of the U. M. W. of A, but as usual, to the Progressive Min ers in our union, Charges Lewis Is Traitor. HE charges put forth by the dual- ists against the officialswf the U M. W. of A. were legion. Among them was the following (1) “That the miners’ leaders have built a matchless political or- ganization for the ~fole purpose of perpetrating themselves in office and an organization to be bargained, ex- changed or sold at the whim of the miners’ leaders to the highest polit- ical bidders.” The dualists state the following to be a quotation of John L, Lewis to th newspapers (2) “That a wage scale is an instru- ment drafted by men seeking politi- cal office, who have no financial or other interest in the mining indus- try, but are fully content to make an empty, vague-and meaningless offer of high wages, beyond the reach of practical union coal producers, pay- ing union wages, to pay and’ com- pete in a competitive commercial coal market against non-union coal N |] producers paying a wage scale 33 1-3 per cent less, (3) “That Lewis in making the Jacksonville agreement, upon his own statement, bargained and sold the union miners to a political party for an empty promise, the results of which have served to destroy the U. M. W. of A., shackle the miners in the union, and pass to non-union coal producers the greatest era of prosperity and output of tonnage in the history of the non-union field.” (4) That Lewis and the bureaucracy violated the constitution by refusal to send out the election returns of the last national election. That fields for- merly controlled by the union no longer exist, the men having returned to the mines, non-union, as a protest against the national and district of- ficials. That northern West Virginia, once union, is lost forever to the U. M. W. of A. That.southern West Vir- ginia and Kentucky are producing tre- mendous tonnage under non-union con- ditions. That central Pennsylvania is non-union, and lost to the U. M, W. of A., while the miners in Ohio and Indiana are in a critical condition. (5) That the strike in the anthra- cite region, involving 158,000 men, was a well-laid scheme of the national of- ficials to extricate themselves from the political blundering into which Presi- dent Lewis entered to sell and bargain the mine workers of America to a po- litical party for a vague, empty, mean- ingless, worthless and unprofitable so called wage scale, | No Justification. NFORTUNATELY many of the charges against Lewis are true. Assuming that all the charges against the national and district officials were true, that does not justify the dualists attempting to break up the United Mine Workers of America. In most of the dual union move- ments of the past the workers have been generally militant members of the union attempting to better the wages and working conditions by a short cut, but this dual union in Penn- sylvania “was- entirely afferent. it had as its main proposal a reduction of wages, and loss of working condi- tions. Its slogan was “back to the 917 wage scale, to enable us to com- pete with non-union coal.” March Backward. « " made no difference to the dualists that the 1917 scale was one-third less than the 1924 scale, that even tho the non-union miners were working more days than the union men they were in debt to the coal owners at the end of the pay. It made no difference to these company union tools that the miners in the non-union fields were existing in a stage of peonage, that their constitutional and natural rights were held in abeyance, that the imme- diate remedy was organization of the unorganized. All they wanted was a ‘new union”—with the coal compa- nies’ tools at its head and a tortuous march backwards to 1917, bring- ng the hellish wages and conditions of West Virginia and Kentucky into he Pittsburgh district. Shames Officials. aes more dual union gone. One more attempt of the open-shoppers and the degenerate tools to break the tuorale of the miners has failed, and one more brilliant, victory for the pro- gressive miners of District 5, and one more cause for shame to the treacher- ous officials of the U, M. W. of A. Mislead Militants, OW much longer are the workers going to permit themselves to be mislead by this folly—dual unionism. The lessons to the workers’ from this curse has been many, yet the dualists, unfortunately, find ready response among some of our most militant but mislead members in the ae move- ~— this question ot. duayjsm for. a papers A years back, we find a Pennsylvania but also is Nova Scotia and Alberta we find the miners’ union dual unionism. west we find the U. M. W. of A. in sad state 6f affairs. Not only in has suffered terribly from this viper— | Thruout the- ndrth- complete chaos with about a half dozen dual unions fighting each other for supremacy, with the iyiristle Te- sult of complete confusion in the ranks of the coal diggers. About this I Wrote in The DAILY WORKER: Result of Defeat and Betrayal. Ed bere Alberta miners, betrayed by the Lewis machine, their wages reduced, working conditions worsened, spurned and repudiated by the bureau- cracy, turned for aid to a greater foe, the generation old idea of dual union- ism, which has been more responsible than any other one thing within the labor movement for its backward con- dition in this country today. “The miners, misled and betrayed, must face this question squarely and examine the dual movements of the past immediately before this poison. ous reptile does any more harm than it has already done, Well Meant, But an Error. 