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Vol. 81/No. 24 June 19, 2017
(Books of the Month column)
Union, unemployed unity strengthened labor battles
Below is an excerpt from Teamster Power, one of Pathfinder’s Books of
the Month for June. It tells how Minneapolis Teamsters Local 574 used
the power won through three hard-fought strikes in 1934 to extend the
union throughout the Upper Midwest, back organizing efforts by the
unemployed and combat employer frame-ups. The book is the second in a
four-volume series by Farrell Dobbs, the central organizer of an
11-state campaign to unionize over-the-road truckers. Dobbs later served
as national secretary of the Socialist Workers Party, from 1953 to 1972.
The excerpt is from the chapter “Federal Workers Section.” Copyright ©
1973 by Pathfinder Press. Reprinted by permission.
BY FARRELL DOBBS
Many millions were jobless nationally. All were victims of the
capitalist economic system, forced into miserable circumstances under
depression conditions. As workers, they deserved trade union support in
a fight for social concessions from the capitalists to improve their
lot. Such aid would not only be a necessary act of class solidarity,
important though that was as a matter of principle. It was the best way
to prevent the bosses from duping the unemployed into taking the places
of trade unionists who went on strike. Therefore, we insisted, organized
labor should do everything to help the jobless. …
Once again, Local 574 was about to take a pioneer action designed to
increase the combat power of the working class.
Basic guidelines for the project were set down in the local’s by-laws.
The pertinent section read: “It is the duty of the unions to assist the
unemployed workers to organize and improve their living standards. To
fulfill this obligation the union shall maintain an auxiliary section of
unemployed workers to be known as the Federal Workers Section of Local
574. This section shall function under the direct supervision of the
union Executive Board and shall have the full assistance of the union.
Members of the Federal Workers Section shall not have voice or vote in
the regular meetings of the union.”
There were several reasons for the latter provision. Enrollment in the
Federal Workers Section (FWS) was not confined to Local 574 members who
had been laid off. Its ranks were open to all the city’s unemployed,
including jobless members of other unions. Thus it was bound to be a
heterogeneous formation and, hopefully, one of considerable size. Such a
body could not be formally incorporated into the union with voice and
vote. That would have distorted the local’s basic character as an
organization of workers employed in the trucking industry. The resulting
problems would have weakened the union base upon which the unemployed
movement was to be built. Hence the new body had to be structured as an
auxiliary section of the local.
Special union buttons and membership cards were issued to workers who
joined the FWS. They paid dues of twenty-five cents a month, which was
about all they could afford. Additional funds needed to carry on the
necessary activities were provided through subsidies from Local 574 and,
after a time, through donations from other unions. Regular meetings of
the section were held at which its members hammered out a program and
shaped a course of action to deal with their specific problems as
unemployed workers. …
By mid-1935 they had managed to revivify their struggle nationally to
the point where they were pressing vigorously for federal concessions.
So the great liberal in the White House decided to break it up by
repeating the 1934 cycle. A transition was set into motion from the ERA
to a new federal setup called the Works Progress Administration (WPA).
It was precisely at this point that the unusual effectiveness of a
union-sponsored unemployed organization was demonstrated. Members of the
Federal Workers Section were not left adrift without a rudder in the
changed situation, as were most of the unemployed. Their association
with a strong trade union became a stabilizing factor for them in their
moment of crisis. This meant concretely that they got effective aid in
moving swiftly to remobilize the unemployed generally for continuation
of their struggle.
As soon as the new WPA projects got started the FWS launched an
organization drive among the workers involved. Elections of job stewards
followed on all projects, leading to a union representation structure of
the kind Local 574 had established in the trucking industry. A fight was
then opened for the adjustment of grievances submitted by the workers,
and there were many.
Unemployed workers were being removed entirely from the city’s relief
rolls and put to work under the new WPA setup. In many cases there were
big time gaps between their last relief check and their first payday on
WPA. After a big hassle the city authorities were forced to cease their
practice of removing these workers so hastily from the relief rolls, and
compensation was secured for individuals who had thus been victimized.
A general grievance affecting all on WPA arose over the rate of pay. The
scale was $60.50 a month, truly a starvation level. In fact it was below
the budgetary level the city of Minneapolis had been forced to establish
for relief clients. As a result workers who were transferred from direct
relief, paid by the city, to the federal “work-relief” system got an
automatic cut in income.
The FWS set out to block this swindle by mobilizing the workers around a
demand aimed at the city fathers: either get the WPA to pay more, or
provide supplementary relief for those on WPA. Our campaign was
effective. Supplementary relief was granted by the city, raising the
total received by WPA workers back to the amount they would have gotten
if still on direct relief.
By this time the Federal Workers Section was establishing itself as the
major organization of the city’s unemployed.
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