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Last November Philip Murray mounted the rostrum at the Philadelphia CIO Convention and bombastically denounced the Little Steel formula. A month later he proclaimed at the Special Steel Workers Conference that the union was demanding wage increases of 17 cents an hour in addition to a number of other important demands. Four months have since elapsed, but nothing of any consequence has happened. Now we learn that the farcical hearings before the WLB is what Murray had in mind when he spoke of waging a fight against the Little Steel formula.
The WLB public members made clear to Murray that they had no power to grant any wage increases beyond the Little Steel formula; they were merely an administrative agency for the purpose of maintaining the wage freeze. But Murray, that “doughty warrior of labor” was not to be denied. He blustered, he threatened, he insisted that they hear the steel workers’ demands for wage increases. Finally, under this furious onslaught the WLB public members “capitulated.” They capitulated so utterly, so unconditionally, that not only did they set up one panel to permit Murray to bury all of labor’s foes under an avalanche of statistics; they also set up another panel to allow that other “embattled fighter of labor,” Matthew Woll, Vice President of AFL, to lay down his barrage of statistics. Is there any question, after this irresistible offensive on the statistical front, that the steel barons, the auto kings, the war lords are quaking in their boots with fear and consternation? Small wonder that the New York Times, organ of the big money bags, now sarcastically inquires of the WLB why it is not also holding hearings on “selective service or gasoline rationing.”
ROOSEVELT’S STRATEGY AGAINST THE WORKERS
The strategy of Roosevelt is so obvious, even a five-year-old child could see through it. Roosevelt simply intends to stall the steel workers and the other unions for a few months until the long-expected invasion of Europe begins. He is proceeding. on the basis that the rise in chauvinism attendant upon the invasion will isolate and weaken the labor movement. Who will dare in the face of the slaughter to insist that the steel workers be paid a living wage? All such demands, Roosevelt hopes, will be trampled underfoot in the confusion, the noise and the hysteria of onrushing war developments. Murray sees the enemies of labor sharpening their long knives against the steel workers—but unperturbed, he continues with his fifth-rate act before the WLB, spouting statistics, declaiming like a Shakespearean ham actor, stalling and wasting time. All this dovetails 100 percent with Roosevelt’s own anti-labor plans.
As a matter of fact, Roosevelt is so contemptuous of his labor lackeys, he is so certain of their abject loyalty, regardless of what he does, that he has his “four horsemen,” Davis, Vinson, Marvin Jones and Bowles, rudely interrupt the statistical gabfest right in the middle with an announcement that the Little Steel formula is OK; that everybody is satisfied with it; that far from requiring wage increases, everybody’s “pocketbooks are bulging with money,” and that the wage freeze must be continued.
How is it that Murray and the other top trade union leaders have permitted and continue to permit themselves to be maneuvered into such a hopeless position? How is it that the proud movement which represents 13 million American workers can be thus pushed around, insulted and humiliated by this crew of government bureaucrats and flunkeys?
HOW LABOR ARRIVED IN A BLIND ALLEY
The labor movement has not been maneuvered into a dead end street through Roosevelt’s supreme generalship. Quite the contrary. During the coal strike Roosevelt performed like a second-rater. Roosevelt’s ability to push this powerful labor movement around derives from the fact that the class struggle is taking place under conditions where the labor leadership has gone over lock, stock and barrel to the opponent trenches and is conspiring with the capitalist foe against its own side. Roosevelt can always count on his Murrays and Greens to carry out his anti-labor assignments.
During the great coal strikes, when the WLB was tottering, and the whole Rooseveltian labor structure hung by a hair, the Murrays and Greens did not throw the powerful support of the AFL and CIO behind the miners, but stabbed them in the back. After the miners won their fight—single-handed—in the fourth coal strike, Murray and Green did not jump in to take advantage of the miners’ victory and to smash the wage freeze once and for all. No, they allowed precious months to pass, giving the WLB the opportunity to reestablish its authority, enabling Roosevelt to strengthen again his policy of the wage freeze.
Then came the rail crisis, culminating in the winning of wage increases by a million rail workers. Again the Little Steel formula was breached, again a great opportunity presented itself for labor to join forces and smash the Little Steel formula. But although Murray had already presented his steel wage demands at the time and was on record against the Little Steel formula, he kept silent, permitting Roosevelt to isolate the rail workers from the rest of organized labor and choose his own time and place when he would attempt to beat down the steel workers.
THE IMPENDING LABOR CRISIS
Today another major labor crisis impends. The steel workers are angry. They know they are being stalled; that they are being given a run-around. When they come to the full realization that they are not going to receive any wage increase, the ensuing discontent will be profound indeed. The oncoming labor crisis will be far more deep-going and widespread than either of the previous crises precipitated by the coal and rail struggles. The discontent of the steel workers once it flames into action will sweep like a prairie fire to the auto and rubber workers.
Will Roosevelt, with the aid of his labor watchdogs—the Murrays and Greens—succeed in heading off for a time a new labor crisis? Will he put over his scheme to use the coming military invasion of Europe and the casualty lists that are sure to follow against labor? That is, of course, his intention; but the answer does not lie entirely in his hands or even in the hands of the Murrays and Greens. The workers will also have their say.
THE POLICY FOR THE MILITANTS
In any case, the growing ranks of militant, class-conscious workers have clear duty to organize on broader and stronger lines the movement to smash the Little Steel formula. They must not permit the top labor bureaucracy to smother labor independence by isolating and pouncing on individual groups of militants; they must not permit labor’s militancy to spend itself in isolated, sporadic little departmental strikes. If this were permitted it would only play into the hands of the treacherous bureaucrats and enable them to hound and expel the best union fighters, the most courageous militants.
The fight against the Little Steel formula must be organized on broad lines, in a spirit of the greatest mistrust of the Greens and Murrays and Thomases. It must be spread out from the departments into the local unions, from the locals through the Internationals. Once the militants of the auto, steel and rubber unions join hands in an organized fight for the calling of a conference of all organized labor in order to smash, the Little Steel formula; once they demand the revocation of the no-strike pledge, then labor will have finally found its way onto the open highway. The long, disgraceful labor retreat will have been finally halted and the forward march can begin again.
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