2 iw 1905 socialists, anarchists, social- ist laborites, industrialists and° pro- gressives, amidst a blare of trumpets, gave birth to the union that was to supplant the entire trade union struc- ‘ure and to realign the labor move- ment on a new revolutionary basis— the I, W. W. “This organization, supported by and composed of the most militant mem- bers of the working class at its birth, | « lived, prospered and gained in mem- bership for a time, but today has de- clined to about 16,000 members. Its strength and influence is practically gone and is a negligible factor as an organization of the masses of labor oday. “The rank and file had fought, suf- f>red and sacrificed too much to build up their old unions to turn them aside for the new, and the same is true of all the other dual unions formed. The Collapse of the W. F. of M. “TN 1905 the Western Federation of Miners joined with the I. W. W. and remained with them for two years and then withdrew. The most militant fighters bitterly opposed the ‘with- drawal, and stayed with the I. W. W. —such fighters as Haywood and St. John with.a score of others. =Betause the Western Federation of Miners refused to stay the the I. W. Progressive Miners Smash Dual Unions W. the dualists set out to destroy it, hoping to get its membership in this manner, and finally reduced it to such a state that when the capitalist forces made their ohslaught they completely wrecked the union. Not even the name of that splendid industrial union is left today, and nothing was left in its place of any power or number. “It is well, tho, that we state, had the officials of the Western Federation of Miners met the onslaught of the capitalists with a solid front instead of allowing piece-meal destruction of a district at a time, the organization mayy still have been to the fore. “Or had the militant fighters given to the miners’ union the loyalty and energy that they gave to their new union, the I, W. W., and stayed within the federation, the miners’ union would still be the pride of the Amer- ican labor movement that it was in days gone by. Canadian O., B. U. HE great movement in Canada in 1918, known as the Canadian One Pig Union, is another classical exam- ple of dual unionism. This organiza- tion steadily grew to 40,000 member- ship and today has declined to about 4,000, “The new union got nowhere, and the old ones were weakened and split by the loss of many thousands of their most militant members, Not only that, but the rising minority opposition that was crystallizing in the old unions was wrecked, and the control passed Transport Unions Ruined, ANY other dual union and seces- sion movements could be men- tioned. Such as the A, R. U., and the secession movement of the switch- men in 1920. During the last two years the longshoremen and seamen have had bitter experience with seces- sion movements, “Both. of ‘these organizations had lost big strikes, and both .of them wore in need of rebuilding and re- juvyenating by the militant progressive element, but just at this critical mo- ment when they were needed most to jour union by the combined effort of strengthen the unions they set about to tear them to pieces, More Unions—Less. Unionism. dual unions appeared, and whén they finished fighting the old unions and fighting each other nearly all traces of unionism were wiped out in many seaports. Similar attacks are now being directed against the weakened railroad shopmen's unions, “It is a notable fact that generally the dualists have been of the revolu- tionary or progressive type, who, dis- gusted with the program and tactics of the bureaucracy in the old unions, have unsuccessfully attempted, by lack of left wing organization, to turn the old unions into revolutionary weapons of the working clags. , “Despairing of doing so by working without, organization of a left wing, and looking for a short cut, they turned to dual unionism to accomplish that end. The result, however, altho unintentional, has been to- further weaken the existing unions and the progressive element therein, leaving the bureaucracy more firmly en- trenched. Must Fight Inside Unions. ROTHER miner, your struggle in the union is the same as the struggle of workers in all the labor unions thruout America today. It is part of the class struggle. The Lewis machine, like thg Berrys, B, and 0. Johnstons, Lees, Greens, Farringtons and the whole class-collaboration out- fit of the A. F. of L. can never be fought outside the old unions by form- ing new ones. “To withdraw from the old unions is but to weaken yourselves and to turn the old unions over exclusively to the fakers. Those amongst you who are advocating a split in the miners’ union are playing into the hands of the coal operators and the bureau- cracy. Good Intentions Not Enough. b pears the misguided fe ceed in splitting away the discontented element in the miners’ union, the ele- ment that has been in the vanguard of the struggle against the ‘bureau- cracy, the element that has fought for the miners in all the struggles of the coal diggers, the only real protection and leadership the coal diggers have, would but rob the membership of every vestige of protection and do the very opposite from what these mili- tants set out to do in the first place— protect the miners from the treachery of their leaders, “The miners will not give up the U. M. W. of A. They have fought and sacrificed for the union as few out- Side of it can understand. The plains and hillsides of this country are crimson with the blood of men who died that our union may live. Ludlow and Cabin Creek will never be erased from the memory of the coal diggers, and the contemptible leeches who now are in control of our union—the Lewises, Farringtons, and Cappelinis —will be fought and defeated within + {a on an awakened, outraged opposition; Organize Progressive Committees. ‘TF we could organize the members outside the union we can certainly organize within it more easily, It is our duty to organize within the union at this time for the Progressive Min- ers’ program, and part of that program must be the cleaning out of the class collaboration officials who are fighting the progressive demands of the coal diggers, © So, all together, slaves of the pick, organize with the Progressive Miners, for their program, organize for the next convention, elect progressives to fight for our program, for nationaliza- tion of the mines, shorter work and week, for organization of unorganized, for a labor party of the working class, : oe “Down with all secession ‘move | | ments! poe > Wee “Down with the splitting! ; & “Make the U. M. W. of A. the lead- ing fighting section of the en class in America! Our motto must be: : “Not the destruction, but the con quest of the trade unions.” 16 -Ff O25