Source: Daily Worker, August 19, 1929
Transcription/Markup: Paul Saba
Copyleft: Internet
Archive (marxists.org) 2018. Permission is granted to copy and/or distribute this document under the terms of the Creative Commons License.
One of the policies of American imperialism to subjugate the masses and to annihilate the Communist Parties and the revolutionary trade unions, is the influence and power which it is using to revise the labor laws in the Latin-American countries. For this purpose, the national bourgeoisies and the puppet governments are being used to do the work in a dictatorial manner with all suppressing means at their disposal. The revision is being made in accordance with the degree of militancy of the organized workers and peasants and the economic and political conditions existing in the respective countries. Fundamentally, the labor laws adopted by the reactionary governments do not differ. The aim is to create fascist trade unions under the complete control of the governments and to eliminate the Communists who are the driving forces behind these unions. In Latin-America, we have three forms of governments: (1) Countries headed by ruthless dictators, suppressing with an open fascist method, all organizations of workers: Cuba, Chile, Peru, etc.; (2) countries where the dictatorship is at full swing under the cloak of democracy: Colombia, Brazil, Argentina, etc.; (3) others which are in rapid process of fascistization such as Mexico. No matter what the form of the dictatorships, all these reactionary governments are enacting new labor laws for the purpose above mentioned.
Compared to the other Latin-American countries, Chile is one of the most industrialized. Previous to the dictatorship set up by American imperialists, Chile had militant revolutionary trade unions and while the Communist Party was small, it exercised an ideological control over them. The Communists of Chile occupied a leading position in the trade unions and they led the most fierceful strikes against the Guggenheim interests in the naphtha and copper mines. In the revolutions of 1922-23, the struggles against the reactionary landowners were led by the Communists. They occupied important posts in the army. But President Ibanez, representative of the rising bourgeoisie, aided by American imperialism, came to power by installing a reign of terror which is in existence since. Hundreds of Communists were pitilessly assassinated, others were deported to the Pacific Islands and left there to rot. All workers’ organizations were outlawed. The workers in the trade unions have since organized themselves illegally. The fascist government of Ibanez is now determined to completely annihilate every vestige of workers’ organizations. The enactment of the labor laws is not sanctioned by the parliament but it came to life in the form of a decree issued by the president. What is the substance of these laws? The creation of government trade unions; it is compulsory for the workers to belong to them; the workers are liable to arrest if they are found idle; in order to be able to find a job they must have a working card; the card can only be obtained in the offices of the government trade unions. The government thus thinks it can check the revolutionary activities of the workers. Furthermore, the wage slaves – so the imperialists think – can and must accept the conditions imposed upon them. In the Guggenheim controlled mines, rationalization is being fastly introduced. The workers of Chile toil under the worst conditions. Even the government was alarmed by the statistical report of 1928 showing a percentage of 33 of tubercular workers toiling in the American owned mines.
Are these law’s effective in so far as they aim at the suppression of the trade unions? No. The workers of Chile, with six years of illegal experience, have solidified their ranks. Outside of their illegal activities in the trade unions and in the Communist Party, they succeeded in establishing a strong fraction within the government fascist trade unions.
Here, the enactment of the “bill of heroic laws” (called thus because the bourgeoisie claims it will safeguard the state), is duly ratified by the “democratic” parliament. These laws prohibit any “illegitimate” strike; to attack the legitimate right of private property; only those strikes are legitimate which meet with the approval of the government. The bill also stipulates that propaganda against the fatherland or to merely to be disrespectful to the Roman catholic religion is against the security of the state. The penalty for violation of these laws is only 10 to 20 years.
In spite of the bill, the cristero (Christian) government of Colombia was unable to prevent the strike of 30,000 banana plantation workers of December, 1928. The United Fruit Company, an American imperialist concern, ordered the puppet government of Colombia to resort to arms in order to drown in blood this genuine revolutionary struggle of the banana workers. The plantation workers defied the laws, resisted violence and in spite of the fact that their best leaders were either assassinated or put to jail for 20 years, they are again on strike. This time the movement spread further into the oil fields and the railroads. In the name of democracy, the government military authorities killed over 1000 workers. These are the official figures. In an authentic report given by the strike committee, the horrors perpetrated in the Magdalena region during the strike make one tremble. A paragraph in this report reads as follows:
There is no end to the infamies and massacres committed against our comrades. Women were buried alive on the nefarious night of December 6 (1928) without taking into consideration that these women strikers were mothers of large families. Wounded men were carried to the holes to be buried alive, the officials being deaf to their voices begging to be killed before they were to be covered with clay.
When the labor laws don’t work American imperialism and its lackeys use the methods above mentioned.