The daily worker. [volume], February 13, 1926, New York Edition, The New Magazine, Page 1, Image 7

About The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958

Image provided by: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Library, Urbana, IL

                
American Capitalism steps across the sea with the program of a world imperialist combine against the toilers of all countries.
The immediate answer of the American workers must be—WORLD TRADE UNION UNITY!
WORLD TRADE UNION UNITY
THE question of the unity of all organized labor of the world is
before the American trade union movement.
The American trade union movement faces a crisis of a sort
that has never been faced before. The labor movements of
every other country face this same crisis together with the
American labor movement. It is a crisis precipitated by a world
wide attempt to break down and destroy the trade unions, to
break down the standard of living of all workers in the world, in
the process of attempting to consolidate world capitalism.
The disgraceful sell-out of the anthracite miners by John
L. Lewis this week accentuates the crisis. The action of the
British miners’ union to prevent the mining of Welsh anthracite
coal for shipment to America, was the most significant incident
of the strike, except for the betrayal of the American miners by
their president, Lewis. We have only to refer to the coal strike
of 1922, when union-dug coal was brot from England and France
by union seamen and dumped in America by union railway men
to break the strike of the United Mine Workers of America to
show the simple, concrete need of a systematic and permanent
basis of international action.
The open shop drive in the United States is not a “local is
sue,” nor is it even solely an American issue. The concerted
drive to smash and destroy the labor movement is world wide.
The phenomenon of international scab herding and general
repression of the working class, is openly revealed in the league
of nations and its world court, in which the Wall Street oligarchy
of the United States has now openly taken the lead.
Ominous as is this attempted construction of a world capi
talist government, seeking to extend itself over the earth—even
to the crushing of the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics—this
attempt has one useful by-product:
No longer can any of the smug hypocrites of American cap
italism keep a straight face when they speak to American work
ers about the necessity of being “purely American.” Even the
Second Section: This Magazine Section Appears Every Saturday In The DAILY WORKER.
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 13. 1926
United States government is no longer a “purely American” af
fair.
There should not be any need for argument on the neces
sity of international unity of the organized trade unions of all
countries. But such arguments are nevertheless necessary.
Why did William Green insult the fraternal delegate of the
mighty British trade union movement at the last American Fed
eration of Labor convention? The loathsome conduct of Green
was explained by Green himself as a rebuke of Purcell for the
fact that the great British trade union movement be represented
demands a unity of all trade union movements of the world.
Why is Green opposed to the unity of the trade unions of
the world? Is his opposition based upon the interests of the
working class? Certainly not. Is his opposition based upon even
the narrowest particular, monetary interests of any group of
the skilled crafts which take the lead in the American Federation
of Labor? No, not even this, any more.
All pretenses that the movement for world trade union unity
is not to the benefit of American workers, is cowardly hypocrisy.
Even local situations where workers are disorganized qnd where
dual organizations show the chaos of disunity—even these local
situations will be helped by the moral effect of this movement for
the principle and practice of world unity.
The first step of the trade union movement of the entire
world for common resistance against the international capitalist
offensive, is unified action of all.
The British trade union congress at Scarborough four
months ago joined with the powerful trade union movement ot
the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics, in issuing the call to all.
The question now faces every union in the United States.
Every trade unionist in the United States owes the duty of work
ing night and day to bring the American unions into this move
ment and for world solidarity. R. M.
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