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From The Militant, Vol. VI No. 55, 16 December 1933, p. 4.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’ Callaghan for the Encyclopaedia of Trotskyism On-Line (ETOL).
THE DOLLAR isn’t all that’s “baloney” under the NRA. Mr. Al Smith may have a broad wit but he has limited interests. Under his brown derby rests the cares of a member of the possessing class. They have the dollars. And they don’t want them transformed into risky sausages.
What do we have? We have unemployment, cold weather, low wages, speed-up – and so far only a lot of baloney promises: about re-employment, jobless relief, a living wage and a 30 hour week. NRA speaks for all these dire needs of the working people but what does it do about them?
Section 7a of the Recovery Act grants the legal right of both individual and collective bargaining, “individual bargaining” – that means, as so many of us have discovered – the right of the boss to hire and fire at will, to command you to work for a bowl of miserable slop or be thrown out into the street altogether. Collective bargaining – any worker who has successfully participated in the use of this weapon, will tell you – means organized union struggle; workers joining up in big bodies to put across their needs.
In his effort to wrest improvements from the boss, the laboring man has no strength other than the helping hand, the common mind and will of his fellow men. The boss has the banker, the police, the gunman and the dollar on his side. And the employing class has made ample use of the provision for individual bargaining in NRA, not to speak of the many ways they have found for getting around any of the still too few and weak attempts that have been made by workers at “collective bargaining”.
What the worker is beginning to feel more and more is the need for more and bigger “collectives”, for genuine broad collective effort – so that the “bargaining” won’t be all on the bosses’ side. It is interesting that the first organized expression for this need comes from the employees in an industry that was among the first to be blessed with a NIRA code – the textile industry.
THE UNITED TEXTILE WORKERS union, by decision of its executive council – the country’s press informed us on Tuesday last – has decided to call upon the American Federation of Labor to prepare for a General Strike to bring about the 30-hour week and other union demands. The General Strike – that is the most effective weapon for “collective bargaining” there is. The fact that the reactionary labor skate McMahon has appeared as the chief spokesman for the U.T.W. in this move, is doubly significant.
When a McMahon speaks for General Strike – that is a sign that the textile slaves under him are pushing hammer and tongs for it. When a McMahon begins to give lip service to labor action – then that means that the McMahonocracy is holding in store for the toiling masses bearing down upon the advocates of class peace, a betrayal far greater than any of those in the past.
Watching his fingers closely, the workers who have determined to stand up in struggle against capitalistic misery will use every measure to make McMahon and his ilk live up to their words. A sweeping country-wide collective strike is the best and surest way for labor to advance its interests at this stage. In preparation for it, practical and strategic problems loom up big: how to get together employed and unemployed, skilled workers and the unskilled, those already organized and those still unorganized. Men on the job will be discussing these problems in increasing numbers and with growing interest in the coming days. We will contribute our opinions in the general discussion.
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Last updated: 3 January 2016