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PAGE 4 THE TOILEB SATURDAY, OCT. 23rd, 1920 The Policies Of The Amalgamated Clothing Workers Albert Verblin. Among the bourgeois liberals and democrats for whom the A. If. of L. is somewhat reactionaiy, such a "radical" union as the Amalgamated Cloth ing Workers of America stands in great esteem. That is the only kind of a "progressive" union that appeals to these bourgeois radicals. And that is only natural because what these bourgeois radicals want above all is peace between capital and labor. The idea of the class-war is very distasteful and terrifying to their refined tastes and they would like to find some "peaceful solution" of the bitter economic and social war between the masters and slaves. And in the machinery of reconciliation in vented by the leaders of the Amalgamated or rather by Hart Schaffner and Marx, the liberal editors and readers of The Nation, The New Re public and such magazines find the cure-all for all social and economic ills of society. That is why they think so much of the Amalgamated. But the class-conscious worker, especially the one who works in the clothing industry knows bet ter. He knows that the whole machinery of recon ciliation is nothing wore than a sham because he knows that there can be no cuch thing as peace between worker and employer. The machinery of adjustment is far more in favor of the bosses than it is in favor of the workers. Otherwise the bosses would not praise it as much as they do. How "Conciliation" Works. During the war and a year or so after the armistice, there was such an enormous profit in clothing that the manufacturers were ready to grant a great deal in order to have continuous pro duction. The agreement which the Amalgamated offered the employers' was exactly what they wanted. It guaranteed production because it strict ly prohibited any stoppages on the part of the workers. The Iwsses aware of their interests ac cepted the agreement and sent their workers to join the union. In some cases the bosses had to drag the workers into the union. The whole agreement with the machinery of adjustment can bo characterized as follows: It gives the bosses an opportunity to choke the work ers in the slack season and it takes away from the workers the chance to get back at the bosses dur ing the busy season During the slack season the the employers can do almost anything with the workers while during the busy season they use the agreement to make the workers give them con tinuous production. One can hardly blame the bosses for playing such a clever game. That is to their interest and in that they show themselves far more class conscious than the "leaders" of the union. The bosses have a class-concious militant policy while the leaders have a typically petty-bourgeois, trader's and peddler's policy. "Leaders" Use Radical Phrase." One must also realize that the leaders of the Amalgamated are, without exception, "Socialists." They are continually throwing out phrases about the future society, but since they are satis fied with the present society (who would not be at a salary of $7,500 a year?) these phrases are meaningless and used to mislead those workers who have just begun to see the light. They have succeeded in building as strong a machine as any good old A. F. of L. Union and they are not averse to using a dictatorship of the union politicians in order to crush any opposition from the rank and file. Everything went along smoothly up to the present time. The workers made money and were to a large extent satisfied. There was a little murmur of protest here and there but it did not amount to much. Rut when the crisis came upon the cloth ing industry and thousands of workers were thrown out of employment and many thousands more worked only part time, discontent became rife and the "socialist leaders" who, like their friends of the Socialist Party, are nothing but petty-bourgeiis reformers and opportunists, be gan to seek for some means to quiet the discontent. The "Unemployment Fund" The first thing our "leaders" did was to come out with a scheme of an "unemployment fund" that would solve the problem of unemployment This unemployment fund is to be given by the bosses. Think of it! The bosses would take the money which the workers made for them by their hard labor and make an unemployment fund. It doesn't make much difference to the bosses