The Communist
Source: The Communist, September 2, 1922.
Publisher: Communist Party of Great Britain
Transcription/Markup: Brian Reid
Proofreader: David Tate
Public Domain: Marxists Internet Archive (2007). You may freely copy, distribute, display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet Archive” as your source.
A CALL to the unions of London District has gone out from the R.I.L.U. for delegates to a special conference. This conference is for the purpose of discussing the important questions of (1) wage reductions; (2) lengthening of the working hours; (3) the reorganisation of the union movement locally, nationally and internationally; and (4) the sending of a delegate to the Second World Congress of the Red International of Labour Unions, to be hold in Moscow, October 25th, 1922.
Fred Thompson (of the Dockers Union) will be in the chair; Comrade Tom Mann will address the conference on the issues indicated and the following resolutions will be before the conference:—
1. WAGES. “This conference of delegates from the Trades Union organisations view with grave concern the continued attack upon the wage standards of the working class and urges the General Council of the Trades Union Congress to immediately organise a united resistance of all labour organisations and to demand that the existing rate of wages be regarded as the minimum standard rates below which there shall, be no further reductions.”
2. HOURS OF LABOUR. “This conference declares against all attempts to lengthen the hours of labour and urges the General Council of the Trades Union Congress to take more vigorous action to prevent such attempts from being successful and to resist the extension of the ‘spread over’ system which we are convinced is only a means both to the extension and intensification of the hours of labour.”
3. UNION ORGANISATION. (a) This conference considers that the best means of securing the united labour front in its local application to be the concentration of the unions, working class political parties, cooperative societies and unemployed organisations in the Trades and Labour Councils which should be re-organised into industrial political and co-operative departments to effect the greatest possible co-ordination and effective unity in action.
(b) This conference calls on the Central Council of the Trades Union Congress in conjunction with the Executive Committees of the Trades Unions to introduce immediately a plan for the complete amalgamation of the Trades Unions into Industrial Unions centralised in the General Council of the Trades Union Congress.
(c) This conference declares that the Amsterdam International is a stumbling block to unity of action and calls on the Unions of Great Britain to sever their connection with it through the Trades Union Congress and affiliate to the Red International of Labour Unions.
4. “This conference declares itself heartily in favour of the Red International of Labour Unions and agrees to send a delegate to the Second World Congress of the R.I.L.U. Such delegate to report back to a re-called conference for the purpose of acquainting the union movement of this country with a fuller knowledge of the international situation and the growth and activity of the R.I.L.U.”
Without mass interest there can be no mass organisation or action. Send your best men or women as delegates and give a rousing lead to the whole labour movement.
Remember September 16th, 1922. Send your delegates.
Delegates Fee of 2s. per delegate to cover cost of conference.
Do your part to save the unions and build the Red International of Labour Unions.